About us

PR Rolls Oy is a Finnish company that operates worldwide. Its founders have years of experience of on-site machining. Find out more about us and join our continued success story as our customer!

PR Rolls’ history can be traced back to the 1980s. The first company Göran Antila and Ingmar Westerlund, the founders of PR Rolls, established together focused on various types of machining in a versatile way, until they received an order from a paper mill for a demanding repair job on large production machines. They deemed it best to perform the job on site to save time and costs and avoid expensive downtime for the factory.

This was the beginning of the company’s long-term development of on-site services to meet the needs of customers in the paper industry, power plants and other large-scale industries. Our decades of know-how and product development have been carried out under several company names, culminating today in PR Rolls’ on-site services under the leadership of Göran Antila and Jani Westerlund.

Our practical experience combined with our vast interest in acquiring new skills and developing new methods and technologies have made PR Rolls a top global expert of on-site paper production services. 

We know how expensive downtime is for our customers. That is why we are constantly developing our work to make it more and more effective. The service we provide on-site is carefully planned down to the last minute, and we have never missed a deadline in 25 years. 

1980 Repairs on Valmet’s gearwheels on site – a large and successful machining project.

1981 The first grinding of a drying cylinder on site at the customer’s premises.

1985 Suomen Lasermittaus company is founded.

1987 Pikoteknik company is founded.

1992 Intech, a company specialising in the maintenance of spreader rolls, is founded.

1993 The first drying cylinders for customers are treated with Tecnoclean coating.

1996 Cooperation with Voith begins.

1999 Intech is sold.

2002 PR Rolls is founded as a company specialising in spreader roll activities in Tampere.

2003 Pikoteknik and Suomen Lasermittaus are sold to Voith.

2003 Diamondblade, a company offering coating solutions for coating blades, is founded.

2005 Diamondblade is sold to BTG in Switzerland.

2007 Jani Westerlund takes on the duties of chief operating officer at PR Rolls.

2007 Cooperation agreement relating to on-site machining at paper and board mills is signed with EV Grupp.

2008 The development of DD washers’ on-site maintenance and seals begins.

2009 PR Rolls leaves Jämsänkoski and moves back to Pyhäjoki.

2010 Cooperation agreement with Uddeholm on the manufacture of coating blades is signed.

2011 The first DD washer seals developed by our company are delivered to a customer.

2011 PR Rolls Indonesia is founded.

2013 TecnoClean Cera Hybrid coating solution is launched.

2014 Cooperation agreement on the maintenance of pulp mill equipment is signed with GLV USA.

2014 Cooperation agreement on roll coatings and on-site services is signed with South-Korean GSTP.

2017 PR Pulping is founded for the purpose of manufacturing pulpers.

2018 Contract for the on-site maintenance of DD washers at the Metsä Fibre pulp mill in Rauma.

2019 Cooperation agreement with Valmet: PR Rolls performs on-site maintenance at Valmet’s pulp mills.

2020 The grinding and coating of Duostabi rolls for Koehler Kehl GmbH.

2021 Investments in sales and marketing strengthen PR Rolls’ position in the South Korean market.

2023 PR Rolls wins its first contract in Kenya and the following year in Egypt.

2023 PR Rolls carried out the drilling of a paper machine’s drying cylinders at the Munksjö mill in Brazil.

2023 Repair and maintenance of a paper machine’s drying cylinders for Hansol Paper in South Korea.

2023 Maintenance of fibre line at the UPM paper mill in Lappeenranta.

2024 After signing a new agency agreement, PR Rolls starts seeking growth in the Middle East.

2024 PR Rolls carries out repairs and modifications to the dryer section of Sappi Group’s board mill in South Africa.

2024 PR Rolls invests in new grinding and coating equipment for MG and Yankee cylinders.

2024 PR Rolls performs the repair and coating of DD washer sealing faces at JK Paper’s mill in India.