Polus Group, Japanese housing business company was established in 1969 by Mr. Nakauchi. The company is building and renovating houses in the Tokyo area for sale but they also have pre-cut factories that deliver their products all over Japan.
The Pre-cut business started in 1982 and since then the business has been expanding. Year 2004 a new production unit – the biggest of a kind in Japan – was built in Ibaraki-prefecture and after that a new factory has been opened roughly every three years. There has been a big revolution in Japanese timber construction business and during the past years Polus-Tec has installed a lot of new machinery for their glulam assembly lines. Today the company has six pre-cut factories in Japan.
– One of them, for example, was built in Sendai 2013 after a big earthquake. It was built to produce suitable products to damaged area, explains Kimihiro Yazawa from Polus-tec.
Every month around 75 000 cubic meters of imported timber, glulam and plywood is used to produce pre-cut items for around 4 000 house per month. The company employs around 4 000 employees and it also has a subsidiary in Helsinki.
– Our Helsinki office was established in April 2019. I got a lot of help for that from Keitele, Mr. Yazawa recalls.
The co-operation with Keitele has lasted over 20 years. Mr. Yazawa tells that in normal market conditions Keitele supplies thousands of cubic meters of square glulam posts, beams, square beams and Hagarazai to Polus-tec monthly. Now the market has been slow in Japan for a while. The pre-cut customers are looking for more affordable materials, there has been currency issues and the Japanese forest ministry has recommended to favor domestic tree species. Even if the situation is tough right now, Mr. Yazawa is convinced that the trade and market will cheer up sooner or later.
– In case of Japanese building we have to use good products for the houses. We will keep using the European products and try to increase the consumption volumes of it in a future too.
