More than 70 years of excellence in arc welding with KEMPPI

Over the past 74 years, the Finnish arc welding equipment manufacturer and developer Kemppi has grown from a small family company into a world leader in welding technology and a pioneer in its industry. In addition to the company’s 74th anniversary, 2023 also marks 104 years since the birth of its late founder, Martti Kemppi.

Martti Kemppi was a man of many skills and an entrepreneurial mindset. He learned the importance of initiative early on and started a business with his brothers. Veljekset Kemppi Oy (Kemppi Brothers) was founded in Lahti on May 23, 1949. In the beginning, Kemppi operated in a workshop in the backyard of the family home and produced many kinds of goods, such as milk carts, special earth scoops, sauna stoves and, naturally, welding transformers. Despite the shortage of raw materials in the postwar years, the company began to thrive.

Ingenuity and hard work are the key components of success.

Martti Kemppi believed that everything is possible. He encouraged experimenting without fear of failure, as he believed that was the only way to create something new. His core design principle of „stripping all extras from the machines as far as possible while retaining superior welding performance“ was born in the 1950s, when development of the first welding rectifier began. A similar focus on an uncomplicated user experience and functional design remains an integral part of Kemppi’s product development today.

In 1977, Kemppi revolutionized arc welding equipment by introducing the world’s first welding power source to use inverter technology. Since then, it has become the dominant power source technology in welding, as it enabled the production of lighter yet more efficient arc welding equipment. Inverter technology also improved the controllability of the equipment and made it possible for a single welding power source to be used for several different welding processes: MMA, MIG/MAG and TIG welding. This had never been possible with earlier welding equipment based on rotating transformers, magnetic amplifiers or thyristor rectifiers.

Leading arc welding in the digital era and beyond.

The arc welding industry experienced another turning point in 1993, when Kemppi took the first steps away from analog welding technology and developed a new, digital way of controlling arc characteristics. The result was the introduction of the world’s first digital welding power source. No one could have imagined that arc welding quality control could be performed so quickly, precisely and in real time. Even so, other major breakthroughs in welding control were still to come.

In the 2000s, Kemppi expanded its business from equipment manufacturing to providing complete solutions for its customers. The world’s first universal welding management software, Kemppi ARC System, was launched in 2014 and shifted the industry’s focus toward digital welding quality verification, identification of hidden weld defects and weld seam traceability. Even before that, Kemppi took an active role in highlighting the importance of digital welding management in building safe infrastructure around the world.

True innovation changes the way we see and do things. It can be a minor ergonomic improvement, a new way of tracking a project or an alternative approach to an existing production process. In all cases, innovation makes users’ lives easier in some way and brings them new value. This was also the guiding principle in designing Kemppi’s flagship MIG/MAG welding system, the X8 MIG Welder, which combines modern welding technology with software.

Launched in 2016, the X8 MIG Welder was Kemppi’s first welding system with a native connection to the cloud-based welding management software known today as WeldEye. The welding system’s integrated IoT-based technology enabled the introduction of digital welding procedure specifications (dWPS), making traditionally used printed WPS documents unnecessary. Welders can now use the system’s wireless user interface at the welding station to search for and view welding procedure specifications and activate them to automatically set up their equipment with the correct parameters. The new process, which improves both welding quality and productivity, has since been developed further to support digital work orders that contain all the details needed to carry out the welding work.

Local presence with a global view of welding

As a privately owned family company, Kemppi is today led by the third generation, the grandchildren of Martti Kemppi. Reaching the top over the past seven decades would not have been possible without skilled people, teamwork and open-minded customers. Curiosity is what drives people to experiment, and cross-border collaboration is what creates success.

„Our grandfather told us to hire people who are better than us, and we have managed to do that. We have over 800 top professionals in Finland as well as abroad. This is the source where we will find the talent and passion to amaze our customers in the future as well“, say Teresa Kemppi-Vasama and Antti Kemppi.

A global mindset has guided Kemppi from its early years. The company’s foreign trade began as early as the 1950s, shortly after it was founded. Deliveries were made to Turkey, Thailand, Vietnam, Tanzania, Peru and Chile, among others. Subsidiaries were opened across Europe, and by the end of the 1980s more than 80% of sales came from exports. While internationalization was accelerated by the family’s second generation, the third generation is building Kemppi into a truly global company. Local expertise is seen as a key business factor.

Seventy years ago, Kemppi started as a small family company. Today, Kemppi is a pioneer in the multinational industry, with subsidiaries in 17 countries and a partner network spanning more than 60 countries. 

„You must have the courage to experiment and push the boundaries.“

Martti Kemppi