Ponsse celebrates a journey of 30 years in France, opens a new service centre
On 19 September, Ponsse celebrates three decades in France by opening its largest service centre in the country – bringing modern services, a larger spare parts inventory, and simulator-based operator training closer to customers in central France.
New service centre in Peyrat-le-Château
“The Peyrat area is one of the most important forest regions in France. Ponsse has a significant fleet of forest machines in the area, and we’ve long needed to improve the quality and capacity of our service centre. We also wanted to provide our employees with better working facilities and a high-quality working environment,” says Ville Mansikkamäki, Vice President, Europe, Ponsse Plc.
“The new Peyrat service centre is the largest investment in Ponsse’s history in France, and we’re very proud of it. Thanks to the new centre, we can now offer our customers modern services and improved spare parts availability thanks to a larger inventory. Most importantly, we can now provide operator training by using simulators at our Peyrat depo.”
Closer to customers in central France
“The Peyrat service centre has 12 employees who are responsible for servicing Ponsse forest machine customers in this part of France. It’s very important for us to be close to our customers, and we can now offer even better services to customers in central France,” explains Jean Sionneau, Country Manager, France and Belgium.
Sionneau runs Ponsse’s French operations with 48 employees. Three service centres operate in France, providing services to more than 300 customers: the Ponsse centre in Peyrat-le-Château (central France), Ponsse Labouheyre (southwest), and Ponsse Gondreville (northeast).
Ponsse collaborates with 11 contractual service partners throughout the country and is also responsible for sales and aftersales in Belgium and Luxembourg.
Since May 2024, Dyna-Touraine has been a Ponsse dealer responsible for sales and aftersales in northern and western France
Used machine hub centralised in Peyrat
“Ponsse is centralising the storage and renovation of used machines in Peyrat. By having them primarily in one location, we can offer our customers an easy way to view and compare machines. Our organisation has also refined renovation processes to ensure every used machine is reliably checked for its next owner,” Mansikkamäki explains.
“The most popular Ponsse models in France are Ergo and Buffalo, and in the last five years, increasingly Scorpion. Many harvesting companies are small, with only one to three machines. We also have customers with larger fleets of more than ten Ponsse machines: cooperatives, forest industry pulp and sawmills, and some independent customers”, Sionneau says.
Ponsse has long experience of operating in France
The company sold only one Ponsse forest machine in France when it was established there in December 1995. Ponsse’s French pioneer was Bernard Arnaud, who runs a harvesting company in Haute-Vienne (département 87). He has been a customer of Ponsse ever since. Arnaud operates in the Peyrat-le-Château workshop area with fifteen Ponsse machines. The company also believes in the future of the logging business: in addition to Arnaud and his brother, his son Christophe is now a part-owner.
FRANCE IS A COUNTRY OF FORESTS, TOO
France is known for its agricultural products, but it is also a country of forests – and a big one. France is the largest EU country, and forest covers approximately 30% (11 million hectares) of its territory.
Forests are mainly privately owned (75%). Only 10% of forests are owned by the Office National des Forêts (ONF), which manages forests owned by the state and other public forest owners. The remaining 15% is owned by companies, foundations and municipalities.
Around 40 million cubic metres of wood are harvested every year in France.
Climate conditions vary greatly, from oceanic to continental, and the country therefore offers a wide variety of tree species. The most common are fir, spruce, maritime pine, Douglas fir, oak, poplar and beech.
In addition to the abundance of tree species, harvesting operations are challenged by the varying terrain, which includes steep slopes and wet areas.
The largest uniform forest areas are of maritime pine in the Massif des Landes de Gascogne, and in mountains and areas unsuitable for agriculture.
