Interview - Clemens Pfeifer
"We put the money we earn straight back into the business”
Clemens Pfeifer, CTO of the Pfeifer Group, on AI and automation in the timber industry, the power of consistent reinvestment, and why pine and spruce prove more crisis-resistant than many other resources.
Mr Pfeifer, how much will AI applications, automation and robotics transform the timber industry?
Clemens Pfeifer: “One thing needs to be said first: the driving force behind AI — greater efficiency through technological innovation — has always been a core principle for a company like ours. That's why we're very open to AI applications. Our interest isn't in following a trend, but in the concrete value we can gain from it.”
Can the benefit of a technical innovation always be assessed so directly?
Clemens Pfeifer: “As the person responsible for technology, my job is to think in a sober, concrete way. The key question is always: what does it cost, and what does it deliver? Once we can answer that question, we make a decision very quickly — one way or the other.”
How much pressure are you currently under to keep pace with developments, respond quickly and take on risk?
Clemens Pfeifer: “The principle itself — using technology to improve productivity and cut costs — isn't new to us. Nor is weighing up the opportunities and risks that come with it. The quality scanner in the sawmill has been around for years; in a sense, that's an early form of AI, and we recognised its potential long ago. What's fundamentally changing is the speed and the sheer range of possibilities. We're already using much of this and are driving its integration forward with clear purpose.”
The quality scanner inspects every board to the millimetre. It stands for a path Pfeifer has been following for a long time: using technology to improve productivity and safeguard quality.
Could you give a concrete example?
Clemens Pfeifer: “In an ongoing pilot project, we're filming our production lines at several sites. Continuously analysing this image data lets us spot anomalies early and get ahead of potential faults before they happen. The results so far suggest this monitoring can significantly cut downtime. Faults mean lost production, higher costs and lost revenue. Minimising this factor gives us a further competitive edge.”
How do you make sure Pfeifer always stays close to these developments?
Clemens Pfeifer: “As I mentioned, we're constantly looking for innovative ways to boost productivity. Our innovation department has a clear mandate for this. The underlying premise is always the same: a new idea has to bring us economic benefits and cut costs. At Pfeifer, innovation isn't an option — it's about becoming better, in very concrete terms.”
Proactive rather than reactive: at several sites, cameras continuously analyse the production lines. This lets Pfeifer spot anomalies early and get ahead of potential faults before they lead to costly downtime.
Despite all the technology, people remain the decisive factor. How do you motivate your employees for developments that always bring change with them?
Clemens Pfeifer: “Pfeifer stands for a culture of looking ahead — we focus on the future. Our colleagues in production, in particular, bring exactly this mindset. They're completely open to innovation, because they're also the first to benefit when processes become smoother and simpler. The most effective motivation is a noticeable improvement in day-to-day work and success you can experience directly.”
How do you ensure this immediacy and the transparency that comes with it?
Clemens Pfeifer: “ We've fully digitalised our production data collection and can analyse the figures we collect across every conceivable category and time period. That means our production metrics are transparent and accessible at any time. Operational data capture is a key management tool and the basis for basis for operational decisions. What matters most is that production managers have this information immediately available — they're responsible for productivity on the ground and need to be able to act at once when required. We've been developing this monitoring for a long time. We're currently moving towards dashboards that present all relevant performance indicators visually and make them quicker to grasp. We use the SAP interface for this, but the development itself is done entirely in-house.”
Precise, powerful, tireless: the robot arm stacks sawn timber fully automatically. With every step towards automation, Pfeifer asks the same question – what does it cost, and what concrete value does it bring?
On the subject of SAP: rolling out a company-wide process and data platform is considered one of the most demanding tasks in digital transformation — often taking years, cutting deep into existing processes and carrying considerable risk. How do you, as CTO, assess this step?
Clemens Pfeifer: “Rolling out SAP, or comparable integrated business software, is always challenging — it was, admittedly, a bold step. But it has undoubtedly driven major progress. SAP brings discipline to an organisation and helps improve performance; that's inevitably uncomfortable. Today, we're glad we took this path in good time. Our organisation, too, is making increasing use of the system and gradually unlocking its wide-ranging potential. On 1 June 2026, our Finnish sites also went live with SAP. Without such a company-wide standard, an international group structure like ours simply couldn't be managed successfully.”
What do the geopolitical and economic upheavals of a multi-crisis mean for the demanding process of continuous technical innovation? Is the current global situation slowing you down?
Clemens Pfeifer: “Let me put it this way: a company will always face some kind of crisis at some point in its life cycle. What matters is an attitude that believes a company can actively overcome crisis. Pfeifer has been reinvesting its earnings back into the company for decades. This principle has allowed us to realise a considerable volume of innovation and investment during economically strong periods — in good time, before more difficult periods arrived. It has carried us through many crises, and it will carry us through this one too.”
For Clemens Pfeifer, consistent reinvestment is the principle that enables Pfeifer to weather every crisis.
This confidence isn't necessarily widespread in the current mood.
Clemens Pfeifer: “Of course, we feel the effects of current conflicts, such as the conflict involving Iran, very strongly. But our company stands on a strong foundation of values. We're agile and adaptable. Pfeifer is resilient, and we trust in our corporate culture to see us through this crisis too. And ultimately, as a timber company — especially against the backdrop of a closure of the Strait of Hormuz — we can point out that our pine and spruce continue to grow right on our doorstep and remain available at our production sites. This security of raw material supply, which our Nordic sites in particular represent, is becoming increasingly important. That, too, is something we can rely on.”