This is a best prospect industry sector for this country. Includes a market overview and trade data.
Last Published: 7/22/2019

Overview

Sweden has a strong and successful manufacturing/industrial engineering sector that accounts for 20 percent of the country’s GDP or USD 110 billion, with advanced manufacturing bringing in approximately USD 40 billion. The sector accounts for 70 percent of Swedish exports and creates over 1 million jobs. The most important sub-sectors are found in traditional industries, such as steel, automotive, chemical, and forestry, and also in metal products, industrial machinery and equipment, and automation and food processing equipment.
In 2016, the Swedish government launched a strategy for smart industrialization with four key focus areas: digitalization, sustainable and resource-efficient production, creation of industrial talent, and innovation. The strategy stipulated 45 concrete measures for technology development, connectivity, automation, new business and production model creation, and increased competitiveness. Phase two of the strategy, a Roadmap for Smart Industrialization, was launched in late 2017. While the key focus areas remain the same, there are 37 new measures including automation and robotics programs for SMEs; national test labs for electric vehicle production; and zero emission programs and incentives for energy intensive industries.
Sufficient investment in both R&D and innovation will continue to enable a successful sector transformation. Currently the industries’ annual R&D investments are around USD 13 billion.
Sweden has strong ICT and industrial internet sectors, which combined with the high level of education and ability to cooperate effectively across industries, academia, and government, makes Sweden an attractive market for new technologies.
U.S. market share of the Swedish advanced manufacturing market is about 3 percent and the main competitors include other EU countries and Asia.

Leading Sub-Sectors

Additive Manufacturing: Swedish manufacturers were early adopters of 3D printing techniques.  Both component and tool manufacturers have been eager to test new manufacturing methods and materials alongside traditional tooling and Computer Numerical Controlled machining. To advance the full potential of additive manufacturing, Swedish industrial research group Swerea has established an Arena for Additive Manufacturing of Metals to develop and test technologies, materials, and knowledge.
Agile Manufacturing: Ever since Toyota’s “just-in-time” philosophy in the 1970’s, Swedish manufacturers have been developing and testing more efficient production methods.  Several innovation and research institutes offer various Lean Production programs and education, and especially SMEs are keen to turn their production facilities into factories of the future with quick response capabilities, flexibility, and augmented and virtual reality applications that reduce lead times.
Digital Manufacturing: To remain globally competitive, Swedish manufacturers are in the process of digitalizing their production, their services, and in many cases their products. Use of the industiral internet of things solutions, system integration, and digital thread, intelligent machining, CAD, and CAM modeling and advanced analytics varies from industry to industry. While IT and automation have always been an integral part of process of some industries, in many other industries, such as automotive andmachinery, the effect of digitalization will be more disruptive and require additional time and resources.

Opportunities

The Swedish Innovation Agency, Vinnova, invests over USD 400 million annually on fostering innovation by co-funding projects for companies, academia and organizations. When it comes to advanced manufacturing, the projects range from connected industry and new materials to 5G in manufacturing and machine learning to AI and industrial gamification. All the projects are funded as PPPs and in some cases additional funding from EU programs, such as Horizon2020 is also available.

The private sector opportunities follow the priorities of the Roadmap for Smart Industrialization and include:
Additive Manufacturing: advanced 3D printers and CAD and CAM programs; advanced printing materials; large scale production capabilities.
 Agile Manufacturing: factory-of-future models; augmented and virtual reality applications for lean production; QRM solutions.
 Digital Manufacturing: IIoT solutions; Big Data analytics models; PLM solutions; AI and advanced robotics; Six Sigma solutions; intelligent machining.

Web Resources

Government Offices of Sweden
Swedish Association of Additive Manufacturing
Swedish Engineering Companies
Swedish Innovation Agency Vinnova
Swedish Research Swerea

Trade Events
Automation Summit, Oct 9, 2019, Västerås, http://www.automationsummit.se
Conference on digitalization and industrial automation
Scanautomatic, Oct 6-8, 2020, Gothenburg, http://en.scanautomatic.se
Trade show on new industrial automation technologies, business models, and knowledge transfer
Local Commercial Specialist: Tuula Ahlstrom, tuula.ahlstrom@trade.gov

Prepared by our U.S. Embassies abroad. With its network of 108 offices across the United States and in more than 75 countries, the U.S. Commercial Service of the U.S. Department of Commerce utilizes its global presence and international marketing expertise to help U.S. companies sell their products and services worldwide. Locate the U.S. Commercial Service trade specialist in the U.S. nearest you by visiting http://export.gov/usoffices.