Our story
Novatron officially opened for business on 13 February 1991, as a sole trader. Established by Jukka Tervahauta, the company began operating from humble premises of 15 m2 in central Tampere. It later became a limited company. Novatron’s first product was the TM-10, an inclinometer for grader blades, which entered the market in the company’s first year. Equipped with an analogue display, this simple gauge replaced spirit levels on the bodies of graders.
However, the markets for grader inclinometers were not exactly huge. The next product was a depth gauge for excavators, whose sensor technology was patented in the Nordic countries, Germany and the USA. The gauge was simple to manufacture and use, being based on analogue technology, which was considered highly conventional at the time. No software meant no software bugs. An upgraded version of the initial excavator gauge included two buttons instead of one. However, according to at least one customer, the additional button made the product less intuitive: “Too many buttons, I don’t know which one to press.” The world has changed dramatically since then.
Novatron began to use a GPS system for the positioning of construction machinery in the late 1990s. The first tests on a GPS system for excavators were performed in Norway in 1999. At that time, few people can have been aware of how important satellite positioning would become for the control of heavy machinery. A migration to PC technology and the Windows operating system occurred in the early 2000s. Since then, Novatron has invested heavily in the development of 3D measurement applications for construction machinery.
