The Japan Times WORLD EYE REPORTS NORWAY
©THE JAPAN TIMES	Thursday, November 15, 2001

Building a rock solid foundation The definition of "foundation" is subjective at best. From a business sense, it may mean the business model upon which a company is formed. In a structural sense, it may mean the rock upon which a building is built. In the case of AF Gruppen, it is built on both. AF Gruppen is the second largest heavy construction company in Norway. Its core competencies are focused on heavy construction projects such as airports, dams, offshore oil operations and residential and commercial properties. The company's roots are firmly planted in the Norwegian construction business. Although this is a young company, established in 1985, its employees have brought a wealth of experience that goes far beyond their years. According to Per Aftreth, CEO of AF Gruppen, his employees bring valuable knowledge assets to the table from past work experiences which are crucial for projects undertaken by the company,

Per Aftreth sees great potential in partnerships between Japanese and Norwegian companies.

"The employees in our construction agency and our planning and design department have received their education and experience from being involved in the building of hydro electric operations," he explains. "Because of that, we can use technology and 'know how' they received from these experiences and apply them to our work in the hydro-energy, oil and gas area."

Partnerships and alliances are also vital to the company's success of AF Gruppen. One such situation was the use of Komatsu equipment for a project managed by the company.

"We bought a fleet of Komatsu equipment which we used for the building of a huge hydro-dam for Norsk Hydro," recalls Aftreth. "We had a very good relation with Komatsu and their reporting system was very impressive. They brought skills to the project which we have been trying to 'reuse' in our current projects."

Afreth believes that the synergies that came about during this project can and should be exploited for future ventures.

"I believe if we put a Japanese company and a Norwegian company together on a project, it makes for a good partnership," he says. "We are both very creative when it comes to improving upon technologies and processes. I think that if they can implement this, it would be a good link because we worked very well together in the Norsk Hydro project."

Frozen land, harsh winters and rouge-colored terrain. These describe the Norwegian landscape, but they can also refer to the challenges that AF Gruppen is successfully facing to provide Norwegian businesses and residents with the solid foundations they need.