Timesavers LLC: Eight Decades Of Innovation In Wide Belt Sanding And American Manufacturing
As Timesavers LLC enters its 80th year, the Maple Grove, MN–based, manufacturer stands as a leading wide belt sanding and deburring original equipment manufacturer headquartered in North America – an achievement rooted in continuous innovation, a commitment to customers, and a renewed investment in American manufacturing.
Timesavers was founded in 1946 by R.F. Pendergast in a joint effort with 3M to create the first continuous duty sanding platform, and has since become a global leader in wood, metal and composite processing.
Today, with a workforce of 90 employees in its 82,000- square-foot Minnesota facility, the company builds roughly 300 machines per year, while supporting 25,000 units operating worldwide.
Serving Wood and Beyond
Timesavers’ broad portfolio ranges from compact single head sanders for small shops, to massive 52-inch planer/sanders for industrial-scale 24/7 production. In the lumber industry, their equipment plays a critical role for barrel stave processors, cabinet and panel manufacturers, flooring producers, S4S board plants, casket manufacturers, furniture factories, molding operations and many more.
Mechanical Engineer, Daniel Sullivan designing components for a small metal processing machine using Solidworks design software.
One standout model is the Yieldsaver, a high-speed, two-sided, self-centering planer designed specifically for secondary wood manufacturing. According to company President Paul Ostlund, who has been with the company for three and a half years after spending 32 years in the hardwood industry, Timesavers has applications experience and technology that provides sanding solutions to most primary and secondary manufacturers within the hardwood, softwood and composite materials industries.
Beyond the lumber industry, Timesavers also serves the metal products industry with sanding, deburring, edge rounding and centerless grinding equipment built at their Minnesota factory and in partnership with their facility based at Goes, Holland in the Netherlands.
Customer Driven Philosophy
Vice President of Sales, Applications, Product Development and Marketing Ford Boone, said the company’s approach centers on efficiency and automation. “Our primary focus is building and supporting machines that deliver predictable, repeatable production efficiencies, using wide belt sanding technology to reduce manual labor within the wood and metal finishing industries.”
Paul Ostlund, president, Timesavers LLC.
That philosophy is reflected in the increasing level of intelligence in the machinery built by Timesavers. New additions to their technology lineup include barcode and QR code driven order scanning, which loads production “recipes” from work orders directly into the machine’s HMI for fast changeovers, as well as dry ice belt cleaning solutions for prolonging abrasive life, and auto-lubrication systems for reduced maintenance costs as examples of a few of the many advancements Timesavers has made from continuous customer feedback.
Timesavers divides its equipment into three categories: build-to-order, modified stock, and standard stock machines. According to Ostlund, significant customization often occurs in the large-format, multi-head, integrated top-and-bottom sanding solutions for unique applications at high production factories. “We also do a fair amount of stock machine customization based on customer requirements. With U.S. based engineering and equipment fabrication, we are able to adapt quickly to unique customer applications. With a wide variety of add-on features such as video monitoring solutions, Industry 4.0 connectivity and safety integration circuitry, we are able to adapt machines to unique customer applications in ways that our competitors cannot.
A 3-head, 33-series sander receiving final preparations before shipment to a large cabinet manufacturer.
Reshoring Manufacturing
In early 2024, Timesavers launched a major initiative to bring manufacturing operations back to its Minnesota headquarters – reversing a past dependency on strategic assembly vendors overseas. This shift was accelerated by the acquisition of Midwest Automation, a Minneapolis based machine builder whose capabilities were integrated into Timesavers’ operations.
“Our North Star Strategic Vision is to have 50 percent of the machines we sell manufactured in Maple Grove,” Ostlund said. “It started with capital investments to rebuild our machine shop, along with aligning our parts inventory to the needs of the customers and adapting our machine-building infrastructure to a Lean 6S methodology.”
Ford Boone, vice president of sales, applications,
product development and marketing at Timesavers.
With over 15,000 parts SKUs and roughly 300 parts shipped daily, the parts department is the backbone of the company’s “customer service to the max” model.
The Parts Distribution Center at Timesavers processes over 300 parts shipments per day to customers around the world from an inventory
of over 15,000 unique parts.
Boone added that customers played an important role in the reshoring push. “Pride in patriotism has motivated many U.S.-based manufacturers to seek American OEM’s,” he explained. “It’s a natural fit financially that has driven a resurgence of excitement for our production facility employees to design, build and test machines in Minnesota again.”
A Culture Built on Service
Timesavers’ customer support philosophy can be summed up by a sign hanging near the entrance of their Minnesota facility:
“No one else is coming. Excellence is up to us.”
This mindset is reinforced by the company’s “pillars program,” which empowers employees to own the customer experience by solving challenges quickly and effectively. Ostlund noted that his role includes building an ownership mindset culture, so employees are empowered to solve problems, eliminate internal roadblocks and take the actions necessary to make customers happy.
When buying a Timesavers machine, customers have the option to purchase a factory start up that prepares it for hand off to the customer using their strategically based North American service technicians to install, level and calibrate the machines, as well as train the operators and maintenance departments on safe use and care of the equipment.
One of many milling machines at Timesavers producing parts for future machine assembly.
Beyond the initial machine start up, Timesavers offers free lifetime call in tech support from its Maple Grove, MN, headquarters, where a team of dedicated technical experts solves roughly half of all customer issues over the phone.
For advanced diagnostic scenarios, the Timesavers TechVision remote support platform provides real-time audiovisual linkage between their technical specialists and the customer’s maintenance team via smartphone or tablet. This enables high-resolution remote visual inspection of machine subsystems, allowing accelerated fault identification, verification of mechanical/electrical conditions and efficient resolution of complex service issues without onsite intervention.
In 2025, the company introduced a significant service automation upgrade by assigning a unique QR code to every machine. When scanned by the customer, the QR code automatically generates a service request, eliminating the need for phone-based support initiation. Internally, the scan provides immediate access to the machine’s service history, technical manuals, electrical and mechanical schematics and reference photos, enabling rapid and highly informed troubleshooting by their support teams.
“It’s a great feature that reduces customer down time through high-speed communication and transfer of important data,” said Ostlund. “We are here to support the customer no matter who the original buyer or current owner of the machine is.”
Addressing the needs of customers
Bringing machine building back to the United States is one component of the plan Ostlund and his team have developed to provide an exceptional customer experience and maintain a position of strength within the equipment building industry. Expanding the service technician team by 50 percent to promptly address the on-site needs of customers, along with a significant push to ensure spare parts are in inventory and able to ship the same day has improved the reliability of post-sale support.
Every part produced at Maple Grove, MN-based, Timesavers is painted prior to machine assembly to ensure corrosion resistance.
The team at Timesavers recognizes that capital equipment is a long-term investment, and their belief is these investments come with an expectation of support that lasts for decades. “When you own Timesavers machinery, you can rely on a commitment from our team to keep you up and running day in and day out,” stated Senior Service Technician Robby Roberts, who has been with the company for 41 years.
Timesavers Regional Sales Managers Dan Bruchmann and Edman Warner noted, “In an age when so much emphasis is placed on closing a sale, Timesavers maintains a culture of
doing the right thing, supporting the customer beyond the sale date and showing up quickly to solve problems when they arise.”
Battle tested
While the lumber industry has seen its share of economic swings, Timesavers has weathered every challenge by evolving with the market. The company estimated that about 30 percent of its systems go to repeat customers – many of whom upgrade or expand their equipment as they grow.
Many of the companies’ customers are second, third and fourth generation owners of Timesavers equipment. Those relationships are built on reliability, and access to a team of employees that maintains its focus on serving customers.
Ostlund noted, “Having the opportunity to lead a team of incredibly dedicated, talented and hardworking professionals at Timesavers through its return to North American manufacturing has been the honor of a lifetime. I can see and feel every day how committed our people are to taking care of our customers and our teammates, and I am very proud to be a part of an organization with eight decades of unified perseverance.”
An assembly technician gives a Yieldsaver, 2-sided, self-centering planer its final quality check before shipment.
As Timesavers celebrates its 80th year, it continues to honor that legacy – being innovative in machine building automation, expanding U.S. manufacturing and according to Ostlund, “delivering the reliability and craftsmanship that have defined the company since 1946.”
For more details, visit timesaversinc.com.
