Fifty years is a long time to be in the pallet equipment business. It is long enough to see technologies come and go, to outlast competitors and to build enduring customer relationships. As Viking Engineering & Development crosses the threshold into its fifty-first year, the company is re-evaluating everything, forging new partnerships and renewing its focus on listening to customers to help them be more successful.
“As you know, last year we celebrated 50 years,” said TJ Rosengarth, Viking interim CEO and a long-time Viking board member. “From the beginning of 2026, we took a hard look in the mirror on where we were and what we want to be for the next 50 years.”
Rosengarth added, “We are the industry leader, and we need to act like it — be the innovator and provide solutions that help customers be more successful… There have been two main focuses since the first of the year: listening to the customer and truly being the innovator in presenting products and services that benefit them. Block pallets through the Delta partnership, the automatic stringer feeder, the pallet reject system; we’ve rolled out a multitude of things in a very short period to get Viking back to where it should be.”
This introspection has produced an ambitious agenda focused on new products, new partnerships, a rebuilt aftermarket support structure, realigned sales territories, and a new chief executive officer. For pallet producers across North America, what Viking is unveiling in 2026 is worth paying close attention to as the company seeks to maintain and improve its strong presence in the pallet manufacturing market.
A Change in Ethos: The Partnership Play
Perhaps the most significant shift in Viking’s strategy is its willingness to look beyond its own walls. For a company that built its reputation on purpose-engineered, Viking-built machinery, partnering with outside firms represents a genuine cultural evolution.
Ryan McCarthy, Viking’s director of engineering, put it plainly. “It’s kind of a change of ethos for how we bring products to our customers,” he said. “We’ve been looking at the market for a long time.” The question Viking began asking itself was not simply what it could build, but what its customers needed and how fast it could deliver it. The answer to that question led Viking to two distinct partnerships that together expanded its footprint considerably in the automation and product-type arenas.
Viking by Delta: Cracking the Block Pallet Market
For years, Viking’s core product lines have served the stringer pallet segment with proven reliability. But the block pallet market, long dominated by European machinery manufacturers, represented a gap that Viking’s customers had been pushing the company to fill.
“A lot of this came through from our customers,” said Jeff Stoddard, Viking’s director of sales. “They were asking for more automation. They were asking for something that could make block pallets and not have a huge footprint. So, we were listening to our customers as well as we were trying to decide how we wanted to go to market with this equipment.”
The solution was a partnership with Delta, a European block pallet machine manufacturer with a loyal customer base and a culture of continuous product development. The resulting offering, marketed as Viking by Delta, targets what Robert Gollin, who oversees aftermarket and service at Viking, describes as the sweet spot for the American market.
“There are many suppliers from Europe that make block machines,” Gollin noted. “But we wanted to provide a machine that really is the sweet spot for the American market, not 2,000- or 3,000-plus pallets a shift. It’s more in the medium to entry-level range: 800 to 1,000 pallets a shift. That’s what our customers want.”
McCarthy underscored that Viking’s selection process for the Delta partnership was rigorous. “We spent a bunch of time interviewing and reviewing potential partners. We wanted to find the correct one for Viking, one where we could provide the service arm and the support arm so that customers could still have a Viking product they know is reliable and durable.”
The appeal went beyond the product itself. McCarthy pointed to Delta’s track record with its existing customers and its willingness to keep innovating. “When you go around and talk to some of their customers, they’re just as loyal as some of our customers here in North America. And they’re not just releasing a product and keeping the same product for a long period of time; they’re trying to innovate and develop like we are. It gives us an opportunity to do some of that together.”
For Viking, this partnership is a new way of going to market: find the right partner, leverage Viking’s deep service infrastructure and North American market knowledge, and bring customers a better solution faster than building from scratch would allow. Delta’s equipment is designed for operations requiring higher load capacity pallets, export and ISPM-15 driven markets, automation-friendly pallet designs, reduced lumber variation challenges, and European-style and GMA hybrid production strategies. This equipment focuses on flexible, high-quality pallet assembly with competitive production costs — aligning closely with Viking’s core mission: delivering reliable automation that drives measurable ROI.
While this partnership focus is on block pallet automation, the collaboration also opens the door for future fastening innovations by leveraging the strengths and equipment of both companies. Delta’s portfolio introduces alternative fastening architectures including: beam nailing, cluster nailing and multi-nail simultaneous drive technology. These methods allow multiple nails to be driven at once, offering potential advantages in cycle speed and wear reduction in certain pallet applications.
Viking + Joutech: Taking Automation to the Next Level
The Delta partnership addresses what Viking makes. The collaboration with Joutech addresses how those machines are fed. Viking has integrated Joutech’s auto board loading technology into its lineup, delivering a meaningful automation upgrade for producers looking to reduce manual labor at the infeed stage and create more continuous, consistent production flows.
With its Joutech partnership, Viking is positioning itself as a full-system integrator, capable of addressing the entire pallet production line, from raw material processing and handling through finished pallet ejection.
Joutech’s product portfolio is broader than just feeders. The company also builds notching machines for stringers, equipment for CHEP pallets, fully automatic cross-cutting lines capable of processing more than 100 cubic meters of lumber per shift, and automated systems for pallet repair and recycling lines. Joutech’s expertise gives flexibility to design solutions using either gantry systems or robotic arms, depending on available floor space.
New Pallet Eject: Smarter Quality Control Without Stopping the Line
One of the most operationally compelling new developments from Viking’s own engineering team is the new pallet eject system. Designed and built in-house, it addresses a persistent production challenge: what happens when a pallet doesn’t meet spec?
“One of the big selling points for our pallet eject system is it’s going to be very familiar to people that already have a Viking machine,” commented McCarthy. “It utilizes a lot of the similar components our stacker uses right now. The system actually sits right in line with our current machines and doesn’t add a single foot of footprint.”
That last point matters enormously in production environments where floor space is at a premium. But the smarter feature is the automated rejection logic. “The nail-up sensors can ping that there was some sort of issue in terms of nailing and automatically eject the pallet,” McCarthy explained. “We’re also working through a scanning option that’ll actually scan the pallet, and if any of the criteria are out of alignment, it can automatically eject the pallet as well.”
Gollin connected this to its real bottom-line benefit. He said, “When a pallet is not conforming to the template and is being rejected, the production doesn’t stop. The machine keeps making pallets; it’s just that we ejected the one that was faulty. That’s important to maintain the yield and maintain the production for the owners and for their customers.”
For pallet producers running high-volume operations or supplying customers with tight quality requirements, the ability to catch and remove bad pallets on the fly, without interrupting throughput, is a genuine competitive advantage.
Automatic Stringer Feeder: Solving the Labor Equation
Labor remains the defining challenge of the modern pallet operation. Finding workers is hard. Retaining them is harder. And relying on your least experienced team member to keep pace with a high-speed nailing machine is a recipe for production bottlenecks.
Viking identified stringer loading as one of the clearest opportunities to reduce labor strain and improve line consistency. “On Viking nailing systems, stringer loading can become a common bottleneck, especially when customers are running 4-stringer or 5-stringer pallet recipes,” said McCarthy. “That operator is working hard to keep pace with the machine, but when they fall behind, the whole line feels it. Many customers agreed that stringer loading was the place to start, with that confirmation, we decided to move into development.”
The resulting automatic stringer feeder is designed with simplicity in mind and to seamlessly integrate with existing Viking machines. “We wanted to design something that is robust, reliable, a small footprint and affordable,” McCarthy said. “We have achieved those targets with our stringer feeder.”
Viking’s stringer feeder system can be easily retrofitted on existing machines. This allows for additional automation without having to replace the entire machine. A forklift operator loads a bunk of stringers onto the side of the machine; a vacuum head lifts an entire layer off the top and places it on a conveyor, which then distributes stringers to each of the four hoppers based on fill levels. The hoppers themselves are unchanged, still top-loaded, just like before. The automation fits around the existing architecture. And it can be bypassed so that a human operator can manually feed stringers if so required.
Viking’s automatic stringer feeder is available now, with final validation underway. “The initial interest has been strong because customers immediately recognize the labor-savings potential,” Stoddard stated. “We are actively evaluating retrofit opportunities for compatible Viking machines in the field, giving pallet manufacturers a practical way to add automation and improve productivity of their existing system.”
The Aftermarket Overhaul: Reliability Beyond the Sale
One of the clearest themes to emerge from Viking’s process of self-reflection was customer frustration with aftermarket support. Feedback pointed to industry-wide complacency and a desire for Viking to lead differently.
Viking has responded with a significant overhaul of its aftermarket support structure under the direction of Robert Gollin. The goal is straightforward: make it dramatically easier for customers to get what they need, when they need it, so that downtime is minimized and production keeps moving. This includes improvements in parts availability, service program offerings, and the kind of real-time technical support that operators need when a machine goes down mid-shift.
Rosengarth recognized, “Our customers are being squeezed hard. Their costs keep going up, and their pallet buyers aren’t budging on price. That’s why we have to find innovative ways to make them more competitive, and often that’s not a new piece of equipment. We can bring our expertise into their plant and take a holistic view of the entire operation. It’s not just about selling machines.”
A key to this process is the new Viking Service +; it is designed to help existing customers maximize the speed, efficiency and uptime of their machines. From Champions to Voyagers, Viking can tailor a program to each customer offering vision and process analysis, machinery adjustments and preventative maintenance, targeted on-site training, and auxiliary systems from materials handling to even robotics. The company is also offering regional service deals where customers can save on the costs associated with sending technicians to customer locations due to minimizing schedule and transportation costs. Golin explained that Viking’s regional service program is designed for customers who need service, support, or training but do not require an immediate emergency visit. “Many customers will tell us ‘stop in the next time you are in the area;’ This program formalizes that approach,” he said.
Additionally, Viking has realigned its sales territories to ensure that customers have a dedicated, knowledgeable representative who understands their operation and their market. This kind of partnership keeps a customer productive over the full lifecycle of their equipment, not just at the point of purchase.
The Voyager: Honest Lessons, A Stronger Platform
No honest account of Viking’s recent evolution would be complete without addressing the Voyager, the company’s high-speed, high-precision nailing platform that generated significant excitement at launch, but also challenges in the field.
Matt Samuelson, Viking’s marketing manager, was refreshingly candid. “When you think about the Voyager market launch, I would say we went too fast, mainly because the demand was just there. People were chomping at the bit to get something new from Viking. We would have benefited from more field testing to better understand both the machine and who the right customer was for it.”
Stoddard was equally direct about the operational requirements the Voyager demands. “No, I don’t think the Voyager is for everybody. It is a jump in technology with a different operational sequence than a 505, what a lot of operators are familiar with. When operators understand that sequence, they can really fly with the machine. The key is consistency; you can’t be changing operators every three or four months and expect to fully unlock what the Voyager can do. It is built to perform at a high level, but like any advanced production system, it needs the right people, good raw material, and a little time for the team to master it.”
McCarthy offered the clearest analogy. He explained, “If you look at a Champion, it’s like a screwdriver. You can hand it to anybody, and they don’t really need to know that much to operate it effectively. The Voyager is more like a CNC machine. It’s more precise, it’s more capable, it’s a lot faster. But in order to operate it, you have to understand how to utilize it.”
The good news is that Viking stood by the product. The Voyager platform today is substantially improved, better understood, better supported, and better matched to the customers most likely to succeed with it. As Samuelson pointed out, “For those people that are willing to dig in, to learn the machine, to do what they need to do to ensure they have the material that’s going to work well with the machine, the benefits of the Voyager platform are incredible.” A number of these happy customers have bought multiple machines once they really understood how to make them work well.
New Leadership, Sharpened Mission Focus
To lead Viking into its next chapter, the company is bringing in Jason A. Rykken as its new CEO. He is succeeding TJ Rosengarth, the long-time Viking board member who has been serving in an interim capacity this year. Rykken’s background spans diverse industries and global markets, and his experience aligns directly with where Viking is headed.
Over the last six months, Viking has listened and done something about customer concerns. Rykken noted, “The customer is front and center, and that means supporting them through the full life cycle of owning our equipment — with parts, with service, with training. As our team has been out in the field watching, listening, and asking, we’ve been answering with service and support that looks different than in the past, so customers get optimal performance out of the investments they’ve made with us.”
In his own words, Rykken articulated a vision that captures the entire thrust of everything Viking has been building toward in 2026. Rykken declared, “Viking is the leader in automated wood fastening, partnering with customers to maximize operational performance. From machine selection through the full equipment lifecycle, we deliver end-to-end support by rapid parts delivery, hands-on training, expert service programs, and real-time technical support when it matters most. We continuously invest in innovation alongside our customers, providing upgrades and modular automation solutions. This includes stacking, ejection, loading, and other functions that enhance productivity and extend equipment value. Our focus is simple: drive our customers’ success.”
To find out more about Viking’s new products and services, call (763) 571-2400, visit www.vikingeng.com, or e-mail info@VikingEng.com.
