A century of Icelandic industrial work

Héðinn's story is tied to Iceland's industrial development: metalwork, mechanical service, fisheries, marine equipment, energy, and heavy industry. The company's long life matters because it shows continuity in the kind of work customers still need today.

The company began in 1922, when Markús Ívarsson and Bjarni Þorsteinsson took over a disused iron workshop once run by Bjarnhéðinn and named the new venture in his honour. It started small, with just four people in a workshop of about sixty square metres, building and maintaining machinery for Iceland's young industries, and grew steadily from there into the metalwork and mechanical-engineering company it is today.

The milestones are concrete. Héðinn built Iceland's first herring factory at Seyðisfjörður in 1936, produced the country's first washing machine, Mjöll, with Rafha in 1951, and began its Kongsberg partnership the same year through an agreement with Brattvaag Hydraulik. Since 2008 the company has worked from a purpose-built 10,000 square metre facility at Gjáhella in Hafnarfjörður.