Polana Bikes combines passion and industrial precision

Located just outside the Polish city of Katowice, Polana Bikes has quietly set up a state-of-the-art bicycle production facility. With its own e-bike brand already on the domestic market, the company has big ambitions to change the narrative regarding European e-bike production. Under the motto ‘Passion for bicycles meets industrial precision,’ the company relies on local expertise with a touch of Chinese ‘Guanxi.’

“In the bicycle industry, we do it this way.” This was the statement heard so often by Polana Bikes' general manager Tomasz Kowalski, when entering the e-bike sector several years ago. “From an innovation and drive perspective, there is no other industry that has so much passion as in the bicycle industry, but manufacturing lags very much behind,” Kowalski told Bike Europe during a recent visit to the factory.

Lean manufacturing mindset

A change of mindset is needed to bring production to a new level, according to Kowalski. To facilitate this, he hired all manufacturing leadership for Polana Bikes from the automotive segment. “While building Polana Bikes I realised that people who know bike manufacturing are tired of asking themselves how to build 5,000 bikes after concentrating on the first one, and that was a passion-stopper. So now the task of building prototypes and samples is given to those with the passion and knowledge of a bicycle in the New Product Introduction (NPI) department, then it is scaled by those with passion to the lean manufacturing - operations.”

Having set up in 2023, the company now counts 80 employees in its workforce and is contracted by seven OEMs to produce a range of e-bikes and bicycles at its high-tech facility in Poland. Backed by NKI, a Chinese manufacturer of home appliances, injection molding and high-precision components for the global market, this location marks the first foray of the Asian giant into European manufacturing. However, as a group, NKI has 70 years of experience in supply chain management in different technologies including electronics and automotive.

‘Glocal’ vision: Local talent, global strength

“A business relationship in Asia is built through an actual relationship and not through words. At Polana we are building up our relationships rooted in this same Chinese ‘Guanxi’ culture, with the aim that we are seen as a local-global company. We are utilising local talent, and we want the local market to notice our presence and the Polish government to notice our contribution. While we belong to an Asian-originating enterprise, we would like to be appreciated as a local company. Importantly, the global group gives us stability, which is what is needed in the bicycle industry nowadays.”

Kowalski is heading the European operation based on 13 years of operations experience in China with NKI. Being part of the board of directors also offers him some autonomy in the operations of Polana Bikes. “NKI understands that local manufacturing requires local management,” confirms Kowalski.

Production capabilities

Polana, which has an annual capacity of 70,000 bikes, is on track to complete 2025 with 30,000 bikes assembled. For production, Polana operates one Holland Mechanics assembly line and 12 individual stands for high-end bike assembly. Completed bikes are currently shipped to either a centralised warehouse, or shipped directly to the consumers. Bikes assembled at Polana Bikes are currently being sold in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the United States and the Netherlands.

Benefits of Poland

Before establishing the facility in Poland, Kowalski spent 1.5 years surveying locations in Lithuania, Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia and Romania before ultimately settling for Poland. “Statistics made us choose Poland,” he explains. “If only looking at labour cost, then Romania and Hungary are better options. But if you look at how easy it is to get labour, then calculate how much it will cost to attract that labour, the difference is not that great. There are 380 heads per square km in this area of Silesia, Poland. On top of that there are several universities and hundreds of technical schools in the vicinity.”

The biggest economic bottleneck for manufacturing is transportation. “Out of the low-cost labour countries, Poland has the highest concentration of highways and three big harbours and two large logistics centres, which allow for unloading of trains coming directly from China, out of which one is situated twenty minutes away from Polana Bikes,” confirms Kowalski.

New entrant opportunities

Market conditions have been particularly volatile since Polana was established, but this is also seen as a positive. “We are fresh in the market having been established in 2023. This was a time when the market changed. But when is the best time to establish a factory? The market doesn’t like silence or empty space. There will always be those who will fill it. Also, as a new company, we don’t have the burden of having the post-covid inventory,” explains Kasia Matusiak, business development director with vast experience in the bike industry.

“NKI has built a complete product management system. We, as a daughter company are benefiting from their experience. They have reached a high-level of performance in processing, in OEM, ODM, own research, so Polana’s customers can benefit from this too. Our challenge now is to keep synergy in our growth. As a start-up, it’s one challenge to have people but no orders, but if you have orders and no people, it is also challenging. These days, it is necessary to keep that in a good balance. We are open to exploring various ways of collaboration with our partners including comprehensive project financing. Our goal is to create long-term partnerships that will grow with us,” Matusiak concluded.