Citec attitude 1 2010

CITEC

NEWS AND STORIES WITH AN ATTITUDE FROM CITEC

1 • 2010

STAYING FIT

How to get motivated for exercise.

DOCUMENTATION SOLUTIONS Presenting the new Solutions unit team

S TRATEGIC THINKING A clear strategy is just as important in American football as in business life. Page 6.

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EDITORIAL

Citec

wants to promote exercising

CONTENTS

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Happy reading!

Michael Smirnoff DIRECTOR, COMMUNICATIONS

16 CITEC

n the modern automated society natural movement is a thing of the past. As fewer and fewer people bicycle or walk to work, the need for exercise during free time grows larger. In this issue of Citec Attitude we talk about why it is important to keep yourself in good shape.

We also get tips on how to keep up the motivation needed to keep exercising on the long-term basis.

Citec actively supports the health of our employees by offering exercise vouchers and supporting the sporting activities of our employees’ children. Our external sponsoring strategy is also based on supporting selected young athletes.

We who work at Citec have demanding and varying assignments with tough quality requirements. We are engaged and service oriented, and determined to always do a good job. Time is always pressing on us and sometimes we can get a creeping feeling of inadequacy. Relaxing by exercising can often help when you’re feeling stressed. In my opinion, there’s a clear connection between physical and psychological balance.

I’ve always really liked team sports myself – I play soccer, run with friends and play doubles matches of badminton with colleagues. For me the social factor is at least as important as the exercise itself.

On top of that you get to know a lot about how different people react to different situations. There’s been more than one time when I’ve seen a colleague I thought to be a really calm person “pull off a McEnroe” and throw the racket at the wall over a missed point in the decisive game. It’s just as much fun every time it happens!

When things don’t go your way, it’s important to think about alternatives. I’ll end with a quote from the famous American basketball player Michael Jordan: “Obstacles don’t have to stop you.

If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.” This applies in sports, in private as well as in business life.

PUBLISHER Citec companies, P.O. Box 109, FI-65100 Vaasa, +358 (0)6 324 0700 attitude@citec.com

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MER CITEC CUSTO

MAGA ZINE

EDITORIAL BOARD Rune Westergård,

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Michael Smirnoff, Katriina Valli, Ben Power, Peter Appel, Anna Jeanne Söderlund EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Michael Smirnoff PROJECT MANAGEMENT, EDITING Anna Jeanne Söderlund PRODUCTION Botnia Information and Citec

IN THIS ISSUE

LAYOUT Glenn Nylund, Annika Lillkvist, Janne Nylund COVER PHOTO Mikael Nybacka

6 Time for touchdown

16 Chatting with customers

18 How to stay fit

PRINT Fram 2009

One may think that American football is just about raw strength. In fact, it’s just as much about strategy.

Partners Citec and Valtra can nowadays communicate more effectively thanks to a new common Social Media application.

R&D Director Ilkka Palola found a new hobby that changed his life. Running has helped him to concentrate better on work as well.

Citec Engineering offers multi-

10 A strategy from the bottom

14 Offering solutions

22 Enhancing the software

related to technical communication.

Strategy work at Citec is nowadays done in a completely new way – from the bottom up rather than top down.

Too often, technical documentation is not given the attention it deserves. The new Solutions unit makes in-depth analysis of customer documentation needs.

When PDMS can’t do what you’d like it to do, the application specialists at Citec come to the rescue.

is 1,000 and the turnover for 2008

COMPANY KEY FACTS discipline engineering and consulting.

Citec Information provides services The total number of employees was 60 million euros. Citec is headquartered in Vaasa, Finland and has offices in Finland, Sweden, the UK, France, Russia and India.

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CITEC STUNTS

CITEC STUNTS

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Openness is key

Awarded for his excellent work

n Communicating negative news is never an easy task. Last summer, Citec was mentioned as a positive example among companies who had initiated statutory cooperation negotations with their personnel. One of the leading daily newspapers in Finland, Aamulehti, wrote about the negotiations at Citec Information as an example of how such unpleasant issues can be handled in a constructive way, maintaining a trustful atmosphere.

Representatives from both the management and the employee side were interviewed for the article and both expressed their satisfaction with the challenging process.

n Business Controller Krishna TV at Citec Information India has received the first ever CEO Award of Excellence. He got the award for his hands-on effort that has made cash flow and administration more efficient. Krishna TV has been working at Citec since April 2008.

“The award was a very pleasant surprise, simply amazing. To be honest, it took me a couple of days to realize that I had been awarded.

However, the work is still a team effort”, Krishna TV comments.

SPONSORED. 11-year-old Wilmer is the godson of Citec Information. The sponsorship is arranged by the Plan organisation.

To school thanks to Citec

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PUBLICITY. Last summer, Citec unexpectedly received positive publicity in the Aamulehti newspaper.

She handles everything

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n Wilmer-Edgardo Cruz E. is an 11-year-old boy from Honduras who is being sponsored by Citec Information through the Plan organisation. The support is directed to Wilmer’s entire community, which is the village of Triumfo and the money is used to build schools, among other things. Citec has also sent Wilmer gifts for his birthdays as well as for Christmas. The sponsorship began in 2003 at the Tampere office, and nowadays Wilmer is the godson of the entire Citec Information.

So thumbs up for Wilmer’s success at school!

Åsa Dahlgren works as a Management Assistant at Citec Engineering.

LIGHT AND AIR. The new spacious head office building is situated right behind the old one.

New social media project n Citec Information is starting cooperation with the Finnish Road Administration in order to improve their customer service. The Finnish Road Administration’s new customer service has been created in a wiki environment according to the principles of social media. Citec’s task will be to create better systems and structures so that information on the weather and roadworks, for instance, will be easily available for motorists.

n How did you first come to Citec?

“My job was outsourced to Citec from Wärtsilä together with a lot of other positions at the end of 2003. There wasn’t that much of a difference to my old job since almost all of my colleagues also moved at the same time. I even have the same superior as before, Martin Strand.”

New head office inaugurated n In June, 50 people moved into Citec Engineering’s new head office at Silmukkatie 4 in Vaasa. The new building is situated right behind the previous head office. Filled with light and air, it provides a modern working environment for the staff. The old building is still in use – it has been renovated and optimized for the staff still working there.

The new building houses mainly different administration functions, such as administration itself, Sales & Marketing and HR. Also the Civil and Thermal teams have moved into the new 1000 m2 space.

What does a Management Assistant do?

“You could say that I do anything and everything. When someone has a problem they need sorted, they tend to come to me. I also handle some secretarial tasks, but that isn’t all that time consuming since my boss is so independent. I also take care of a lot of personnel tasks; for instance I arrange places to stay and residence

New agreement with Alstom n Citec Engineering intensifies its cooperation with rail solutions supplier Alstom Transport, by signing a new 3-year framework agreement. This means that Citec has become the approved supplier of engineering services to Alstom Transport. The two companies have already been working in cooperation for some time. Among other things, Alstom Transport is interested in Citec’s special knowledge in Arctic conditions within the rail vehicle industry.

permits for our foreign personnel.

When we moved to our new space, I arranged the entire move. It’s fun to be able to learn new things all the time.”

How do you like your job?

“I like it a lot; I have no intentions of changing. We’re like one big family at Citec and the organization is really unbureaucratic. I like that my work

is so changeable and that I can do it very independently. The work has been constantly changing from the very beginning since the company has grown so much since I came.”

What do you do when you’re not at work?

“I’m a family person so I really like to be at home and potter in the garden or do handcrafts.”

PERSISTENT. Krishna TV has been awarded for his efforts to enhance administration and cash flow in India.

What are your dreams for the future?

“Now that my eldest daughter is about to start her studies, I’ve realized that I’d like to start studying again myself. I always liked being in school and I especially like learning languages.

But for now I don’t have any concrete plans.”

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SPORTS: AMERICAN FOOTBALL

7 Mikael Nybacka

TIME FOR TOUCHDOWN You may easily think that American football is just about raw strength.

However, there are few ball games where strategy and tactics are as important.

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SPORTS: AMERICAN FOOTBALL

SPORTS: AMERICAN FOOTBALL SLAUGHTER. The annual game between Finland and Sweden last autumn ended 14–0 to Sweden.

“This game is like a battlefield”

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hen the 2009 annual game between the Finnish and Swedish National American football teams ended, the score stood at 14–0 to Sweden. In other words, a total slaughter?

“Well, the score isn’t as worrisome as it looks. In ice hockey it would be the same as 2–0”, one of the Swedish coaches, Jan-Erik Björklund, explains. On regular days Björklund works as a Sales Manager at Citec Information in Sweden.

As the responsible coach for strategy and game planning, Björklund has a great influence on the game. An uninitiated observer can easily think that American football is mostly about players running around and knocking into each other, but that’s only a part of the truth. There are few other ball games where tactics and strategy have as big an influence on the match as American football. A game consists of many small plays and the coaches direct the game from the sideline by giving orders to the players who act them out. The resemblance of a game of American football to a battle field isn’t coincidental.

“It’s a very good metaphor, since what you’re really playing for is field position. I try to predict the opponent’s moves and plan countermoves for them.

The ultimate goal is to get as far into the opponents part of the field as possible. You don’t talk about goals in American football. Instead, it’s called touchdown when you manage to get the ball into the end zone”, says Björklund.

Even though today Björklund is responsible for the strategy and tactics of the reigning champions in Europe, that wasn’t the side of the game that originally lured him to begin with the sport.

“I started to play in 1991 when a team started in my hometown Karlstad. Back then we had no idea about tactics and technique, we just thought it was fun to run around and knock each other about.”

Mikael Nybacka

Another misconception people often have about

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American football is that it’s a sport with an unusually high risk for injuries. Björklund wants to tone down this misconception too.

“The worst injury I had during the eleven years I played myself was when I broke my little finger.

The pads we use protect us quite well and there are naturally rules about what you’re not allowed to do, like grabbing an opponent’s face mask, for instance.

Of course it’s a hard and physical sport, but at the same time I think that it’s cleaner and more honest compared to soccer where there seems to be a lot of cheap-shots.”

Mikael Nybacka

And since we’re clearing away misconceptions, we might as well continue: according to Björklund it definitely isn’t a requirement of a good football player to be big and strong.

“On the line you need the big guys, but otherwise you need some really fast guys, and they are naturally smaller. All types of physical abilities can be included in the same team and that makes this a very fun and unique sport in my opinion.”

In 2005 and 2006 Björklund worked as a full time

coach for a college football team in the USA. Over there American football is something of a national sport and the final game Super Bowl is the sports event of the year. That’s hardly surprising since the entire sport came to be in the USA during the end of the 19th century. The game didn’t really take on in Europe until the 1980’s.

“The sport grew a lot in Sweden during the middle of the 1990’s, and then it waned in popularity for a while. Now we’re experiencing growth again and currently Sweden is the reigning European Champions.”

And even if Sweden beat Finland 14–0 in the annual game this autumn, Finland is also one of the better nations in the sport in Europe. The sport is biggest in Germany, where it has taken root because of the many Nato bases there.

JAN-ERIK BJÖRKLUND Nickname: Janne Profession: Sales Manager, Citec Information Side occupation: Coach for the Swedish national team in American football Lives in: Karlstad, Sweden Family: Wife Hanna Åkerstedt and daughter Vera Best moment in the sports career: Every year, when we crush Finland!

“One reason for the sport to become popular in Sweden is that it was shown on TV. American football makes for very good TV and thanks to replays it’s often much easier to follow on TV. So many things happen at the same time at such speed on the field that it can be hard to keep up when watching it live.”

After moving home from the USA three years ago Björklund has been one of the coaches of the Swedish National team. How does he manage to balance his job as Sales Manager at Citec with such a time consuming hobby?

“Times for tours, tournaments and training camps are decided well in advance so it usually isn’t a problem. It’s actually harder to fit the hobby together with family life. All in all I put about 40 days a year into this.”

Can you learn something from American football that’s also useful at work?

“I’ve learned leadership and to think strategically.

That’s just as important in business life as in sports.”

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BUSINESS LIFE: STRATEGY WORK

BUSINESS LIFE: STRATEGY WORK

AS CLEAR AS A DIAMOND

Not only American football teams need strategies – business teams need them as well. At Citec the strategy work has been done in a completely new way in recent times.

jessica lindgren

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raditionally company strategies are created in broad strokes by the upper management, who then distribute them to other parts of the organization. After that, the employees try to shape the strategy to fit their own work as best they can.

The last few times, strategies at Citec have been created in exactly the opposite way: by first asking strategies from the different business areas and only then combining them as a unified whole.

“This way the implementation of the strategy partially takes place during the creation process.

It took considerable courage from Citec to free the strategy work to such an extent”, says Mikko Luoma, who has acted as a consultant during the creation of the latest strategies of Citec Engineering and Citec Information. Luoma works as the CEO of the JTO School of Management.

“Often strategies are made on the basis of old habits and that’s how things used to be with us too”, says Kai Dahl, CEO of Citec Information. “We’d tried to

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incorporate change into the work by changing the people responsible, but we still felt that the strategy work had come to a standstill. When I saw the strategy model Citec Engineering had done with the help of JTO, I immediately fell in love with its clarity.

We decided to implement the same model.”

Michael Smirnoff, Director of Communications, was appointed to coordinate the process, as he had been involved in Citec Engineering’s strategy work and hence was familiar with the new model.

The strategy work in Citec Information took place just after the new organizational model had been implemented. The process was fast and mostly painless: the industry areas were given time to think about their own starting points during the spring and summer and in September a summary covering the entire company was made on the basis of that.

Each Industry area could freely choose what tools to use in their strategy work.

“A usual mistake is to use the wrong tools.

Analysis tools are like medication: they’re good for

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jessica lindgren

TARGETS DEFINIED. Mikko Luoma and Kai Dahl draw up the strategy for Citec Information. Important points in the new strategy are partnership, optimizing resources in India and managing customers’ value chains.

some problems, but not all. Sometimes you need a swot analysis, sometimes something else”, Luoma says.

The new way of implementing the strategy work fitted the needs of Citec Information especially well, since the different industry areas are in such different situations and have such different markets.

In the JTO model the summary of the strategy covers only one page and it’s called the strategy diamond.

“The strategy diamond, that one page, is a summary of a summary. It’s condensed enough that it needs a story to clarify it”, says Luoma.

The strength of a strategy is never in what is written on a PowerPoint, but rather in how well it is implemented throughout the organization.

“At best a strategy is a characteristic of the organization. It’s also flexible and not written in stone, so that it can be used in a different way when circumstances change,” says Luoma.

It’s essential that everyone understands the whole

and just how the strategy affects the work of an individual employee.

“I once heard a good definition: a stone mason must think that he’s building the church rather than carving rocks”, says Dahl. “When I visited our India office to present the new strategy, a lot of people came to tell me after the presentation that this was the first time they understood where the company was going. This speaks to the strength of this new model.”

If the bottom up method is such a superior strategy tool, why aren’t all companies using it?

“The model is becoming more common, but it isn’t always easy to change long-time habits”, says Luoma. “When we at JTO help companies in their strategy work, we almost always recommend this model these days. A traditional top down model may still be good in some cases, such as when the company is going through a major crisis or is only just starting out.”

STRATEGIC HINTS According to Mikko Luoma, good strategy work includes the following: 1 Flexibility • the strategy must adapt to different situations • choose the tools according to your needs 2 Involvement • a bottom-up view is preferred • implementation partly takes place during the process itself 3 Integratability • the strength of a strategy isn’t in how it’s written, but in how well employees understand it • the upper management has the task of gathering together a story for the company

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NEW DEAL: WESTENERGY

NEW DEAL: KRAFTANLAGEN

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Designing Europe’s most modern coal power plant Citec is currently designing the piping system for a combined heat and power plant in Moorburg, Germany. The plant will substantially reduce CO2 emissions, thanks to new technology and high efficiency.

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DESIGNING. Stefan Björk­gren, Tommy Krohn and Conny Eklund from Citec are involved in the Westenergy project. The project team was included in the project already during the sales work.

C ITEC WON THE CONTRACT for a large waste incineration plant

he construction and the operation of the Moorburg power plant is made by Vattenfall Europe AG. Kraftanlagen München, one of Europe’s leading companies in manufacturing and installing piping systems and plant solutions, has ordered the piping design from Citec.

The Moorburg power plant will produce 1640 megawatts of electricity (2 x 820 MW) which covers the electricity for the city of Hamburg. In addition, the power plant will produce heating for more than 180,000 homes. This makes it one of the largest and most modern hard coal power plants being built at the moment. The Moorburg plant will replace the old 600 MW power plant Wedel, that was built in the early 1960’s.

Citec’s part of the project is to deliver the detailed

piping design for the intermediate and low pressure steam system. The work also includes the design of the extraction steam system and an option for designing the district heating system. Including all options, the deal is worth about 3.4 million euros.

“This is a very significant deal for us”, says Martin Strand, CEO of Citec Engineering. “Our team is closely integrated with Kraftanlagen’s design team in Berlin, with the objective to make the work as smooth and intense as possible.”

In August 2007, Citec Engineering signed a long-term

framework agreement with Kraftanlagen München.

“We have worked successfully together on the Boxberg power plant project since 2007”, says Peter Ranger, Division Manager at Kraftanlagen München.

“Therefore we wanted to get Citec onboard for this project as well. We particularly appreciate Citec’s excellent skills in PDMS.” Thanks to new technology and the high efficiency, the Moorburg plant will help to reduce approximately 2.3 million tons of CO2 per year. NOx and fine particles will also be reduced up to 50 per cent compared to older power plants. Further implementations for capturing CO2 have already been designed, which can be quickly incorporated when the technology is available.

EFFICIENT AND HUGE. The Moorburg power plant will offer electricity and heating for the city of Hamburg.

Westenergy is one of the first waste incineration plants to be built in Finland.

Citec will be responsible for a major part of the engineering in the project.

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t isn’t often that Citec engineers get to plan a power plant that is going to be built just a few kilometers from the company head office. The waste incineration plant Westenergy is going to burn the refuse from 400 000 people and produce electricity and district heating for the Vaasa region. Still, it wasn’t only the closeness to the construction site that turned things to Citec’s favour.

“We managed to offer a cost-efficient solution. Our references and multi-discipline engineering knowledge were also key factors when winning the contract”, says Sales Manager Conny Eklund.

Citec has been chosen by Ramboll Denmark, which is the main

consultant for the project. Citec will provide detailed design and tendering of the civil part of the project, i.e. design of structures, HVAC and plumbing, building electrification, BMS/ICT, site works, geotechnology and fire simulation. In addition, a Construction Manager and a Civil Section Manager from Citec will work on site

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during the execution phase. The work began already at the end of 2009 and will continue for 1.5 years.

“This is a large and important project for us. On average it will employ 25–30 people”, says Eklund.

Eklund was careful to include the project team during the sales work.

“I think that when you involve the people who are going to do the work from the beginning, they have a stronger motivation for the task.”

Westenergy isn’t a small building – at 42 metres high and 170 long the power plant will be a landmark in the area, visible far over the treetops. The building is the fourth largest to be built in Finland for the moment. Refuse burning with modern technology has until now not been that common in Finland and therefore the power plant will be one of the first of its kind in the country.

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PRESENTING: THE SOLUTIONS UNIT

PRESENTING: THE SOLUTIONS UNIT

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A solution to documentation challenges Technical documentation is an integral part of any product, not an add-on. Using this as their motto, the experts of the new Solutions unit at Citec Information help customers to create cutting-edge documentation.

various kinds of information is created and maintained. Part of the information is delivered to customers in the form of user manuals, E-learning, marketing deliverables, etc, whereas some information remains internal. “A key aspect of our long-term cooperation with customers is to break down silos. Very often the same information is created time and again in different functions.

We map out what kind of information is needed in which lifecycle phase, to ensure that it is created only once and then reused.”

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he Solutions unit was formed in the spring of 2008. “You could say that we greet new customers at the door”, says Joakim Nybäck, who leads the Solutions unit. “We do a thorough analysis of the new customer’s needs in terms of technical information and suggest solutions tailored to meet those needs.”

Too often, technical documentation is not given the amount of attention that it deserves, causing all kinds of problems. “In a worst-case scenario, poor documentation becomes a safety issue, effectively putting the end user at risk of injury”, Nybäck says.

User-friendly documentation, on the other hand, allows end users to carry out the tasks at hand safely and swiftly.

If you have been involved in developing a technically

complex product for a number of years, you know the product inside out. This is why making the product developers responsible for deciding what kind of information is needed to support users is not necessarily a good idea. “When you look at the same product through the eyes of a first-time user, the situation looks very different. A professional technical communicator bridges the competence gap between the developer and the end users”, Nybäck says. The technical communicator knows how to best communicate complex ideas – it’s his or her core competence. Part of this is choosing the right output format: a short animation, for example, can replace several pages of text, thus also eliminating the need for translation.

“Our services go beyond what is traditionally thought of as technical documentation”, Nybäck says. “Documentation is an integral part of any product, not an add-on.” Throughout the lifecycle of a product, from conception to disposal,

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AT YOUR SERVICE. The Solutions unit team includes (from the left): Virpi Onkamo, Sanna Kauppinen, Marjaana Jauhiainen, Joakim Nybäck, Esa Törmänen, Arto Wainio, Bjarne Melin, Tiina Savén and Tuula Koppanen. Aapo Syväoja is missing from the picture.

Doing things the right way saves money.

Many customers have started out using MS Word or FrameMaker, but switching to state-of-the-art XML-based documentation technologies makes sense, because you can reuse information very efficiently. You can also publish to various formats from the same source – as a completely automated process. “When you switch to XML-based documentation, the ambition is not just to produce the same deliverables more efficiently with new tools. Rather, it opens the door to new possibilities”, Nybäck stresses. The switch requires an initial investment, which is recouped through the automation of tasks and also by reducing the workload through reuse.

“All in all, good documentation decreases the need for technical support, which may also translate into considerable savings”, says Nybäck. Mostly the XML flavour of choice for documentation is DITA XML, a freely available, open standard specifically designed for reuse.

The Solutions unit’s services are in great demand and the future looks bright. “I think companies increasingly realize that good product information is an asset”, Nybäck says.

“Delivering the right information to the right users at the right time – in various formats and languages – is an important competitive advantage. To do that, you need a solid approach, which is exactly what we help our customers with.”

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CUSTOMER CASE: VALTRA

CUSTOMER CASE: VALTRA

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Citec and Valtra developed a common

S OCIAL MEDIA APPLICATION A new Wiki based application makes operations between partners Citec and Valtra faster and more effective. It also makes the partnership closer and more transparent.

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good partnership requires a fast and transparent system for exchanging information. The cooperation between Citec Information and Finnish tractor manufacturer Valtra is being made more effective through a Wiki based Social Media application. The new system is intended to support information exchange and project work between the partners.

“The point of the application is to improve transparency in the different areas of the partnership. It creates a common channel that allows the different parties to effortlessly follow for instance the progress of projects and their contents”, says Samppa Petäjävuori, Documentation Manager at Valtra.

Petäjävuori says that breaks in communication or delays

5 QUESTIONS

can easily cause the wrong kind of information to slip into the material and thus cause confusion.

“Aside from making cooperation between Citec Information and Valtra easier, both organizations can use the application to develop their own internal processes.

This way of working lets a larger number of employees be a part of the different phases of the project. The system also makes training new employees easier. A new employee will be able to find all information on projects, partnerships and the history of different processes easily in one place”, Petäjävuori states.

The application is still in the starting phase, but the

Help for those who need it

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partners have high expectations of it. Petäjävuori believes that the new application will make many operations more effective.

“E-mail conversations, telephone meetings and video meetings tend to be a little superficial. Someone might get an idea later and with this Wiki application, people can exchange thoughts on it. Now we have a channel that lets people exchange opinions and comments on different projects at any time.”

Citec and Valtra began cooperation in 2007, when Citec

bought Techniman Oy, a company which had been creating technical documentation for Valtra.

“We had feelers out for Citec already in 2004 and a few years later we formed a partnership. The goal was to get a partner who had a large enough organization and from whom we could learn the different phases of the processes.

We found exactly that kind of a partner in Citec”, says Petäjävuori.

Also Citec has been satisfied with the partnership.

“We’ve naturally gained trust over time. We have know-how in developing new technologies and Valtra is a partner who has been delightfully open to apply them with us. The Wiki application is a good example of this”, says Information Architect Tuula Koppanen from Citec Information.

Pekka Vikman works as a Support Engineer at Citec Information.

How long have you worked in your current assignment?

“Next spring it will be a full five years for me at Citec. I’ve spent four years of that time in my current assignment. I used to work on the Business Ventures side of Citec before.”

GROWTH. The famous slide predicts that Citec, then Tri-

Tell us a little about yourfrom work.

Technic, is going to grow What of things do you run 7 to sort 14 employees. into during your daily work?

IMPROVING COMMUNICATION. Thanks to the new application, tractor manufacturer Valtra and Citec now have a channel that lets people communicate at any time.

“My title is Support Engineer and that’s pretty much exactly what I do. We at Citec’s IT support are responsible for the computers and IT devices and that they’re working. When something isn’t working or the user has trouble with it, we try to help them solve the problem.”

Your work seems quite varied and challenging.

When something doesn’t go as planned or there’s an unexpected obstacle, you’re the one to call?

“Yes, that’s right. Citec Information has different kinds of user groups and the software, hardware and settings often vary between groups. This naturally creates different kinds of challenges we have to deal with.”

Users are different and you could imagine that the problems can be anything and everything on Earth?

“True. You rarely get the same day twice! The jobs and the challenges vary a lot in this work and the job description changes according to the case. People have all sorts of problems with their computers and that’s reflected in my work.”

What do you do at home and during your off hours? Do you have any special hobbies or ways to spend your time?

“My free time is mostly spent having a normal family life with the children. A couple of nights a week I exercise by playing floor ball and ice hockey, but I don’t have any special hobbies aside from that.”

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LIFESTYLE: EXERCISE

LIFESTYLE: EXERCISE

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R UN FOR YOUR LIFE

A few months back R&D Director Ilkka Palola couldn’t run half a kilometer, now he’s aiming for the marathon. His new hobby has had a positive effect on his work as well.

WARNING SIGNALS. Before Ilkka Palola began to run, he was often tired in the afternoons. “I was simply running out of steam”, he says.

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Mikko lehtimäki

S

Mikko lehtimäki

ome people have to hit “I chose running almost by accident. rock bottom before First I went for a walk on a few evenings they realize they need and noticed that I liked being alone in to change their lifestyle. R&D the nature with my Ipod. When I started Director Ilkka Palola at Citec running I was surprised at how fast my Information didn’t have a heart condition started to improve. That gave attack or burn out, but relatively an enormous boost to my motivation.” small warning signals had him begin exercising last spring.

These days Ilkka can be found running “I was running out of around Vaasa 3–5 times a week. His steam. I’d often be tired in the runs last from an hour up to two and a afternoons and I’d started to feel half hours at a time. His first goal was worried about my health. I’m just being able to run in the first place, getting closer to 40 and I knew then came 5 and 10 kilometer runs and that getting into shape is harder now he’s aiming at a half marathon. when you’re older. I felt that if I And his appetite keeps growing – if all didn’t do this now, I might never goes according to plan, he aims to run start. The birth of my youngest a full marathon next summer. child last February also gave me Ilkka thinks that the key point in a reason to get into better shape keeping up the motivation for exercising so that I’d have more energy to is to find a sport that really suits the spend time with the kids after the ANYWHERE AND ANYTIME. “Running is an person. office hours.”

“Running is an ideal hobby in that ideal hobby”, says Ilkka Palola.

Ilkka used to exercise actively it’s very easy to combine with the rest of when younger, but EVERYDAY then lack JOY. of time, business trips abroad your life. You can run just about any time and anywhere. and starting a family got in the way. He used to play team Often I don’t go out for my run until after the kids are in If you wan’t sports and taketo spinning lessons when he was younger, but bed. Sometimes my son comes along on his bike and at be happy, running was a complete for him. other times I’ll take the kids to their hobbies and run until there’s a unknown lot you can do to make it happen.

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LIFESTYLE: EXERCISE Mikko lehtimäki

LIFESTYLE: EXERCISE Mikko lehtimäki

LET GO. Excercising helps to empty your head and let go of thoughts about work.

Mikko lehtimäki

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SCHEDULE A MEETING WITH YOUR BODY n If you’re always tired coming home from work, the alarm bells should be ringing. The worse shape you’re in, the harder it is to work. But how to fit exercising into a hectic life?

• Lack of time is the number one reason for not exercising. Schedule a meeting with yourself in your calendar so that it’ll be easier to go for a walk or to the gym. At least during the weekend everyone has time for exercising.

• Many people think that you have to exercise 3–4 times a week for it to do any good, but 1–2 times a week is still a lot better than 0.

• Choose a sport you really enjoy or you won’t last for long. Do you prefer to exercise alone or in a group, at home or at a gym? Do you want to work up a real sweat or take it a bit slower?

it’s time to pick them up again. Overnight business trips may be an excuse to some, but I take my running shoes with me on business trips. Running in new places is exciting.”

People often justify their lack of exercising with the demands of family and work life. Ilkka however has noted that his new hobby has had a positive effect on his work as well.

“I have an easier time concentrating and I don’t get tired in the afternoons anymore. I’ve also learned patience and target orientation, which helps at work too. At work I need to sit and exercise my brain, and running gives me energy to do that successfully.

Regular runs give the week a nice rhythm.”

Running also helps to let go of the work things that Ilkka used to think about during the evenings. When Ilkka starts his run, his thoughts may be on everyday things at first, but after a while his mind takes flight and he reaches almost a dreamlike state that helps to empty his mind.

“The most radical change is probably that I’ve lost 20% of my weight. My old clothes don’t fit me at all anymore. Losing weight wasn’t a goal when I started running, but it’s certainly been a very positive side effect.”

The biggest challenge for Ilkka at the moment is to learn how to eat right, to help restore his energy after running. Often after a run he doesn’t feel like eating at all, even though the guide book tells him to replenish his energy reserves.

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“I have a lot to learn in this area. If you know how to eat right, you can also run better. Luckily there’s a lot of information on this on the internet and there’s also a lot of forums where people who run have conversations and give each other advice.”

Ilkka himself has several good pieces of advice for other people who are thinking of starting running.

“Even though speed is one of the targets of running, it’s a common beginner’s mistake to run too fast. Your pulse definitely shouldn’t be at the max. And it pays to invest in good gear and get your running shoes from a professional store so that they fit properly and support your foot without rubbing.

And special clothing is also worth the price, a regular cotton t-shirt takes in moisture and feels cold. I like running tights even though some men won’t wear them since they look a lot like a pantyhose.”

Ilkka is convinced that he’ll be running in the future too. The Finnish winter with its slippery trails adds its own challenges, but basically he’s ready to run in any weather.

“The feeling after a run is even greater if it has been raining or the weather was otherwise awful.

My dad is 89 years old and he is out for a walk or skiing or bicycling every day. That’s a good example for me.”

NEW PERSON. A positive side effect of Ilkka Palola’s new hobby is that he’s lost 20 per cent of his weight.

• People who were in good shape when they were younger may begin too heavily, leading to fatigue and pains. So start slow – you’ll get results soon and will be able to speed things up.

• Don’t give up and stay with it for 10–12 weeks at least.

By then exercising has become a habit and habits are harder to break.

• Don’t stress out if sometimes you can’t exercise as much because of sickness or business trips. Continue when you can instead of crying over the lost time.

• Everyday activities count as exercising too. Climb the stairs instead of taking the elevator and ride a bicycle to work. You don’t have to work up a sweat every time, walking is a fine way to get exercise.

• Check your diet too. Eat every four hours and you’ll have energy both for work and for exercising. It’s important to eat enough and at short enough intervals – crash diets won’t help manage your weight in the long run.

Hints were given by Eija Holmala, who has been a personal trainer for a long time. She has also written books on exercising and launched a free exercising and diet service online at www.kiloklubi.fi.

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COMPETENCE: SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT

COMPETENCE: SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT

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System development saves time and work Sometimes software can’t do what you’d like it to do.

This is when system developers at Citec Engineering come in and improve the applications. Their reliable know-how has been gathered over the years of work.

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hen the employees at Citec Engineering in Vaasa, India and other countries go home for the day, the computers begin to update the day’s work. The next morning everyone can see what their colleagues on the other side of the globe have done in the common projects. Thanks to an application created by Citec, many projects can be controlled at the same time in the plant design management system PDMS. “In the basic version of the software only one project can be updated at a time, but our application allows hundreds of projects to be controlled at the same time”, Senior Application Specialist Markus Vikström explains.

This is just one example of many where Citec’s system developers have improved the software used in the company and by Citec’s customers.

“There are many advantages in developing systems. Firstly, it speeds up the work when the need for doing things by hand is reduced.

Secondly, quality is improved and the risk for human error reduced”, says Vikström.

5 QUESTIONS

Markus Vikström is one of the 15 people at Citec Engineering who work with system

Jogging at lunch

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development. Besides the plant design software PDMS, a lot of other software is used and developed, including for example Comos, Tekla Structures, Autocad and all Microsoft office products. More and more system suppliers have realized that it pays to leave software open so that outsiders can insert additional applications in them.

“System development is often about getting different software to communicate better. Different software has different creators and because of that it doesn’t always communicate optimally”, says Application Specialist Thomas Back.

He points out that those who actually use the software in practice might have a better understanding of what needs to be developed than the system suppliers do.

“One time I asked the supplier to change something and they told me it couldn’t be done. So I did it myself in just one day”, tells Back.

How it all started The list of

development work that has been done over the years is long – anything from robots that generate PDFs to making it possible to print large sheets of paper. Development projects can last anywhere from a few hours to over a year. Sometimes they are done for the home organization, but more and more often system development is done at the request of customers.

“It adds a great deal of value to our customers that Citec is able to provide this service.

There have been times when we have been chosen as the supplier because we’ve been able to improve the efficiency of production through better systems.

The customer gets more than just the engineering part”, says Jörgen Strömberg, who has recently been appointed Manager for IT/IM at Citec Engineering.

IMPROVED SOFTWARE. Plant design system PDMS is one of Citec Engineering’s core competence areas.

The software is being continuously developed.

Ulrika Samuelsson works as an Accountant at Citec Information in Växjö, Sweden.

n What do you do at Citec?

“Since I began in 2006 I’ve handled billing, salaries, bookkeeping and accounts. I like the job a lot, Citec has a good spirit and all employees have the possibility to grow. The only negative thing about my job is that very much of my time is dedicated to sitting in front of a computer.”

How do you compensate for the effects of a sitting down job?

“I’m very interested in exercising.

This autumn, my colleague created a jogging lunch here at work.

There’s five to ten of us who run for 30 minutes at lunch a couple of times a week. As the weather has gotten colder, we’ve moved to walks instead of running.”

That sounds very active. How does exercising during the day influence your job?

“You become so much more effective for the afternoon. The difference is truly noticeable and I also feel much more active all evening on those days I’ve been running while at work.”

Do you exercise in your free time as well?

n System development at Citec has a long history.

In fact it began already at Wärtsilä in the 1990’s, where both Markus Vikström and Thomas Back worked before they were outsourced to Citec. The one to kick-start the work was Kim Strömbäck, today General Manager, Project Management Office at Wärtsilä Industrial Operations.

“At the beginning of the 1990s there were quality problems in design, especially between different disciplines such as mechanical, electrical and civil engineering. We realized that we could get better drawings by using 3D software in the planning”, says Strömbäck.

In 1997 the decision was made to invest in PDMS. “In hindsight it was the only right thing to do. But the piloting phase was filled with blood, sweat and tears. The drawings of the components were not detailed enough so we were sometimes forced to order components and measure them ourselves.”

Quality wise the new way of working still meant a great improvement. The drawings became more exact and delivery time was cut by up to 20–30%.

“Quite quickly I realized that we needed to develop PDMS to be able to use it optimally. One of the first applications we made was to create clear and easily legible columns from a totally unreadable version of a materials list.”

“Yes, I do. I often bicycle the seven kilometers to and from work and I also run and ski. With two small children it’s of course often hard to find the time. I’ve also begun to train my eldest son in track and field together with a team of other seven to nine year olds. The kids have so much energy that it feels like I get back as much as I give.”

Tell us about Växjö, how is it to work and live there?

“I grew up here and haven’t been away except for studies. Sizewise the city can be compared with Vaasa and there are a lot of students here as well since it’s a university city. I like it very much here; Växjö is the right size of a city to raise children in.”

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Behind the scenes, Citec’s experts will take full responsibility for tasks that are not your main activities. This leaves you free to take the leading role in your own field of expertise.

You are the star — we’ll do the stunts.

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