VIEWPOINT
• TEXT: LOTTA VAIJA • PHOTOS: OLLI URPELA
Industrial companies like UPCAST are already widely using the prospects of the Industrial Internet in research and product development. Martti Mäntylä, Professor of Information Technology at Aalto University, is particularly interested in the future of IoT and user-centric product development in information and communications technology.
Industrial Internet providing a foundation for future product development
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ccording to Martti Mäntylä, the ability to create something new, based on data collected from production, the products and their use is an essential pillar of the Industrial Internet. Another important pillar is the realisation of so-called pull control. It returns collected production and usage data into design, manufacturing or production control. – A recent development acts as a good example. Due to flue gas washers being installed in plants, energy wood chips have become a fresh product: the fresher the chips to enter the furnace, the more efficient the energy production. In this case, data derived from energy demand forecasts could direct the chip purchases or even the timing of felling, Mäntylä explains.
Data for product development In addition to data being collected, it is also moved around – from one company to another and across product processes and life cycles. Product development is also an essential
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UPCAST Review May | 2017
part of the circular economy, and the circular economy expands the territory of IoT: when product life cycles expand at the end, IoT already makes use of signals from the extended use during the design phase. Mäntylä mentions Tesla, known for its electronic cars, as an excellent example of a company using IoT. – Tesla is not simply a car, but also a worldrenowned software platform. Tesla is even discussed in terms of software updates. Everything done at Tesla is transferred into data and moved to the cloud to be utilised by product development. Of course, it is a different matter altogether whether there is the skill to use all collected data optimally and draw the correct conclusions. But it most definitely will not be down to the amount of available data. Mäntylä emphasises that products around us are always created for a particular usage profile. When the use deviates from the intended, the product does not necessarily work as planned. IoT makes use of collected usage data,
so that design can be directed at the actual use. – I wish to see more and more research using improved usage data, in order to optimise product development and thus create products with better properties.
Foundation in business objectives How can traditional industrial companies like UPCAST join the development ushered in by IoT? The basic principle is the same for all: you need to turn your attention towards the value received by the customer. It is necessary to ask what is essential in your products for the end buyer. What need is met by the final product and what properties are they expected to have? If you knew more about the raw material, could you improve your process? – There is a saying, according to which a customer does not want to buy a drill, they want a hole. Or perhaps not even a hole, but a method of hanging art on to their walls. And even that may not necessarily be the fundamental need. It may be a question of gaining artistic experiences
