VIEWPOINT

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

According 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 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

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.

Tips

If you wish to keep up with the latest developments in IoT, these links from Martti Mäntylä are a good place to start:

1. Finnish Industrial Internet Forum, FIIF. A community created by Technology Industries of

Finland for sharing ideas. 2. The Industrial Internet group in

LinkedIn. Interesting discussions and topical links. 3. Tekes, the Finnish Funding

Agency for Innovation, where Pekka Sivonen in particular has adopted IoT issues. Tekes spreads the message of the Industrial Internet across Finland, one sector at a time. It is worth participating in events organised by Tekes!

Who?

Professor Martti Mäntylä

• Professor of Information Technology at Aalto University since 1987 (formerly Helsinki University of Technology) • from 2010 to 2013, Chief Strategy Officer of EIT ICT Labs of the European Institute for Innovation and Technology • from 1999 to 2008, the Director of the Helsinki Institute for Information Technology (HIIT) • visiting scholar at Stanford University and the Fraunhofer Institute

at home, and a drill is surely not the answer to that need. Therefore, it is essential to ask, what the ultimate goal of your business operations is, Mäntylä emphasises.

Three levels of IoT – A lot of fresh thinking can already be seen in industry. Many companies take on a responsibility for the customer’s business, exceeding the individual product. For example, in the famous business model of Rolls Royce, airline customers pay for air miles, not for engine maintenance.

According to Mäntylä, the Industrial Internet can be divided into three levels. Direct optimisation based on data collection is on the first level. It can achieve operational benefits, such as energy savings or improved quality of the final product. The second level focuses on added value services built on top of existing products. An example is the Finnish welding industry company Kemppi. The third level creates new kinds of business based on ability, not the product itself. The Agilon material handling system created by Konecranes is an automatic warehouse sold as a service. The service has a monthly fee covering the system and a maintenance agreement with spare parts. – Most maintenance visits apparently take place before the customer has even noticed that anything is broken. This is indeed the direction in which traditional industry and its services will inevitably develop along with the Industrial Internet. And this development is fascinating to monitor, Mäntylä emphasises. •