ANALYSIS • NORDIC INNOVATION Fertile Finland
In the onward march towards digitalisation and other areas of innovation it is often smaller countries like Finland that can move nimbly and gain first mover advantage.
Marco Ryan
Wärtsilä’s digital transformation
Over the past decade Helsinki-based Wärtsilä has undergone significant change, transforming itself from a pure engine manufacturer to supplier of products for (almost) entire vessels.
Its offer of services has expanded even more in the direction of digitalisation to cover the collection, processing and exchange of ship and fleet data carried out remotely – as demonstrated by the €900m contract it won recently for a 12-year agreement covering maintenance and monitoring of 79 cruiseships belonging to Carnival Corporation & plc.
Marco Ryan, chief digital officer & evp, was hand-picked to oversee the company’s vast digital transformation. Previously he held a similar position with travel giant Thomas Cook Group, where he was recognised by Forbes magazine in 2013 as one of the top 10 global marketing influencers.
‘There are some 26 different components offered from bridge to engine,’ explains Ryan. ‘Clearly with the increasing amount of automation, data, smart technologies, sensors and so on there needs to be a strategy both from the company’s point of view and also from an engineering and product point of view to make those feasible, smarter, more integrated and more modular.’
Wärtsilä has a vision to become a digitally enabled as ‘a service
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company’ for the Maritime and Energy sectors in the next five or six years’ time, he continues, and while specific details of what this will involve have yet to be revealed he gives a hint by suggesting that the company could ‘change to charging hour by the hour, and operate services on an Opex rather than a Capex basis,’ and look more at bundling products and solutions.
Already the company has set up five digital ‘promises’ under the headlines: Easy to do business with, One Wärtsilä, Digitise the core, Digital first, Quality and Security. All require a cultural change within the corporation, says Ryan, which he describes as being a shift from ‘customer focused’ to ‘customer centric’.
To help bring these ideas and changes to market Wärtsilä is setting up a network of Digital Competency & Innovation Centres around the world, including an initial four in Helsinki, Hamburg, Fort Lauderdale and Singapore. Here new ideas are incubated on an fast-track basis: ideas are given a three-week feasibility period to to prove their worth or be killed off, with another three weeks given to develop a prototype. Then a start-up phase begins where venture capital may be invited to help produce the product or service.
By Henrik Segercrantz
‘Some 40% of Finland’s GDP is exports and the maritime industry is clearly a cornerstone,’ says Petri Peltonen from Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment, with some 900 companies engaged in the sector excluding shipyards themselves. Finnish universities, research organisations and Tekes, the Finnish Funding Agency for Innovation, also all play their part.
A Strategic Research Agenda 2017-2025 has been drawn up for the Finnish maritime cluster, which targets cruiseships, ferries, Arctic vessels, offshore technologies and automated vessels. Overriding goal is to develop a more competent, flexible and cooperation-minded workforce of skilled individuals. Finland already invests the equivalent of 3% of GDP in innovation and digital development.
Also ‘Finland is the only country with a surplus of available IT engineers, due to the recent down-shifting of the mobile industry,’ points out Mika Lautanala, director at Tekes. The body is contributing €100m to the maritime industry over the next five years, to assist with R&D in digitalisation (including automated ships) and connectivity, artificial intelligence, augmented and virtual reality, the ‘Internet of Things’ and robotics.
Collaboration with projects being carried out under Tekes’ new DIMECC (Digital, Internet, Materials & Engineering Co-Creation) ecosystem is also an important part of Finland’s maritime innovation strategy. The overriding aim is to speed the time to market of new developments such as those relating to Arctic shipping – where Finland will chair the Arctic Council from May this year – advances in navigation and manufacturing, and micro-sized satellites for SAR (Search and Rescue) imaging in ice condition. Autonomous shipping is another of the 25 ITC and maritime-related projects under the Digitalisation strand.
Some of the largest marine equipment companies with an important presence in Finland are leading the way, such as Wärtsilä, Rolls-Royce and ABB.
By Henrik Segercrantz Seatrade Maritime Review • Quarterly Issue 2 • June 2017 31
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