FIMECC Ltd – Finnish Metals and Engineering Competence Cluster
FIMECC Ltd is a company which has got the national status as Strategic centre of science, technology and innovations.
More information:
Acting Managing Director Harri Kulmala FIMECC Ltd,
Director Juha Ylä-Jääski, The Federation of Finnish Technology Industries,
Director Ilkka Niemelä, The Federation of Finnish Technology Industries,
E-mail: firstname.lastname@techind.fi
World Class Platform for Science-Based Competitiveness. FIMECC Ltd will create new international research networks, new top science, and new application-driven research contents. The competence and knowledge in selected focus areas will be raised to globally leading position. The research activities are based on ambitious target-orientation, openness, dynamics, and true internationality.
Revolutionary Engineering – Perceiving Customers’ Needs First. Finland-based companies will make a difference in the global markets through utilizing new excellent knowledge of FIMECC Ltd especially in customer needs understanding, breakthrough market launching, and successful customer solution piloting and implementing.
- The quality of work in the selected research themes will reach the Academy of Finland standard for Centres of Excellence, and will be recognized internationally at the most competitive forums
- Multidisciplinary research groups will challenge companies in the search for new innovative solutions and question the usual development paths
- The connection of companies and top research will be strengthened, and tens of companies will significantly increase their own research investment
- Metal products and mechanical engineering industry’s relative research investment will be doubled until 2015
Organizational structure of FIMECC Ltd:
The figure above represents the intended organizational structure for FIMECC Ltd. FIMECC Ltd will collect funding for the operative costs from shareholders as annual payments, from research consortium members as coordination fees, and from public research funders. Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation (Tekes) will be a key funder and cover also part of the start-up phase operative costs. Funding for research programs will be applied also from other sources incl. Academy of Finland and EU.
Point of departure and research volume:
The companies, universities, and research institutions that have participated in the preparations of FIMECC Ltd believe that creating a research community based on enriching interaction is essential and necessary for the future evolution and development of Finnish metals and engineering industry.
The selected research themes are:
· Service Business
· User Experience
· Global Networks
· Intelligent Solutions
· Breakthrough Materials
The themes are in different phases of research life-cycle. Intelligent Solutions will be based on the research carried out in units that have earned the Academy of Finland Centre of Excellence status already twice, and the key researchers in Breakthrough Materials have published significant percentage of articles in internationally refereed scientific journals. Finnish performance in these themes is already at the recognized top of international research community and they will be strengthened further. During the last 15 years, activities and publication intensity in Global Networks theme has grown substantially, and FIMECC Ltd will establish critical mass of research in Finland around this theme. User Experience and Service Business have taken their place in the scientific headlines at 2000’s. In these themes, the pioneering companies and researchers will help in creating a research community that is attractive also for global professionals.
The estimated annual research volume for FIMECC Ltd is approximately 55 M€ and the resource use about 400-450 man years. Reaching the full activity volume will take 2-3 years.
In this chapter, the five selected themes are introduced through their targets. These targets impress the focus and ambition level of research efforts. The targets described here are expressed in more detail in strategic research agenda (Appendix 5) with short and long-term objectives and operative plans how to carry out the research.
Service Business
Target: In 2015, Finland is leading country in service business leadership and management. This has been turned into the success of the Finnish industry and their customers.
The FIMECC Ltd service business research supports Finnish companies’ ability to successfully lead and manage customer relationships. This will be reached through improved ability to develop, design and implement customer-centric services. The FIMECC Ltd research will raise the level of competence, skills and cooperation of Finnish service research to a new level.
Service business research generates
· new understanding for the participants regarding how an internationally sustainable competitive advantage can be developed through the adoption of service logic in management,
· new innovative business models, and
· new understanding regarding operative service processes and their management.
Service business research serves participant companies’ management in developing their business models, processes and solutions so that they can better support the value creation for their customers.
Furthermore, the research serves the customers so that the customers are able to develop their own business and operations in order to fully benefit from the services. Through this the customers will gain competitive advantage and the service providers will find innovative new paths towards an internationally sustainable, growing service-oriented business.
User Experience
Target: In 2015, there are several companies in Finland which have ownership in design strategy, interdisciplinary and practice-based design processes, and product/service level design driven innovations. Finnish companies are well-known for their design managers, who can bridge the gap between design, technology and business worlds.
The world as well as design paradigms of products and services will change. Success and competitiveness of companies will be strongly related to user and human oriented, sustainable processes and products. Open innovation approach and the integration of various disciplines in design and development, as well as lively cooperation of academy, research and industry will help the actors in mastering new and emerging innovation drivers. Regardless of their scale and scope – global, international, or SME level – the Finnish companies will be well-known for their wide and proactive approach in design. The research results of FIMECC Ltd theme “User experience, usability and industrial design” form a firm basis for company-specific applications on strategic, process, and product design levels. The young researchers in the field will be internationally credited and in demand by smart companies in Finland.
Global Networks
Target: In 2015, management of global networks is a capability that creates substantial value for Finland. The “Finnish way” to create and participate in networks is strong leadership through management practices and processes that are measurably efficient and effective in controlling flexible and innovative networks of collaborating firms.
The adoption of advances in technology and management research makes it possible for manufacturers to sell a product that is manufactured and delivered - with uniform quality and efficiency - in several interchangeable sites around the world and related services globally. Planning and management makes efficient use of real-time visibility across customer channels, retailers, manufacturers, third-party service providers as well as suppliers.
The “Finnish way” is world-class in operating high-performance dispersed logistics for: (1) project business and engineering driven processes, and (2) cost efficient manufacturing of high product variety. The industry will acquire the skills and knowledge to develop and use technology and management research in a way that enables rapid capture of emerging markets, and opportunities in supply and logistics by developing, creating and re-structuring demand-supply networks. Product life-cycle management and product-service systems support networks that are responsive, agile, resilient, self-adaptive and self-organizing. Key characteristics in these networks are modularization and high utilization of widely accepted standards enabling scale of economics.
Companies will be skillfully benefiting from development in collaboration with users, customers, and suppliers. Enterprise tools will be network-centric and service-based. The IT tools deployed will incorporate the ‘self-organizing’ features of the best web applications and take the human perspective into account to enable breakthroughs in innovation, efficient marketing and network collaboration.
Intelligent Solutions
Target: In 2015, Finland is the technology leader and globally admired brand for intelligent solutions in metal, machinery, process equipment and ship building industries.
FIMECC Ltd (Intelligent Solutions theme) produces new strategic knowledge for creating global competitiveness for the Finnish metal and machinery industry. This knowledge is used in development of intelligent solutions that make the users' processes and operations effective.
Effectiveness is measured by:
· Product and process availability, stability, flexibility and performance
· Sustainability: low energy consumption, minimized environmental impact
· Safety
· Competitive life-cycle cost
The increasing digitalization of products and production systems means that the share of software and the cost of software engineering in the products and systems will become more and more important or even dominant in the future. This is a substantial challenge. The solutions can be found from e.g. proper platforms for modular design and better management of the software engineering process.
Devices, machines, systems and larger integrated products such as paper machines and ships, for example, are increasingly multi-technology systems, i.e. they are combinations of mechanics, electronics, materials and software. The engineering discipline here remains very multi-disciplinary, performance critical, applications oriented etc. as compared to the office-market software engineering. FIMECC Ltd will offer an enriching environment to build up new style of engineering discipline.
Breakthrough Materials
Target: FIMECC Ltd is European leader in the research and development of
· breakthrough materials for the sustainable life cycle performance,
· material solutions for competitive and difficult-to-copy product differentiation, and
· material solutions for energy saving, safety and environmentally friendly applications in the operation field of companies participating in the theme.
The strategic goals in the breakthrough materials theme are to
· secure strong competence base supporting Finnish material producers and users by high quality research,
· ensure expeditious application of new materials in Finnish engineering industry, and
· fill the missing links of Finnish materials knowledge value chain by strong international networking.
The joint effort of the Finnish metal producers and engineering industry together with the key research performers is expected to reach these goals.
Fimecc Ltd web address: www.fimecc.com
