Project Portfolio

Nokia design history

An IDBM student group conducted a study on Nokia Design History during autumn 2000 and spring 2001. The project was conducted for Nokia Mobile Phones and especially for The Nokia Design organization. The IDBM group consisted of two students from TKK, two from TAIK and one from HSE.

The brief for the project was "Nokia Design History". The group was given a lot of freedom in choosing the best ways to work in order to discover the design history of Nokia's mobile phones. The initial purpose of the project was to track down, collect, document and archive historical design material, related to the design process of mobile phones.

The brief included a challenging question about the relationship of the design of Nokia and Nokia's success in the mobile phone business. The company wanted an outsider view and opinions about what has been the role of design as one possible success factor for Nokia.

The group divided the project into smaller subprojects:
- Interviewing Nokia representatives
- Collecting design process related material
- Analyzing Nokia Design History
- Creating hypothetical mobile phone evolution scenarios
- Giving recommendations of archiving design history at Nokia

Metso future care

Efficient information management, the use of high technology and developing new service concepts have become key competitive factors. Metso Corporation aims to provide it's customers with high level of process competence and their supporting automation systems. In addition to machinery and equipment, Metso offers expert services for developing customers' production processes and making the investment process more efficient. The Future Care service concept promotes cooperation, interaction and partnership between Metso and its customers. As a result the product life cycle is expanded and an efficient communications channel is created and maintained.

The objective of the IDBM-project was to create and test implementation and dissemination activities related to the Future Care concept in different units of the Metso Corporation. The interaction and cooperation in workshops and the interview sessions with Metso personnel generated feedback and new ideas for the Future Care development and Metso operations. The results were presented to the Future Care team in June 2000. The IDBM group consisted of four students: one from TAIK, one from HSE and two from TKK.

The methods used in the project included benchmarking interviews and literature research in the pre-studies, workshops in different business units with participants from various areas of expertise, and individual interviews at the Metso Automation offices in Vienna focusing on customer service, interaction and the customer point of view.

Both the IDBM project and the general interest towards the Future Care concept were evaluated at the end of the project. The participants in the entire corporation scored the content of the report and the presentation. The overall grades were good.

Honka hits home

For many years, the name Honka has traditionally been associated with cosy log houses by blue lakes. Today Honka, an international company and the "world leader in log home production", exports wooden house structures all over the world. Their website can be read in 24 languages.

The 2004-2005 IDBM industry projects included the second collaborate project carried out with Honka. While the first Honka IDBM case study did not lead to direct commercial applications, the second one aimed for implementation. As usual, Honka kept silent of the details, which is understandable in the light of the ferocious international competition. All we were allowed to know was that the impressive outcome of the project would be an assessment tool, a new way to involve design with the Internet. Something quite extraordinary and new.

Eino Hekali, the Honka Development and Product Manager, does not hold back his praises. Not only was it an excellent student project, but it really seems to have succeeded even in the ultimate task: to change a company's vision of what design is capable of. "I always thought that design is basically giving form to things", says Hekali. "The fresh and creative ideas of the IDBM team made me think of design in a new way, as a problem solving strategy that can be applied in the business environment in many ways."

The team consisted of four students, Katja Sorvali from the University of Art and Design Helsinki, Laura Laaksonen and Mikko Lehtinen from The Helsinki University of Technology and Tiia Sormunen from The Helsinki School of Economics, with Mikko Koria and Markku Salimäki From HSE as the supervisors. The group worked mainly with Hekali and Eero Saarelainen from Honka for a full academic year.

"We did not know what to expect, so we did not expect anything", says Hekali. Honka gave the essential input by expressing clearly their needs, but at the same time giving the team free hand. This method of design and development is quite demanding for both the clients and the team involved, as it requires simultaneously an open mind and a clear overall aim. "The project was exploratory", says Koria, "and the working mode promoted the development of innovative thinking".

The IDBM Programme is about searching for new solutions and applications through a process that builds gradually on itself, something not often possible in the complex and fast moving business environment. The project turned out to be an extremely workable solution for Honka, since it provided new ideas on marketing, design and technology. Will the company consider another IDBM project? "If they take us", says Hekali, with a grin.

On the Regular

In August 2005 OnTheRegular Oy partnered with IDBM to develop a distributed e-commerce platform aimed at supporting new designers.

Our aim was to collect together the best local, new designers, wherever they are, and showcase them in one place. The solution had to address the designers’ needs and provide an easy way for them to market and sell their products to multiple locations with the minimum of hassle.

Right from the start it was a dynamic project where the objectives were constantly assessed and adjusted as the findings developed. The general brief was to determine the problems that would face young designers, and draw on each student’s background within Design, Business and Management to do this.

In the beginning the students focused mainly on familiarizing themselves with the boarder areas of e-commerce and young designers. After this the key areas that needed to be addressed were broken down into a series of assignments with concrete goals. The Students worked closely with the OnTheRegular team throughout the project, and used a variety of methods to complete their tasks. Some examples of the work are:

- Interviewing EU representatives to determine cross border legal issues

- Conducting group brainstorming sessions and analyzing the data

- Individual research into specialist areas

- Meeting and interviewing young, professional designers both in Helsinki and abroad

The end result has been a collection of information, built up throughout the year, that has shaped the way OnTheRegular.com will function and achieve it’s goal in supporting new designers.