Customer Story: Ruukki
Towards transparency and process automation

Starting point

At the beginning of the cooperation, ProdLib provided Ruukki with Revit modelling. The Revit expertise of Janne Virtanen, a former Ruukki employee, was of course already recognised at Ruukki. As a former employee he knew the company's products, practices, and culture.

Pekka Roivio recalls the early days of the partnership with ProdLib: “It's been so long since we started, so it's hard to remember exactly how it happened. It all started when Janne left Ruukki," he says with a laugh. "The collaboration actually started with Pasi Turpeenniemi 15 years ago, on a panel portfolio, or was it facade cladding." Roivio adds, and continues:

"But to go back to the beginning, it was more like - Janne told us what we should do, and we said okay, let's do it."

Pekka Roivio continues by describing how, at the time, Ruukki's challenge was that the company did not understand the importance of digital product libraries: “In the early 1990s, 3D had arrived, and we considered it the biggest change in the design industry - but here we are, still discussing the same things. We are gradually moving towards our goal - standardisation is also finally moving forward and will inevitably speed development," he says.

He goes on to reflect: "In hindsight, we realise that at first we made things far too complicated for ourselves - partly because we were all civil engineers, focused only on numbers or the technical performance of materials. But the main goal was to create a way to speed up and improve the design of sandwich panels, or even automate it."

Janne Virtanen nods and remembers his early work on a sandwich panel project. Pekka Roivio says that in the early days, automation companies used Excel to transfer data from quotation and order processes to production. While methods and workflows have certainly evolved since then, not much else has changed:

"At the target level, however, there have been no major changes since those days. Our goal is still to get tenders from plans, turn them into orders and finally into products delivered to customers", Pekka Roivio sums up.

Project management by learning by doing

Creating new processes is notoriously time-consuming - new ways are not quickly adopted and learning from old ways is slow. Pekko Roivio admits that the journey of modelling has not been all roses for them either:

"Of course, there were bumps along the way for the first project. We had no idea ourselves of the importance of quality. On the other hand, the industry was also developing at an accelerating pace. In addition, design tools were evolving rapidly, information was not standardised and there were fewer procedures in place to manage change. "

He reflects and goes on to add, "I remember that the project took a long time to complete, partly because we learned by doing. We relied on ProdLib's services quite blindly, and we didn't have the development expertise on our side. In hindsight, it would have made sense to invest in that much earlier. At the same time, externally, we tried to speed up the normal work of our design team a bit, for example by bringing in Revit to support the existing tools, but it would probably have been wiser to develop the processes internally first. In short, this has been our development path."

Janne Virtanen nods and describes his memories, "I agree with the start; there was a real need for Revit components. There was also a need internally to create the project and get the façade cladding in there instead of the old method of Excel and AutoCAD. This was the basis for a product library, which was then published for external designers. It was written from a civil engineer's perspective and was perhaps too detailed for general design needs."

Pekka Roivio agrees and adds, "Yes. At that time, there were different paths of development between different areas without clear knowledge or portfolio management. Of course, we still need to develop the latter today, but the knowledge is still not transferring from PIM to BIM. Every change release will require a lot of work."

When a company makes changes, it is always a challenge to get information directly from the target groups, the users. Pekka Roivio says regretfully: "One of the other things we also failed to do was to collect country-specific user feedback. We did get information to support Tekla's development from Ruukki Building Systems' business, but their aim was to develop a Tekla environment that was completely closed to outsiders, and we more or less fell into that pit ourselves. When Ruukki Building Systems was then sold, we lost all this knowledge."

He continues: "But then Revit modelling started, Katarzyna came on board and we got the quality development work up to speed - today our capabilities are on a completely different level. “

On the one hand, he admits that the competences within the company are still not quite up to the level of being able to exploit all opportunities, but at least we are moving in the right direction compared to the 1990s. Nowadays, design tools talk to each other, and there is no similar battle for market share between manufacturers, and the desire for standardisation is at a completely different level.

Katarzyna Klepacz says she inherited her job from Pekka. She admits Pekka's words are true: "It all started from an internal need - we wanted to be more digital, we wanted to get information flowing, and now we are opening up to external users, which is our next step."

Three letters that revolutionised the way we work: BIM

Janne says that when he was still working at Ruukki, bringing up BIM was quite a challenge: “It was like fighting windmills. It was a topic that was on the table, but people were not yet ready to invest in it.”

Pekka Roivio says: "We started in the 90s with 3D modelling, which we thought was important at the time. 2D images were converted into 3D models and that was the 'cool' thing. Even developing this process took a really, really long time. The construction industry doesn't move very fast, and changes happen very slowly. When Janne first started talking about BIM models, everyone understood that it was a three-letter word, but that's all it was. Even as the term became more common, people didn't understand what it meant."

He pauses and continues: “Too difficult to conceptualise and too difficult to sell the idea on within the company. However, it was one of our biggest mistakes not to invest in product data management to be able to build services on a proper foundation and then move forward with BIM."

When it dawned on them, the new approach didn't convince everyone in the company.

Pekka describes: "The penetration of BIM in the company didn't happen overnight either. Especially in Sweden, people were initially very sceptical about it. However, after a couple of training sessions and a few successful customer projects, interest was sparked, and employees became BIM ambassadors. Eventually, customers also started to insist that they needed BIM models of our products. That was a real turning point, which also served as a wake-up call for the management, indicating that this was the last chance to start investing in this aspect as well. The same phenomenon should be repeated throughout the company."

Roivio continues, "At the moment, the biggest obstacle to development is the change in the value chain, which is not happening evenly for all actors in the value chain," he reflects.

"We provide very accurate and precise data very early in the process, which is usually only needed when the production phase starts. From our point of view, this is an excellent thing, and it is not easy to change it. However, it creates inequalities for the parties in the value chain. Some fear this transparency, i.e. early commitment. If the designer designs with our products, as we want, the contractor may easily think it is out of his pocket. But I see this change happening gradually anyway," he concludes.

Model development: from detailed to simple and functional

In the development of Ruukki's product libraries, change has required reflection. Katarzyna Klepacz highlights how cooperation between companies is based on a common understanding of what to focus on in the future, i.e., knowledge rather than geometry. She emphasises:

"Designers don't need superfine models of steel that contain all the information, but models that contain the right settings and enough information. This is a simple invention that we have developed - we took the next step and moved from individually placed models with highly complex geometric information to a way of designing bespoke, complete facades with just a few clicks. And this is just the first of many steps to come, opening up a whole range of new development opportunities."

She admits that with some of the previous library versions, they may have previously focused too much on what they at Ruukki want from them. This was a step in the wrong direction, but their knowledge of BIM was not extensive enough at the time. She stresses:

"In the future, we are aiming for both simpler tools and more usable content for a large external audience. Naturally, the new libraries will also benefit us internally, as they will be more user-friendly than before."

While we know there is still a lot of work to be done, Katarzyna Klepacz continues:

"Working with ProdLib is exactly what anyone would hope for. Even when going about our daily work, going over and over the rather monotonous details, we find time to think about new solutions, improving our visibility, and how we can better share our product portfolios."

The future: networking, collaboration, and smart solutions

Over the years, the cooperation between Ruukki and ProdLib has become so close that you don't always remember that the others work for a different company. Janne's comment about how the partners don't really feel like customers, even though ProdLib invoices them from time to time, makes everyone at Ruukki smile. For Janne, cooperation means more about working together in the same direction.

As with all situations of change, this one has not been entirely without turbulence. Janne Virtanen knows that Pekka Roivio has more than once had to justify his views within the company about why ProdLib is better than another company. Janne Virtanen emphasizes how important it is for ProdLib to showcase that it has been a profitable investment.

Pekka Roivio: "We acquired services and solutions that we didn't have in-house - I don't think it makes sense to commit resources to something you should control and manage 100%. "

He continues, "I don't think size matters in modelling, as we have seen in practice. Yes, this battle has largely been won, and your company is starting to have critical mass and credits. The only thing that could create risk is not evolving and not being hungry enough to look for new things and invest in the future. We would love to develop with you and be the first to adopt new activities and provide new solutions for our stakeholders. We should perhaps focus even more on the digitalisation of the value chain and on architects, designers, and specifiers in the future.”

Katarzyna Klepacz expresses her own position: “In my view, solving the problem of automation in libraries in the future is very important. ProdLib is making great progress in this area as well. You also have a relatively good sense of future trends. We have seen many companies following in your footsteps, doing things like making additions directly in the design software, for example. You are also developing tools that are easy to use - this ability to understand and interpret customer needs is a major advantage for you. The future looks very promising if our development projects continue at the same pace as last year."

Janne Virtanen: "Automation will become more important for all manufacturers in the future. The construction industry has not been the fastest to change, but in the future changes will happen faster, new products and opportunities. We need the know-how to handle this data."

He goes on to say that the future developments in BIM are particularly interesting and considers how this could be exploited for property management in the building's lifecycle.

Pekka Roivio says: "First of all, we should identify these customers - those who would benefit most from these solutions are not our closest customers. This offers a lot of options, so we need to think about whether we should start new businesses, hire new competences or think about new business models."

Janne Virtanen recalls that Ruukki has already had interesting solutions to support property maintenance, such as the Smart Roof, which uses sensors to determine the snow load on roofs. Pekka Roivio agrees and says that although the solution is not currently part of their product portfolio, it could be a starting point that could be taken forward together. Another option would then be to look at panel maintenance monitoring solutions.

Janne Virtanen presents solutions that the company has recently come across: "Nowadays, even the most common things are being developed into different Smart City versions, like Smart Waste management including solar-powered waste collection units for public environment, which use automatic emptying calls. It also requires less emptying because of the compression. A simple, but a brilliant idea!”

He finds another example - of an apartment house cluster mailbox system, where changing the name and carrying out various booking operations is fully digital, making life easier for the property manager but also for the habitant. Inspiring products get Janne Virtanen's mind rolling: "Changes like this are happening all the time, and Ruukki would have opportunities to develop similar ones."

Katarzyna Klepacz: "These examples prove that digitalisation is happening everywhere. Smart starts with simple."

Janne Virtanen: "Yes, nowadays different kinds of business partnerships are also becoming more common. That's also what we aim for with our annual ProdLab customer events: to bring partners and thinking together."

Katarzyna Klepacz smiles at Janne's enthusiasm: "This open sharing isn´t so common yet, I think, but BIM supports this thinking - it's about sharing information, sharing files, sharing basically everything. So, what we need to do, is to open a bit. It is important to work together - to have the same mindset and understanding - and this is especially true when you are developing something together. Otherwise, results will not be achieved, or development will not go in the right direction. Working with ProdLib is motivating, idea-rich - like a snowball effect but in a positive way", Katarzyna laughs. “BIM is more important than ever, and we want to support our external users in this,” she sums up.