Ari Happonen

Accuracy and time to first fix using consumer-grade GPS receivers

The primary objectives in this study were to measure time to first fix values and analyze the accuracy of the first fix coordinates of consumer-grade GPS receivers. Three different test surroundings were selected: the open sky, semi-urban and urban environments, which were tested with three GPS receivers. In addition, assisted GPS performance and the effect of A-GPS on the TTFF was tested with two different receivers. The accuracy of the first fix and time to first fix was determined by the results of these measurements. Based on the results, the impact of the surroundings and devices on position accuracy and start-up times was determined. In start-up times without assisting no remarkable differences were observed between GPS receivers. However, the observed accuracy of the first fix between the most and least accurate receiver was significant.

Evaluation of Different Monitoring Methods of Laser Additive Manufacturing of Stainless Steel

Different monitoring methods for the laser additive manufacturing process were studied in this study. Possibilities and downfalls of three different methods were compared to each other to define their applicability in future on-line and adaptive monitoring use in LAM processes. The material used on all the LAM process tests was EOS StainlessSteel PH1 in fine powder form. In this study, e.g. parameters like scanning speed, layer thickness and hatch space were tested. Based on the results of this study, the pyrometer seems to be more easily adaptable to continuous monitoring than the spectrometer or systems based on active illumination imaging system. It seems that the pyrometer is a promising method for quality control. The ability to control quality through on-line measurements can be further utilized in future e.g. for on-line quality control and dynamic process control, i.e. the ability to change and correct parameters on the fly.

Best collaboration practices in supply chain of technical wholesale items

This study focuses on collaboration in the supply chain of technical wholesale items in the Finnish machinery industry. The research aims to explore the collaborative best practices to improve the future performance of this supply chain. In the current state, all the technical wholesale items are usually managed with the same management model, although there can be remarkable differences in demand behaviour and criticality among the items. Therefore, the item segmentation and management model for different segments are needed in the future. The collaborative effort should be focused on demand management and proactive exception management especially concerning critical items with unstable demand. Furthermore, there is development potential in the order-delivery process applied in the studied supply chain. Currently, a lack of cost knowledge and transparency makes the optimisation of this process difficult.

Formalisation of front end innovation in supply network collaboration

The research examined the formalisation of front end innovation (FEI) activity in the supply networks of the Finnish machinery industry. The goal of the study is to recognise formalisation practices of FEI activity in the studied environment by best practice benchmarking approach. Research data was collected from ten supply chains with the help of theme interviews and workshops. A formalisation framework was utilised to analyse and structure research data. The recognised formalisation practices were either very new or only in the idea/planning stage in the studied supply chains, as a result there was little empirical data available of their practical influences. Although these limitations, the research recognised numerous formalisation practices in different sub-sectors that could support FEI management and collaboration in the future, which can serve as potential future operations models in the studied supply chains.

Radio identification in construction industry case: Tagging hollow steel beams

This paper covers the results of a practical study on applicability of passive UHF RFID tags for the needs of construction industry. This research is a response to a need to map and evaluate available solutions for RFID-based identification of particular construction elements, hollow welded steel beams. We present a comparison of performance of five different commercial RFID tags. The performance of each tag is evaluated based on the results of the tests and compared to the given specifications. The results indicate that there are significant differences on performance and read range between various tags. It is shown that the exterior dimensions of the tags do not always relate to the tag performance and read range. The performance is also dependent on the proper use case, which states that careful evaluation process is recommended to be performed for each application to achieve optimal performance. Since the optimal tag for each use case may vary, the compatibility between the tags and RFID-solutions is a highly important issue for the companies in supply chain and is to be considered to minimize the investments for the supporting infrastructure and equipment.

Hackathons in software engineering education: lessons learned from a decade of events

Hackathons are currently a hot topic in industrial learning settings. Like intensive collaborative courses (e.g. code camps), hackathons have been shown to be successful tools for learning. However, current research has failed to adequately compare the two approaches with respect to who benefits, which stakeholders are involved, and what the practical arrangement differences are. We used a literature review, our own multi-year learning experiences, and written and interview material from students and industry participants to present an overview of hackathons and code camps. Based on the results of our analysis, we present a taxonomy, based on our experiences, to help practitioners decide which kind of intensive event approach is suitable for them, depending on their industry and educational needs. This synthesis and the study results provide the first steps towards a functional definition that covers intensive collaborative working events involving real-life problems, such as code camps, hackathons, and 24-hour innovation workshops. Currently, the terminology is diverse, but there are commonalities and differences across each of these events and their purposes.

What Should Application Developers Understand about Mobile Phone Position Data

The paper presents a study of GPS location data provided by smartphones for the purpose of understanding what kind of physical location based issues software developers should consider while designing position aware applications. The study consists of a set of experiments, where GPS data provided by smartphones is evaluated in different setups, differentiated from each other based on signal reception environments. From the experiments, we deduct and present guidelines for the developers.

Fleet Service Generation—Challenges in Corporate Asset Management

Product manufacturers often have access to information concerning maintenance and operation of their products in customer sites. By analysing data from wider product installation base, manufacturers would be able to have a better understanding of their product’s life cycle, than any asset owner. Also this extensive body of information that is available to the manufacturer could help in finding out critical development needs. Thus product manufacturers could support asset owners and end-users by providing knowledge based fleet level services for decision making related e.g. to maintenance and operations tasks. In practise development and provision of knowledge intensive fleet services by product manufacturer is not that straightforward. There are e.g. technical and ownership related barriers on data transfer which may retard development of fleet data based services. In the paper we will discuss from the different point of views current barriers and opportunities of knowledge intensive fleet services supporting end-users’ asset management processes focusing on corporate level of companies.

Applying Social Media in Collaborative Brainstorming and Creation of Common Understanding Between Independent Organizations

This report is based on an experiment performed within the Johto (Innovative management of the supplier network and ICT systems) and Kiima (New business by strategic SME network) research projects funded by Tekes (the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation). The experiment looked into the suitability of social media for content production and brainstorming work between organizations. According to Knight et al. (2008), the groups using web tools have showed an improvement in cohesion, but not as great an improvement as that found in face to face groups. They however suggest that web tools are valuable options to organizations that pursue benefits through virtual groups. The organizations which participated in the experiment were research institutes/ niversities, consultants, service providers, and industrial companies. Almost all of these participants had some kind of linkage to the machinery industry. However, most of the participated organizations did not have any mutual business connections in the real world, but quite many of them knew each other through above-mentioned Tekes projects. In practice, we were dealing with an open innovation environment, which refers to a model of innovation in which firms draw on research and development that lies outside their own boundaries (Chesbrough, 2003). There were very heterogeneous group of organizations and people in this experiment. Grinyer (2000) writes that heterogeneous group (different personality types, backgrounds, training and education) can have positive effect on creativity and innovativeness. Furthermore, informal communication (such as social media mainly is) is considered to be one major factor to stimulate creativity in teams (Sundgren et al., 2005). As such, an aim of our study was to explore social media from the creativity (brainstorming) view of point in the independent company network. The topic in the social media experiment was: “how to manage an idea process” (stages of the process, performance indicators, and incentives). The chosen topic was a new issue for many of the participant organizations, which is why a research oriented (exploratory) approach, seemed to be a good starting point for the experiment. In research network, the primary target of collaboration is the creation of new knowledge, while the research activities are carried out by every partner without a leading company (Magnusson and Nilsson, 2003). The experiment was performed during a two week period in the autumn 2010 and the web-based Yammer service (www.yammer.com) was used as a tool.

New concepts for demand-supply chain synchronisation

This paper examines demand-supply chain synchronisation within demand and supply uncertainty and increased speed requirements. The best-known synchronisation concept, the Value Offering Point – Order Penetration Point, seems to have some limitations in this kind of environment. First, the concept focuses on certain demand information and ignores the utilisation of uncertain demand information and the possibilities and risks related to it. Secondly, the concept does not take into account supply information and its utilisation. Due to these limitations, two new synchronisation concepts were created: the Demand Visibility Point – Demand Penetration Point and the Supply Visibility Point – Supply Information Penetration Point.