Who are you?
Jari Ikonen, industrial designer, Aitomuotoilu Oy.

What is your company specialized in?
Aitomuotoilu Oy is providing industrial design services. We are specialized in small space design, particularly when a small space needs to function perfectly. Our experience, customer-centric approach, and creativity make us an excellent partner in designing small spaces. The usability and functionality of small spaces are crucial. We offer design solutions that take into account usability, manufacturability, and aesthetic optimization, considering the specific usage requirements. Modular solutions and multifunctional furniture are standard solutions for our designs in boat, lightweight construction, and other small space solutions.

Tell us about your clients and other key shareholders or partners?
Our clients have mainly been small businesses from various industries. Client projects have been executed both directly for individual clients and as part of a larger design team.

What services or products do you offer to other YardMate members?
Product concepts and other industrial design services. Product conceptualization is our primary area of expertise. Conceptualization allows for a preliminary assessment of future costs and the likelihood of success in the product development process. The process begins with defining the relevant aspects of the product. We establish the framework for the product and determine what the customer and end-user truly need. Through 3D modeling, we gain a comprehensive view of the product and consider future manufacturing and logistical challenges. 3D modeling also enables us to examine ergonomic aspects.

What are your expectations for YardMate?
As a small player, our goal is to expand client projects into larger deliveries and to network.

What are your future needs regarding personnel?
As projects expand, we require not only core expertise in industrial design but also proficiency in digital solutions and traditional sales and marketing resources. With the increasing presence of technological innovations, expertise in virtual reality, augmented reality, and artificial intelligence is also necessary.

Anything else you wish to say to us?
We hope to find our own place in the network for YardMate’s upcoming projects.

YardMate’s CEO Kari Härkönen launches a new 360 degree game innovation together with the inventor, director-writer Janne Nykänen. The game can be played in 3D virtual environment where REAL actors arrange scenes and players can follow the act in 360 environment having VR glasses on. The script contains a murder and players having small teams will compete who finds out the murderer.

The game can be run in any place or negotiation room where people are having minimum 1 square meter space to move. That’s why it is also a killer application for all the cruice lines wondering cost-effective & ecologic services for their passengers.

The game session is launched publicly on Saturday 29th, April in Movie theater KINOMA (www.kinoma.fi) owned by Kari Härkönen. After that it is available for corporate and private sales via Kari’s film company.

NOTE: All the YardMate Members gets special discount from the game session!

Read the article in Finnish in Aamuposti

or see the whole article HERE in picture!

See the Murder Mystery movie trailer!

YardMate’s CEO is a regular writer in the editorial page of Turun Sanomat. As a cognitive scientist and personnel analyst one of his areas of investigation is decision making taxonomies. In this article Kari writes about the flaws of current parliamentary election system. He also introduces a model that would fix the most of the disadvantages in the current system – an election system that reflects the people’s opinion better. Read the article (in Finnish) in Turun Sanomat:

Who are you?
My name is Tomi Ojanen. I am working at Notra as sales director.

What is your company specialized in?
Notra specializes in industrial maintenance and various projects. Our slogan is “sell your worries to us”. We work in ports, the food industry and various factory conditions, for example. Notra`s expertise is very comprehensive. We have experts in automation, crane maintenance, property technology, equipment maintenance and in the food industry.

Notra crane maintenance in operation.

Tell us about your clients and other key shareholders or partners?
We have a wide customer base. Our customers are mainly located in Satakunta. For example we work at HKScan, the port of Rauma and Kokkola and also at Kongsberg. We are a privately owned  company. Notra has a lot of partner companies ranging from a construction company to a machining company.

What services or products do you offer to other YardMate members?
We offer all our know-how and professionalism to YardMate partners. We succeed in industrial consulting, as well as various modernizations and maintenance services. Our expertise is really extensive and ranges from automation, robotics and equipment modernization to crane maintenance. We are a full-service maintenance house, and then our expertise is in line with that. I hope we will be contacted at the lowest possible threshold.

What are your expectations for YardMate?
I look forward to networking with different people and sharing expertise with each other. I hope that through this I will find reliable partners, leading to a mutually beneficial relationship. As a result, the business of both would develop.

What are your future needs regarding personnel?
We need a lot of experts in the field. In particular, we need crane installers, electrical automation installers and mechanical maintenance installers.

What are your future needs regarding sub-contractors and partners?
We are looking for partners and subcontractors with whom we can grow and develop our business.

Who are you?
Kimmo Haverinen, area manager in Insinööritoimisto Varsinais-Suomen Kalliotekniikka Oy which is a member in quickly growing Solwers Group

Kimmo in the middle

What is your company specialized in?
We are vibrations experts – vibrations from different sources (rock blasting, pile driving heavy traffic etc.)  and their effects on surrounding buildings, structures and vibration sensitive devices (any kind) – we are securing the peace between a construction site and its neighbors.

Vibration measurement ongoing.

Tell us about your clients and other key shareholders or partners?
Our clients are mostly construction contractors or developers.

Kakola jailhouse construction in Turku, Finland.

What services or products do you offer to other YardMate members?
In any construction project including rock blasting or pile driving: pre-blast inspections, vibration monitoring and consulting, noise monitoring (any kind), noise modelling.

What are your expectations for YardMate?
I hope to grow my network.

What are your future needs regarding personnel?
We are growing slowly, I hope to have 1-2 new workers in next 2 years. Engineers.

What are your future needs regarding sub-contractors and partners?
Sub-contractors: no need, partners with expertise in some environmental monitoring is always interesting.

Read Tekniikka ja Talous article (in Finnish) about how YardMate has managed to open doors to subcontractors. Industry field is from marine to aviation and everything in between. Here’s the original article in Tekniika ja Talous (requires registeration).

Who are you?
My name is Reijo Markku, industrial designer and working as managing director at Design Reform Oy, which I founded 33 years ago.

What is your company specialized in?
Our roots are in industrial design but over our 30 years of existence we have expanded our services from brand design to dynamic marketing and training tools. In our slogan, we give a service promise that we `Design for success`. It often means strategic long-term collaboration, and understanding of broad design thinking. On the other hand, if our customer’s success depend on one missing design piece, we can solve this one problem with our expertise.

Tell us about your clients and other key shareholders or partners?
We have a wide customer base from both the public sector and the corporate world. On the public side, I could mention Helsinki and Lappeenranta. In the sector of business-side clients, we have focused on the engineering companies that are either already established their position in the international market, such as Metso, Outotec, Kone, Raute and Valmet. Or our customers are strongly on their way to international success such as Flowrox, Picosun and Mobidiag.

What services or products do you offer to other YardMate members?
Naturally, we offer YardMate companies our full range of services, from industrial design to brand design and brand management. We also have strong expertise in dynamic visualizations on the industrial 2d and 3d-field and Virtual Reality. Often, it is just world-class visualizations that open the eyes of the clients. We’ve also offer Virtual Reality content productions, which right now seems to be more and more demanded in market. The Virtual Showroom concept we developed during corona is a recommended tool for remote communication for any company that wants to stand out from its competitors, look to the future and do successful business.

What are your expectations for YardMate?
It would be great to work in shipyard sectors and to develop the industry and YardMate companies towards more and more international success. The dream would also be to be part of some great multidisciplinary development project where you could meet YardMate’s big and small businesses and tranfer the network expertise in order to create commercial product or service.

What are your future needs regarding personnel?
We are a small and vibrand design agency, but also ready to grow especially in that Virtual Reality sector. We are looking for marketing and sales professionals who really understand what our customers expect out of our expertise. On the other hand, if and when the Virtual Reality boom heats up, we also need creative VR designers.

What are your future needs regarding sub-contractors and partners?
We are constantly looking for reliable and creative subcontractors for our network who are ready to take on challenges and solve them. Who knows, if we can find subcontractors or even partners inside YardMate. We keep all doors open.

Anything else you wish to say to us?
I really hope that YardMate could become a major commercial player, able to harness the right team for each project from its professional network.

The links for the videos of these pictures:

Outotec animation

Raute virtual showroom

Picosun virtual showroom

Ships are still to be built in Finland and sub contractor network is running with almost the full power even if the pandemic has hit hard to many industry fields. Tekniikka & Talous interviewed our CEO Kari Härkönen amongst the COO of Rauma Marine Construction (Ville Laaksonen) and Senior Researcher Tapio Karvonen from University of Turku. Read the whole article here (in Finnish).

COO of Rauma Marine Construction Ville Laaksonen
in Tekniikka & Talous

YardMate’s member Finno Exergy Oy has won the main prize of 100 000 € in The New Energy Challenge competition organized by Shell. YardMate is a consortium providing sub-contractors, resources and innovations for the industry. YardMate’s main fields of operation are the marine and aviation industry, however their products do serve other industry fields as well. Together with Finno Exergy YardMate is creating a new wave of cost-efficient and energy-saving environmental engine solutions for ships and aeroplanes.

Tekniikka & Talous (in Finnish): Öljyjätti Shell palkitsi suomalaisyrityksen keksinnön

Read the original article: Winners New Energy Challenge 2020 announced

See video about -20% fuel consumption and CO2 emission: Finno Exergy’s video

Suomeksi | In Finnish:
YardMaten jäsenyritys Finno Exergy Oy voitti arvostetun kansainvälisen energiainnovaationkilpailun The New Energy Challengen,  jonka pääjärjestäjänä toimii Shell. Pääpalkintona oli 100 000 €. YardMate on konsortio, joka tuottaa teollisuuteen alihankkijoita, resursseja ja uusia innovaatioita. YardMaten päätoimialat ovat meriteollisuus ja ilmailu, mutta sen tuotteet ja alihankkijat palvelevat myös perinteistä teollisuutta. Yhdessä Finno Exergyn kanssa YardMate on luomassa täysin uutta linjaa meriteollisuuden ja ilmailualan energiatehokkaisiin ympäristöä säästäviin moottoriratkaisuihin.

As a member of YardMate, Sokos Hotels has offered all its fellow members in YardMate network preferential deals for the past two years. The benefit has been very welcome and members have enjoyed reduced rates for accommodation as well as flexible service regarding bookings during holiday periods. See the whole story behind Sokos Hotel member benefits.

To get the same discount and other YardMate member benefits, place your application via Apply for Memembership.