The green transition is one of the biggest trends in industry. It steers manufacturers towards creating more sustainable, lower-emission products and services while also reducing their carbon footprint. For those working in industry, the green transition brings new opportunities to develop their expertise.
The European Green Deal aims to slow down climate change, prevent environmental pollution and make Europe climate neutral by 2050. It also aims to boost the economy, create sustainable industry and cut pollution.
The green transition programme affects the machine and automotive industries, for example. “The green transition is one of the biggest trends in industry that compels machine manufacturers to renew their products. We have strategic partnerships with several machine and vehicle manufacturers, and almost everything we do is related to the green transition in some way”, tells Harri Laukkanen, Director of Industrial Digitalisation at Gofore.
From the perspective of industry, one of the key goals is to promote climate neutrality through low-emission technologies and sustainable products and services. The new industrial strategy aims to help industrial companies reduce their carbon footprint.
“Our customers’ changes associated with the green transition concern not only the new, renewable energy sources of machines, but also their operational efficiency during work tasks. For example, so-called precision functions save energy, chemicals, working time and also improve the end customer’s business. The green transition also adds its own seasoning when it comes to data. For example, digital product passports require the combination of a lot of data from different sources”, Laukkanen says.
Future prosperity is built on the product inventions of today. Modern R&D combines software with the design process of physical devices into a seamless package.
Professional skills must be maintained continuously
Our software developer Emmi Oikkonen is working on a software update tool at Avant Tecno Oy. She has been involved in the development of remote software updates for battery control units in electrical machines.
“It may not be at the very core of the green transition, but it is an essential part of it. The green transition and electrification leads to more computer logic, which necessitates continuous software updates”, Oikkonen explains.
Antero Salojärvi, a product development engineer at Avant, is familiar with this phenomenon: “The amount of software in work machines has grown significantly as a result of electrification. For example, a traditional diesel engine has just one control unit and a monitor and both of them contain software. On the other hand, the new Avant e527 has six components that have software”.
Oikkonen emphasises the importance of traditional programming and software engineering expertise and keeping one’s skills up to date: “The important thing is to develop and expand your software skills. The green transition increases computerisation and, as a result, the techniques for creating software will also inevitably become more diverse”.
Our software specialist Miikka Ketonen is working at Avant to develop control systems for work machines using a model-based method. By developing control systems, he aims to improve the performance and energy consumption of the machines in close cooperation with Avant’s product development engineers.
“Modelling and simulation allow for faster development and testing. My previous studies and work experience in researching energy-efficient work machines have proven their worth in the current project”, Ketonen states.
“Software development has increased dramatically along with the need and opportunities for collecting data. The energy consumption of machinery attached to loaders must also be monitored more closely, as the efficient use of battery energy is more important when compared to diesel machines. As a result, further automation will be introduced to work machines”, Salojärvi tells.
Read more on the topic: Intelligent innovation drives the development of Avant Tecno’s green loaders