Hannu Varjoranta joins the Infrakit team

Hi, my name is Hannu. I have recently joined the Infrakit team as a Lead Scalability Engineer. My previous job was with Spotify in Stockholm where I worked for almost seven years, focusing on databases and general scalability of the Spotify platform. As we are returning to Finland with my family, I was happy to find such a great fit from Infrakit.

Watching our baby daughter grow has made me conscious of the environmental challenges we face in the future, and Infrakit’s mission on making the infra construction industry sustainable convinced me on my decision to join the company. Everyone on the team has positive professional attitude and one of our values is taking care of each other. What a great setup!

I have a Master’s degree on Computer Sciences from TKK (now Aalto University), and I started my engineering career early 2000 working at F-Secure and running my own small consulting business on the side. I have 20 years of experience from many different aspects of software engineering, working on smaller startup doing everything one can imagine when short on staff, and also having exposure to very large systems with demanding uptime requirements and large internal and external user groups.

For example, at Spotify I was maintaining the now decommisioned Hadoop cluster that was for a short while the largest Hadoop installation in Europe with around 2500 servers, and later on helped moving the data processing workflows to the cloud. My deepest specialty lies on (OLAP/OLTP) databases, large scale processing and making things scale.

At Infrakit I will be looking after the backend systems, making sure we scale as we improve and grow our platform globally. Happy to be at your service!

Infrakit in a Pilot Collaboration with Estonia’s Road Administration

Infrakit is in use in many different infra projects around the world. We operate in nine different countries: Finland, Estonia, Sweden, Norway, BeNeLux countries, Germany, France, Australia, and Serbia. Usually BIM projects are started by piloting Infrakit to see how it works and can be used.

Picture from Road nr 25 Mäeküla, Estonia – project construction works, picture taken by Mikk Mutso, the site supervisor Esprii OÜ

For a great example of our pilot projects, Infrakit Estonia’s Country Manager Ingmar Aija has worked with Estonia’s Road Administration, and he had the privilege of talking with Estonian Road Administration’s Project Manager Erko Puusaag.

Here is how Puusaag describes piloting Infrakit in their recent infra project:

“The first two years of piloting have been completed and we will take the next step and create common technical requirements for the design and construction of BIM projects; we can rely on the experience of both ourselves and other pilots (Tallin Harbor, Rail Baltica)”. Puusaag continues, that specialists from all regions of the Road Administration as well as the Centre are involved in the preparation of the requirements, working as a unified team. Cooperation between private and public sector continues in developing BIM requirement for procurements. An action plan is under construction on implementing BIM requirement in ERA ordered projects.

As for the Estonian Road Administration, “Infrakit has been one of the important tools used by the Road Administration to discover the world of BIM.” Puusaag sums up the piloting project.

“Infrakit has been one of the important tools used by the Road Administration to discover the world of BIM.”

Aija sees many opportunities implementing Infrakit in the Estonian infra construction business. Printing cross-sections on paper, measuring slopes manually and storing photos hectically without geolocalization in folders is not a very modern and lean way to work nowadays.

Video of Infrakit

Changing processes takes time, we know! Infrakit has solved most of the infra-construction data-flow pain points and Aija just mentioned some of those. Proper tools are ready to work with and so are we at Infrakit team to help you to gain most out of it!

Infrakit’s Mission is a Sustainable Infra Industry

Summer of 2018 in Finland was unheard of – and alarming. With high temperatures over 30 degrees Celsius for weeks and weeks, the effects of global warming were becoming painfully apparent. My co-founder Matti and myself were spending time at my parent’s summer house in Sipoo enjoying our well-earned summer vacation. We had succeeded in getting Infrakit off the ground, we had surpassed the first million euros in yearly revenue. Some could say we had “made it”. Despite our success and the blooming nature around us, our mood was gloomy. Global temperature and CO2 emissions were increasing each year and world leaders seemed incapable of solving or even mitigating the impending doom of climate change the world is facing. We both have kids and fear for the world we are leaving for them. We felt helpless.

It was during that day that it dawned on us – we can make a difference. We must. We figured that as business leaders we have a leverage – and a responsibility.

As we have started to look more closely on the matter, we have realized that Infrakit is in a pivotal position to enable a sustainable infra industry, not only on an ecological, but also on societal and personal levels.

DCS Finland – Teemu Kivimäki

Infrakit works for a sustainable infra industry on three levels.

Firstly, on ecological level Infrakit reduces waste in the construction process – waste means errors and downtime. This means emissions and lost money. With Infrakit, the emissions impact of machinery and materials of the projects can be measured. What can be measured can be optimized, and finally eliminated – our ultimate goal is a zero-emission infra industry.

Secondly, on societal level Infrakit enables societies to effectively build and maintain their infrastructure, in addition to increasing transparency.

Last but not least, on personal level Infrakit enabled people working on this industry to gain control over their complex projects and gives them a peace of mind when their project is running smoothly.

I invite you dear reader to join us in our mission to make this industry sustainable, we can do it together!

What is meant by BIM? Thoughts for students and all BIM experts from our Infrakit Belgium, Netherlands and Luxemburg’s Country Manager Tiny Nuiten

As an active party in the world of InfraBIM in the BeNeLux, we often get the question: “what do you mean by BIM?” And that is quite a good question, because I often ask our customers. The abbreviation BIM has a number of different definitions and meanings. For example, I recently heard a few explanations for the abbreviation. I think Building Information Modeling and Building Information Management are the two we’ve all heard before.

Tiny Nuiten, General Manager, Infrakit Belgium, Netherlands and Luxemburg
Still, during the InfraBIM Open conference in Tampere, Finland, I heard some new ones: ‘Bad Information Management’, ‘Better Information Management’ and ‘Best Information Management’. For us at Infrakit these are the definitions we are working on, every day.

Now it is not the case that nobody thinks about this, on the contrary, entire teams are even being set up to see how they can best deal with all that data. Because it is quite a lot, from design to implementation and back. We are not only talking about 3d design files, but also about documents, photos, as built data, logistics files, asset management, approval cycles, reports, machine control files, but also about the link with external platforms that use the data in their own way. In short, everyone has their own definition, modeling and structure.

As InfraBIM experts, our goal is always to turn BAD Information management into BEST Information management, and we cannot do this alone.

As InfraBIM experts, our goal is always to turn BAD Information management into BEST Information management, and we cannot do this alone. Although our products play a central role in the overall process, we are left empty-handed without the necessary good files supplied. So InfraBIM is not something that one party can complete on its own, not even Infrakit.

Close cooperation between all parties involved is therefore essential for the success of a “BEST information Management” system. As Infrakit we do not dare say otherwise, we constantly talk to all possible suppliers and buyers (with a beautiful word stakeholders) of certain information to be able to tell in real time what the latest situation is.

These links ensure that the entire information flow is available in the right place at the right time, in the right version. We like to call this a “tool chain”. A good ‘tool chain’ is a chain of applications that all apply their own expertise to the same data set and as befits a ‘chain’, which is as strong as the weakest link.

Look, that ‘tool chain’ is of course important, we all realize that, but more importantly are the people who now learn and think about it in their studies and at work. People who are going to form and set the direction in the near or distant future. Information flows in the (sometimes confusing) world of BIM in general and that of InfraBIM in particular.

That is why it is so important for us to contribute to education where we can, to facilitate, support, inform, but also to hear everyone’s input and implement it where possible. That is the task that we constantly keep in mind, and adapt to the changing circumstances, the new ideas, the new insights and ensure that students and people already working in infra construction continue to play that central role. Your input, now or in the future, is of great importance.

Because together with you, all BIM experts out there, we can change the definition of BIM, be it Modeling or Management, as long as we can turn ‘BAD’ into ‘BEST’.

Because together with you, all BIM experts out there, we can change the definition of BIM, be it Modeling or Management, as long as we can turn ‘BAD’ into ‘BEST’. Everyone involved will be much happier.