Stara and Infrakit Group Oy Cooperating to Accelerate Digitalisation and Improve Turnaround Times in Infrastructure Construction

PRESS RELEASE

7 August 2020, Espoo

Helsinki City Construction Services (Stara) and Infrakit Group Oy have signed a cooperation agreement to speed up street construction projects and improve construction data management. The project focuses on high-quality construction, which will be realised by better management and availability of data at various work stages. At the same time, Stara and Infrakit Group will create a culture for digitalising the construction industry. The project will also seek to establish scalable operating models that can be used in other projects. Together, the parties are determined to demonstrate the benefits of data modelling and digitalisation in an actual construction process.

Aalto University’s ‘Toimivat katuhankkeet’ (“Successful Roadworks”) research project and its final report (Olli Seppänen, Antti Peltokorpi, Seppo Junnila and Liisa Mustonen, 2019) studied how roadwork projects are currently implemented. The project focused on minimising the inconvenience caused by roadwork, by reducing turnaround times. The results suggested that challenges in the implementation of roadwork are specifically related to scheduling, data management and logistics. There was also room for improvement in cooperation, information flows and the real-time situation of construction sites. The project summary stresses that sufficient resources should be allocated to the design phase, particularly pilot projects. In the longer term, new technologies should also be adopted. Mapping background data systematically and taking the entire construction process into account will also make roadwork projects more fluent. Other key points included the monitoring of construction site progress in real time and presenting the situation systematically. (Olli Seppänen, Antti Peltokorpi, Seppo Junnila and Liisa Mustonen, 2019).

Founded in 2010, Infrakit Group Oy operates a cloud service that can be used to store all digital plans and outturn data of infrastructure projects. The idea for such a platform stemmed from a study on construction automation conducted at the University of Oulu. Even then, research had found that inefficient and rigid communication hindered construction projects. Infrakit can minimise both the majority of construction delays and errors caused by lack of communication. Aside from improving information management, Infrakit Group stresses sustainable development in the construction industry. For example, emissions created during construction can be reduced through optimisation and streamlining. Data stored on the Infrakit platform can be utilised to save resources: time, expenses and materials.

Helsinki City Construction Services (Stara) provides urban construction, management and logistics services for the City. Stara has years of experience in the construction, care and maintenance of streets and parks. Stara also builds and maintains premises owned by the City, such as schools and daycare centres. In addition, Stara maintains Helsinki’s natural environments, urban forests and coastal waters.

Hannu Halkola, Director of the Infrastructure Construction and Consulting Division at Stara, comments on the cooperation as follows: “We have tried a number of other systems, but Infrakit is by far the best. Infrakit is the complete package, and a good partner for us.”

Ilkka Tieaho, VP of BIM Services at Infrakit, summarises the goals of their cooperation in the following words: “Infrakit offers support for the product, services and deployment, all in a single package. Our job is to help our customers to be successful with the assistance of our platform and experts. Stara started this project, and we are now delivering all the support that we promised, at each and every stage of the project. We are helping Stara to implement the results of the ‘Toimivat katuhankkeet’ project, and will focus on any challenges that arise.”

Contact details

Janne Paitsola, General Manager Finland, Infrakit Group Oy, janne.paitsola@infrakit.com, +358 40 774 8506

Ilkka Tieaho, VP, BIM Services, Infrakit Group Oy Finland, ilkka.tieaho@infrakit.com, +358 40 6758488

Hannu Halkola, Director of the Infrastructure Construction and Consulting Division at Stara, hannu.halkola@hel.fi, +358 50 0427730