Engineering Rulez - A New R&D Project based on Simantics Technology Has Started

During the recent years we have seen how production has shifted from Europe to the cheaper labour coutries, starting with basic manufacturing but expanded towards high value production. It has been argued that by keeping the level of automation high in production we can slow down the movement. Same is also true with the engineering activities. Many Finnish and European companies are leading brokers in global plant engineering projects for large investments. In order to keep this position we need to raise the level of automation and quality in our plant engineering.

New R&D project called Engineering Rulez has started in Finland. The objectives of the project are two fold. On the one hand we will improve the plant engineering process efficiency and quality in order to ensure Finnish and European competitiveness in global process industry investment projects. On the other hand we will create a new engineering marketplace for platform economy. This marketplace will be based on open source Simantics platform and interfaces based on international standards. The plafrom is open for all enterprices especially small ones for developing their add-ons. These add-ons are targeted for automatization of the engineering activities, for making the information exchange process more automatic and for raising the quality of engineering. The work in project will be carried out using action research and development approach which means that the work is done in very close collaboration between participating companies and research partners. Project partners are Pöyry, Fortum, Outotec, Fennovoima, Prosys, Masinotek, Semantum, EQUA, PSK and Aalto University.