Uponor delivers solutions and systems for housing and construction in Europe and North America. Their key products are radiant heating and service water systems for both residential and business construction. Uponor strives for smarter solutions through a deep-seated culture of innovation. They want to harness digital product development possibilities to craft innovative energy saving solutions and smart water systems that benefit both their customers and the environment.
UnSeen Labs is helping Uponor in their agile product development and work towards even higher quality products. Implementing technological innovations quickly into production gives Uponor a competitive advantage.
The challenge: A new development idea requires versatile expertise
Uponor’s development team conceived an idea on how to make installation work easier through technology. Their new method improves installation quality, reduces redundant labor, and helps keep buildings in good condition longer. Evaluating the business opportunities of the idea requires a tangible understanding on how the solution would work in practice.
Developing the solution requires versatile expertise on measuring technology, electronics, wireless connectivity, and software. The UnSeen Labs model helps gather the required experts from different fields quickly. This enables a swift start and keeps operations focused on the key questions.
Solution: From vision to agile development
The new idea is a far-reaching vision, and achieving it requires different kinds of development work. We first discussed the project’s long-term goals in the UnSeen Labs kick-off meeting.
To keep development work agile, we sketched out a development path from the starting point to the finishing line together and divided the journey into concrete steps. This enables the project team to prioritize research subjects into practical and doable work modules that keep risks to a minimum.
“I was positively surprised on how easy it was to work with the UnSeen crew. We had an idea, and the folks at Unseen had the ability to make it reality. Creating the Uponor prototype required expertise from multiple sectors: professionals of mechanics, sensor technologies, software and project management enabled us to develop the prototype quickly and cost-effectively. A big thank you to UnSeen! I’m looking forward to collaborating with you again on new products,” Uponor’s Product Development Manager Mika Savolainen says.
“Real-world testing always generates new findings that you cannot discover by just working at your desk. We encourage our customers to always take their ideas into practical testing quickly”, UnSeen’s CEO Esa Alanen says.
Results: Theory transformed into practice
The project resulted in a functional prototype of a completely new way for measuring installation quality. UnSeen Labs developed measuring equipment and software that enable saving and analyzing different parameters. Uponor can now easily determine how different factors affect the final installation and assess future business benefits of an entire project.
Next, the prototype is used for making systematic measurements and gathering data on how the finished product should be developed. The long-term goal is to create a solution with true customer benefits. The collaborative project generates results that make the next steps towards the final objective considerably easier.
”Coming up with new ideas and concepts is always immensely fun. With consummate professionals on both sides of the table, conversation is always fluid and new ideas tend to appear almost spontaneously. Having the patience to progress one step at a time keeps you focused on the essential aspects, and the big picture is easy to manage,” Esa Alanen says.
—————
Uponor tunnetaan yhtenä johtavista asumisen ja rakentamisen järjestelmätoimittajana. Päätuotteina ovat lattialämmitys- ja käyttövesijärjestelmät niin asuin- ja liikerakentamiseen kuin julkiseen rakentamiseenkin.
