Tekla Magazine 2011

for Infrastructure & Energy industries

2011

Tekla Magazine

A time of change PAGE 3

I would like to give feedback Interactive customer communications with Tekla Feedback PAGES 4-5

When everyone can be an electricity producer PAGE 10

2> Tekla Magazine 2011

Editorial staffNatasa Anttila-Rautio (Editor-in-chief), Elina Hollo, Virve Juhola, Tea Numerla, Sari Putkonen, Joonas Vartiainen, Henna Viinamäki

LayoutTekla Corporation, Terhi Wallin

PressErweko Painotuote Oy

Tekla Magazine is Tekla Corporation’s customer publication for energy distribution, public administration, civil engineering and water utilities. In addition to Tekla Magazine in English, Tekla publishes Tekla Suunta customer magazine in Finnish (www.tekla.com/suunta).

You can make orders and changes in subscriptions at www.tekla.com/tekla-magazine

A time of changeI would like to give feedbackThree perspectives on our renewed solutionsThe design of infrastructure and engineering structures meet in a model environmentKnow your terminologyWhen everyone can be an electricity producerGoing Underground?Fortum strengthens electricity distribution network planningStreetlights of Tampere free of maintenance problemsLinköping has found new ways to utilize Tekla SolutionLocal & GlobalTekla became part of Trimble GroupAbout Tekla Corporation

PublisherTekla CorporationP.O. Box 102131 Espoo, FinlandTel. +358 30 661 10

Contents

4 86

34689

1011121213141718

3

EDITORIAL

The first months of 2011 represented one of the most eventful periods in Tekla’s long history. At the beginning of the year, we renewed the commercial structure and names of our software solutions for infrastructure and energy industries.* The renewal was done in order to enhance our offering for new custom-ers and customer groups also outside Finland. New revolu-tionary software for sharing of building information models, distributed free-of-charge, was published in the Building & Construction business area.** The especially significant news, however, came at the beginning of May when the U.S.-based Trimble Navigation Ltd. announced its offer to purchase all of Tekla’s shares. As the summer progressed, the change of ownership was confirmed and Tekla became part of the fast growing Trimble Group.

The events at Tekla describe well the pace of change in the world in general, and the continuous and fast development of the software industry. Industry actors use different strategic methods and investments to build their expertise and presence in the market, with the aim of being successful in the face of tough international competition. Similar changes are also fa-miliar in our customer industries, namely in energy distribution and civil engineering, for instance. The municipality and water utility sectors as well constantly seek efficiency and better service capacity through mergers and collaboration.

Fortunately, some things stay the same in the midst of change. The customer is still at the core of our operations. High quality customer service is important to us, and to our cus-tomers’ customers. We strongly aspire to serve our customers even more widely and effectively than before. The quality of customer service is also one of the best measures of competi-tiveness, if not the best.

The merging of Trimble and Tekla is about improving the competitive edge as well as the ability to serve the customers of both companies. Trimble software and devices for locating, measuring, and more generally for supporting work conducted in the field and on construction sites and, for instance, han-dling point cloud information, supplement Tekla’s software so-lutions excellently in construction and in the industries served by the Infra & Energy business area. Tekla software, in turn, will broaden the software offering for Trimble’s customer in-dustries.

Good customer service combined with reliable and ad-vanced solutions are in a central position for both Tekla and Trimble. We are determined to work for them in the future, and together we will be stronger than before.

Kai LehtinenSenior Vice President, Infra & Energy

A time of change

Photo: Lasse Arkela* Read more on page 15** Read more on page 16


I would like to say thanks for this service, I would like to suggest a change to the master plan scheme, I would like to ask if it is permitted to gather logging waste from city-owned land – A functioning and two-way feedback channel is fit for a number of different purposes.

I would like to give feedback Interactive customer communications with Tekla Feedback

The City of Jyväskylä in Finland was one of the first to intro-duce Tekla’s feedback system in the fall of 2010. When Janne Hartman, Chief of GIS from the city’s geographical informa-tion department, is asked whether the feedback system takes all of this or all of that into account, he can almost systemati-cally respond affirmatively.

“The feedback system serves us well. Things have been well thought out in this system,” Hartman says.

Tekla’s feedback system was well prepared through vari-ous projects in cooperation with customers. In return for the

extensive preparations, a highly usable electronic feedback system for receiving and responding, as well as handling and analysis of feedback was born.

The Web-based Tekla Feedback is used in managing feedback throughout its life cycle. And, as a matter of fact, even after-wards, as customers’ questions and the given responses can be saved in the feedback system on the organization’s website for others to see.

Text: Sari PutkonenDrawings: Terhi Wallin

5

Photo: Janne Hartman

Janne Hartman, Chief of GIS from the geo-graphical information department of the City of Jyväskylä

Everything in one placeTekla Feedback is a collecting solution in which all of the organization’s feedback is registered, regardless of whether it is given via phone, e-mail or the feedback form on the organization’s website. The feedback is assigned to the appropriate contact persons, and is automatically forwarded to them. No feedback disap-pears or is forgotten in the wrong place.

As all of the feedback and its respons-es can be published via the system, a feedback archive is formed at the same time. According to Janne Hartman, this likely reduces the number of questions. “People are interested in the same is-sues. When they go to give feedback, they note that the same issue has been asked before and the answer is already there for them to see.”

A response library containing ready-made answers can also be created in the feedback system. Thus, certain is-sues can be answered with standard responses.

The map is a must A lot of effort has been put into the user-friendliness of the system. When opening the feedback form, a map al-so appears, making localization of the feedback easier. This also makes han-dling of feedback clearer, as, for in-stance, imprecise descriptions of fallen streetlights or frost-induced potholes are eliminated.

“The map is a must. A verbal descrip-tion often results in imprecise informa-tion,” Hartman points out.

Furthermore, the map can easily show if a certain location induces more than the average amount of feedback. This helps in detecting a failure or a success of a certain area early on.

*The City of Lahti, Finland – The Bus Route of DreamsWhen the Technical and Environment Sphere of Authority of the City of Lahti adopted the Tekla Feedback so-lution, it was introduced to residents through The Bus Route of Dreams questionnaire.

In the questionnaire, residents used the map in the feedback system to draw a bus route which would benefit their everyday routines. The questionnaire sought opinions to support the draft-ing of a sustainable development target and action program.

The questionnaire resulted in 360 responses. Chief of Cartography Aija Holopainen from the City of Lahti says that the feedback system works and is operational.

The City of Jyväskylä – A feedback channel for the cityIn Jyväskylä, most of the feedback from residents is received through the feedback form on the city’s website. Some feedback also comes through the city’s Service Point “Hannikainen”. All feedback is stored in the same system, Tekla Feedback.

What kind of feedback is given and how much? We asked Janne Hartman, Chief of GIS in the city’s geographical information department, who responded that by noon of the interview day, 10 feedback messages had been received. “Residents are asking whether logging waste can be collected as firewood,” Hartman says.

Most of the feedback is related to streets, parks and traffic. By the beginning of May 2011, 746 items of feedback had been received.

The content of the feedback varies according to the season. “During the wintertime, people were contacting us regarding snow plowing trucks, and in the summer, we received questions about firewood, boating and quay berths,” Hartman explains.

New ways to utilize the feedback system are also being planned: “At the moment, we have undertaken a project in which the police would use the feedback system to notify us if city property is damaged in traffic accidents.”

Attachments, such as photos, can also be added to the feedback form.

Various ways of using the systemIn addition to general feedback, the City of Jyväskylä gathers feedback from waste management, zoning, land use planning as well as streets, parks and traffic.

In the City of Tampere, Finland, the system is used for gathering feedback from streetlights and in streetlight work supervision.

The City of Lahti, Finland, has used the feedback system in, for instance, The Bus Route of Dreams questionnaire*. The plan was to find out what kinds of local bus routes residents wanted.

In the City of Espoo, Finland, the feedback system is used as the feedback channel for the whole city. Feedback related to all city sectors—for instance education and culture—are given and handled in the same system.

Communication with customersThe feedback system adapts to various types of interactive communications with customers. Public administration, companies as well as government bu-reaus can utilize the service in gather-ing feedback, organizing questionnaires, and probing opinions.

Upcoming events, projects, and plans can be shown in the map section, and questions and comments can be re-quested to them. Responses are handled in the same system, and the message history can be saved for others to see.

All the facts with a single clickAs all received feedback is stored in

the system, information about the con-tents, the subject, and the quantity of the feedback can be analyzed through listings.

Both public and private sectors fol-low the quality of their services. The feedback system gives accurate data regarding how quickly feedback has been responded to. In addition, infor-mation about the quantity and subject of the feedback can be accessed with a single click.

> Read more: www.tekla.com/tekla-magazine-11


Pekka HämäläinenSegment Director

Energy distribution

Mike von WehrtSegment Director

Public administration

Segment Director Mike von Wehrt, what does the renewal mean for public administration?

By renewing our applications and services offering, we can be even more flexible in fulfilling the diverse needs of our customers. It is now easier to purchase applications as ready packages for the use of a particular industry. This means modu-larity as it is often called.

For example, the different units of municipalities, govern-ment institutions or companies can adopt the Tekla eServices or Tekla’s online feedback system even if they are not yet our customers.

Our operational principle is to supply the customer with ev-erything that is needed to start using the application.

The compatibility of information systems is not a problem because we have been involved in the development of service

interfaces, through which Tekla’s solutions are compatible with other systems.

All in all, the renewal broadens the user base of our products. All cus-tomers benefit from these new re-sources in development work.

Three perspectives on our renewed solutions

Segment Director Pekka Hämäläinen, what benefits does the renewal provide for Tekla’s energy distribution cus-tomers? What kinds of trends can be seen in the industry?

The Nordic countries are at the forefront of development regarding many aspects of energy distribution. However, Tekla cannot develop the industry with its customers in the northern region alone; we have to be competitive on a broader scale. The renewal ensures a future for our solutions and their con-tinuous development.

The central trend in the industry is the development of smart grids. The strength of Tekla’s solutions is that we can offer modular process and user group specific tools for network management. For example, we have integrated the data of automatically read meters into our distribution management system. The result is real-time grid management from the cus-tomer to the power station.

Another trend is aging networks and simultaneously ever-stricter requirements for electricity quality. What follows is an increasing need for network renewal, which simultaneously offers an opportunity to build new kinds of distribution tech-nologies. It is important to us that we are able to help our customers optimize these investments.

The third trend is increasing attention to the end customer and customer service. Energy distribution is a customer service

industry, and our task is to develop new solutions that help serve our customers in the best possible way. One example of the development projects shared by the entire industry is online services. Due to the renew-al, we can better direct our develop-ment efforts towards projects that create a benefit for all customers.

Tekla’s Infra & Energy business area is renewing the structure of its software offering during 2011. Segment directors in energy distribution, public administration, and civil engineering & water utilities give their views on what it is all about and reveal the future direction of software solution development.

7

Erkki MäkinenSegment DirectorCivil engineering

Segment Director Erkki Mäkinen, how will Tekla develop its solutions for civil engineering and water utilities in the future?

Our software has, for a long time, been model-based, inte-gration capable, and based on real-time communication, and the same direction will continue for development. Of course, we are continuously also developing the user interface and functionalities to be better and easier to use.

In civil engineering, we want to advance the utilization of data from model-based planning starting with construction and going all the way through to maintenance. Even during construction, planners are able to make corrections or changes that affect the construction work.

Integration capacity for infrastructure design and construc-tion means, first of all, that we can get connected to different piping and property registries as well as terrain model and ground research data. We can utilize that data or produce data in the same format on construction. On the other hand, we develop horizontal integrations between different parties in the construction industry. We would like to see the built environment formed through terrain construction as well as house and business construction.*

Our software solution for water utilities is a real-time asset management system that supports water utilities’ operations, as well as a significant integration system. We are already connected to various customer information systems. Lately, integrations to remote monitoring systems have surfaced, and in the future, automatic meter reading will also be involved.

The water network’s behavior can be simulated using a net-work functionality developed by us. When field crew closes a valve in the field, the data can simultaneously be used in cus-tomer service. They immediately see the sections of the network without water access, and at the same time, a message can be dispatched to cus-tomers regarding the water outage and its duration.

The industries are thus constantly developing, so our work continues. We have a vision in which compat-ible, model-based information sys-tems can be used to manage com-plete projects with many different parties or even many different in-dustry sectors.


*Read more on pages 8–9


Tekla’s solutions support several design and construction tasks in the areas of, for example, street, road, and railroad technology. Using Tekla’s solutions, a designer can create structural models, which are always up-to-date, of the de-signed objects and soil as well as soil surface and structural surface materi-als. As part of the renewal of Tekla’s software offering, the functionalities of earlier Tekla X products have been regrouped into industry-specific appli-cations that form the Tekla Solutions software solution targeted at customer groups. The Tekla Solution for infra-structure designers is based on Tekla Civil software *, which is used in man-aging all key information related to the design process.

The versatile Tekla Civil is intended for the needs of model-based design and construction. It makes efficient use of, for example, location information, ter-rain models, aerial photos, and several

registers, and enables the processing of surface models of unlimited sizes.

The development of software solu-tions has taken important steps toward the integration of the infrastructure and construction industries. “Today, we have to take note of the improved connection between the construction of infrastruc-ture and buildings, supporting the entire constructed environment,” says Erkki Mäkinen, Segment Director of Civil engineering. This is a natural trend for Tekla, as the company also offers Tekla Structures BIM (Building Information Modeling) software for structural engi-neering and building and construction planning as well as for project manage-ment.

Towards interoperable use of Tekla softwareTekla has piloted interoperable use of Tekla Civil and Tekla Structures soft-ware as a model-based way of working.

Functionality in both programs has been developed during the piloting phase to enable the publishing of surface and structural models from Tekla Civil in the structural model in Tekla Structures and vice versa. This means that users of either software program do not have to write out or read in files. Instead, the programs can use the same models.

The development of interoperable use of Tekla software has addressed chal-lenges related to the coordination of in-frastructure and engineering structure designs. Combining the coordinate sys-tems of the designs is among the most significant developments. Where ter-rain models and road designs are prin-cipally made using real world coordi-nates, buildings are designed using the project’s own coordinates, often based on a specific point at the construction site. Coordinate conversions related to design coordination are automatically

The design of infrastructure and engineering structures meet in a model environmentFor a long time, Tekla has supported the development of the infrastructure and construction industries to-wards model-based operations. The latest trend facilitates the dialog between the model-based design of infrastructure and engineering structures, such as roads, railroads, bridges, and noise barriers.

* In the Tekla Solutions renewal, the functionalities of Tekla Xstreet were grouped in the Tekla Civil application. Read more on page 15.

Engineering structures

Engineering structures include all structures which require designs based on strength calculations and where structural damage resulting from a design or construction error may endanger people or traffic sys-tems and incur significant repair costs regarding the structure or its immedi-ate surroundings. Typical engineering structures include bridges, pole plates, tunnels, and platforms.

Structure surfaces imported from Tekla Civil to Tekla Structures

9

?

Swansea sail bridge, UK

calculated in interoperable use of Tekla Civil and Tekla Structures.

Benefits for design and implementationAccording to Erkki Mäkinen and Mark-ku Alanko, Software Manager, the basic reason for developing interoperability between Tekla Civil and Tekla Structures is to facilitate the work of designers and to increase communication between different designs. “In the case of bridg-es, for example, a bridge designer can continue directly from electronic bridge location documents, which the road designer has written in the model, and base his or her own work on this data,” says Mäkinen. Interoperability saves not only users’ time but also money.

Where model-based design work re-duces design-related errors, interoper-ability eliminates design inconsisten-cies and coordination problems. “Our aim is to minimize errors in design and to detect problems at an early stage of the design process. This would prevent costs arising from errors in design or, at worst, expensive construction errors,” says Alanko. “Interoperability between the software has already been used for detecting and fixing problem areas in designs. This already proves the benefits of the concept.”

Practical applications now and in the futureSo far, the concept has been used in building projects where the overlap of different routes and structures pose special challenges for the design. For example, the Finnish engineering com-pany A-Insinöörit made use of the pi-

InteroperabilityThanks to their interoperability, systems developed by dif-ferent software providers can use each other’s information in their own operations. The aim is to share information in such a way that it can be utilized not only by the system that originally produced it or currently stores it but also in other systems that benefit from the information.

To a great extent, Tekla’s software solutions are interop-erable with other systems used by our customers. These in-clude document management, ERP, and CRM systems.

For example, Tekla’s Web service for applying for permits from the building control center provides the applicant with all the information available in the municipality’s register,

such as real estate, address, and zoning information, and partly fills in the application with the information avail-able. Information is automatically transferred to building permit processing applications and document management systems.

Our solutions are also interoperable with each other. Sur-face and structural models from Tekla Civil can be published in the structural model in Tekla Structures and vice versa. While designing an electricity distribution network, design-ers can see the district heating network and, by connecting the applicable product, it is also possible to simultaneously display information about the water supply network.

KNOW YOUR TERMINOLOGY

loted interoperability in designing the underground roundabout at the Ratina shopping mall in Tampere, Finland, as well as in designing the level crossing at the Mustola intersection overpass and Sulkutie pedestrian underpass in the Highway 6 project in Finland. “The Tekla Civil surface models, such as the surfaces of the pavements and sur-rounding terrain, were imported to Tekla Structures models as initial data. Clear triangular network surfaces facilitated the modeling of concrete structures in the Tekla Structures models,” says Ant-ti Pekkala, Development Engineer at A-Insinöörit. The company is also plan-ning to use the products side-by-side in the West Metro project in Helsinki Metropolitan area, Finland. “The trend seems to be that, in the future, we will no longer use separate road and bridge models but route models instead,” Pek-kala continues.

Mäkinen and Alanko from Tekla can see significant potential in software in-teroperability. So far, the concept has been utilized particularly by design of-fices that have operations in place for designing both infrastructure and engi-neering structures, such as bridges, sta-tion platforms, and noise barriers.

However, the development of interop-erable software use also benefits spe-cialized players in the industry, because moving over to electronic models and developing coordination between the models enables networking between different parties in the industry, regard-less of their location.

Text: Joonas VartiainenPhotos: Tekla



Depending on who is speaking, the definition of a Smart Grid may vary slightly. However, at the very least its features in-clude decentralized electricity production, flexible electricity demand, energy efficiency, and the introduction of intelligence into the electricity network.

One example of electricity network intelligence is that an electricity network company can use the Tekla DMS distribu-tion management system to utilize the data provided by the new, smart energy meters in households. The aim is that in the future metering data can be used to direct the consumer to use electricity when it is smartest from the point of view of the electricity company and the consumer’s electricity bill.

All of us as electricity producersDevelopment Engineer Stefan Forsström at Vantaan Energia Sähköverkot Oy, an electricity distribution company in Vantaa, Finland, envisions the opportunities opened up by Smart Grid and proposes many interesting visions of the future. In a Smart Grid, decentralized electricity production could mean that the surplus electricity produced by individual households’ solar panels, windmills, and other small scale means of electricity production can easily be fed into the network of the electricity utility. Current technology does not enable this.

A remotely read, intelligent low-energy home would be heated only when it is sensible given both the price and level of electricity production. The same logic would also be ap-plied to, for instance, charging the battery of an electric car. For example, the best time of day for recharging could be at night when we are asleep and most of our electronic devices are switched off.

When everyone can be an electricity producer

Electricity is difficult to store. If and when electric cars be-come more common, the car batteries can function as storage space, from which electricity can be fed back into the intel-ligent electricity network when required.

The Smart Grid provides the tools for balancing out elec-tricity consumption. This is a considerable advantage for elec-tricity network companies. With the help of the Smart Grid, newscasts about whether consumption spikes on exceptionally cold days will surpass the full capacity of the electrical power system would become history. The Smart Grid also provides tools for fixing network problems faster than before.

The opportunities afforded by Smart Grid are being investigatedIn other words, a Smart Grid allows one to perform procedures that are not possible with current electricity networks, which makes compiling future scenarios challenging. One could go out on a limb and say that Vantaan Energia Sähköverkot uses the Tekla NIS network information system to predict the fu-ture. This means, for instance, that the system can simulate how the electricity network would be affected if 10 percent of cars were electric. Would the increase in the number of bat-teries that need charging cause problems? What would those problems be and where would they be located? The simulation directs the network company to make the right investments for the future.

The development of the energy industry is a nationally sig-nificant task in Finland. A centre of strategic expertise, CLEEN (Cluster for Energy and Environment) started the SGEM project (Smart Grids and Energy Market) in 2009, which develops new solutions and products for the intelligent electricity networks of the future. Among others, Tekla and Vantaan Energia Säh-köverkot are on board, taking part in envisioning the future, research, and development. The visions presented in this article are also under consideration. Text: Sari Putkonen


A lot is going on in the energy industry. The Smart Grid, an intelligent electricity network, is becoming a reality at a fast pace. At the same time, industry experts are bravely envisioning the future.

In the future metering data can be used to direct the consumer to use electricity when it is

smartest from the point of view of the consumer’s electricity bill.

11

When electrification of our societies began about 100 years ago, the life spans of humans and major power system components were about the same. The former has increased somewhat, but just as we humans experience and attempt to cope with economic upswings and downswings, the rising and falling of businesses and in-dustries, and the coming into being and disappearance of fashions, trends, and rock bands, so does a power system. And so does much of the infrastructure we take for granted.

The challenge in the infrastructure sector is to maximize the service life and effi-cient use of the major components that carry a huge investment cost, but adequately and flexibly cope with changing demand and a moving planning target. For exam-ple, a reliable, configurable, and well-monitored power system enables shorter-term bursts of innovation, business opportunities, and industry to flourish. Further, the mo-tives of entrepreneurs and commercial enterprises are best served by an infrastructure that has a long-term vision and is not itself motivated by, or unduly dependent on, excessive short-term profits.

It is often remarked, and correctly so, that the aging of present infrastructure com-plicates, but also suits, a rapid adaption to the present challenges. These challenges involve the increased demand for high quality services, aesthetic considerations, and lessening the human footprint in this complex ecosystem in which we are privileged to find ourselves. In the electricity business, the tendency is towards more flexible networks that embrace distributed generation where this makes sense, the likely shift to electric cars in the future, and the ability to better withstand large-scale storms and provide continuity of supply during local faults and component failures.

It may be that clear directives need to be established for distribution network plan-

ning, even if they are not always globally cost optimal, but routing algorithms based on objective criteria avoid the need for simplistic solutions. Naturally, aesthetics, and reliability may dictate that distribution networks continue to go underground in many locations, perhaps even in sparse rural areas, but it is likely that cost optimum networks, even when they take in the interruption costs from wide-spread damage caused by major storms, will involve a combination of underground cables and over-head lines of one sort or another.

While we must be open to innovation and new technologies, the overall inter-ests of society are served best by an infrastructure that is steadily and intelligently developed with the aid of objective planning tools. Fortunately, the continuing de-velopment of such tools forms part of the work at the technical universities and research institutions, in cooperation with our partners from industry and the elec-tricity companies.

And quoting, out of context, a great song by the The Jam in 1980, ‘going under-ground’ is likely to be a recurring and much disputed theme in distribution line rout-ing as aging networks are replaced and upgraded.

Text: John Millar

Going Underground?Robert John Millar ended up, hap-pily, in Finland after many years of nomadic life as a musician. Just over a decade ago he realised he needed to upgrade his education to be-come respectably employed. Some-how, John acquired a doctorate in electrical engineering and now he spends 36.25+ hours a week at Aalto University School of Electri-cal Engineering chasing the elusive optimum distribution network and trying to figure out how hot under-ground cables get. Blowing hot air, exploring the human condition, and sleeping fill out the rest of his time.

COLUMN

Photo: Irfan Özbek


Fortum strengthens electricity distribution network planningTekla will deliver a Tekla Solution for the long-term planning of an electricity distribution network to Fortum, an energy company with operations in the Nordic countries, Russia, and in the Baltic Rim. Tekla’s software solution includes tools for effective planning of network renewal. These tools are used in analyzing the reliability of the grid as well as calculation of life cycle costs.

“Electricity distribution is a regulated business. In all of our activities, our aim is to achieve the best possible result within the limits of regulations. One of our focus areas is, among others, to ensure the quality and reliability of electricity sup-ply in our network. As the network is aging and there is a growing need for replacement investments, the planning of a network must be considered comprehensively. This ensures that the network will meet future requirements,” says Mikael Mickelsson, the Head of Processes and Applications in For-tum’s Electricity Solutions and Distribution Division.

“We know the current state of the distribution network, but the distribution network reliability analysis and life cycle cost calculation tools included in Tekla’s solution provide us with more efficiently accurate information regarding the results of the planned changes. Investments can be allocated in the best possible way, and, at the same time, we can rationalize the

planning process itself. From the basis of the analyzed data, we can draw up good plans regarding the target network: that is, the model which represents how we see our distribution network in 10-30 years.”

Tekla’s tools for reliability analysis are used in making cal-culations for both present and future networks. The tools can be used in both making calculations and comparative studies between different network scenarios. Development of the so-lution under delivery is based on Tekla’s active participation in research projects in the field, as well as on long-term and con-stant development work done in cooperation with customers.

The information provided by the solution shows the weak points of the network as well as the most probable problem areas. On the basis of this information, it is possible to make alternative investment plans and choose the most optimal plan. The solution enables, for instance, reducing the amount of disturbances in end users’ electricity distribution as well as localizing disturbances to more specific areas.

Text: Joonas Vartiainen

Fortum is a leading energy company with operations in the Nordic countries, Russia and in the Baltic Rim. Fortum works with production, sales and distribution of electricity and heat-ing, as well as operation and maintenance of power plants. Fortum has a total of 1.2 million electricity customers, 1.6 million electricity distribution customers and has annual sales of EUR 5.4 billion.

The City of Tampere, Finland, uses the Tekla Feedback solution in handling and analyzing feedback for streetlights, as well as in streetlight maintenance work supervision.

The Tekla Feedback solution was ordered by the City of Tam-pere environment development unit a few years ago as a SaaS (Software as a Service) from Gerako Oy.

“The benefits of SaaS include the fact that the service pro-vider is responsible for ownership issues, such as equipment and maintenance. We can therefore manage with fewer re-sources,” says Mika Heikkilä, Developer Engineer for the City of Tampere.

Tekla’s Sales Manager Jukka Leppänen and Gerako’s CEO Seppo Järvi point out that with a SaaS, the customer can fo-cus on utilizing the solution while Gerako takes care of main-tenance, software updates, and the equipment.

Feedback system assists work supervisionTampereen Vera Oy is a contractor specialized in network building and maintenance as well as outdoor lighting. Tam-

Streetlights of Tampere free of maintenance problems

pereen Vera uses the feedback system ordered by the City of Tampere on a daily basis in work supervision.

Construction Manager Ville Aalto from Tampereen Vera says that by listening to the wishes of the customer, the feedback system has been developed into a work supervision tool. The feedback system has, for instance, an urgency classification feature.

“We also receive billing information from the system,” Aalto points out.

“The main benefit for the contractor from the feedback sys-tem comes from the fact that the field crew can work and follow the fault list independently in the field. When a crew member has finished with a location, he or she can mark the work done, and other members of the crew see the real-time situation,” Aalto says.

The Tekla Solutions with SaaS offering has been developed by Gerako and Tekla through close cooperation. Throughout this cooperation, Tekla was the system developer and Gerako acted as the SaaS service producer. Text: Sari Putkonen

Investments can be allocated in the best possible way, and, at the same

time, we can rationalize the planning process itself.

13

Take your customer service to the Internet with

Tekla eServicesEasy-to-use Web applications for authorities to offer customer services for citizens and interest groups on the Internet

< 24/7 service accessibility< Less customer service work < Faster process turnaround

< www.tekla.com/eservices

– think again

If you thinkyou have reached

your potential

Linköping has found new ways to utilize Tekla SolutionThe benefits of the interoperability of Tekla’s solutions have become clear to Tekniska Verken i Linköping AB, a regional energy, water and utilities supplier in Linköping, Sweden, as their Water Supply and Sewage Engineer Mattias Palo has found new ways to utilize Linköping’s Tekla Solution for water utilities through data integration. The result has been more accurate billing, which has increased revenue, and concrete cost savings.

The first notion was that not all of Linköping’s storm water drainage cus-tomers were paying for the service they received. Previously, the relevant information regarding storm water drainage in different consumer points was dispersed in many different databases, which made controlling the invoic-ing difficult.

With Tekla’s solution, it was possible to combine informa-tion from the various databases and analyze which consumer points were not paying for their storm water drainage service. The solution could also be used in mapping customer points with specific attributes, such as basements, which are not pay-ing for their services. The data could then be compared with Linköping’s invoicing records, and those customers not paying could be billed.

In a second breakthrough, Mattias Palo was able to inte-grate Linköping’s Tekla Solution for water utilities with surface data from an external partner. Linköping now uses Tekla’s so-lution also in surface area calculations regarding storm water drainage. The new data not only speeds up work, but also brings cost savings.

“By marking which consumer points are drained to a storm water manhole, one can use Tekla Solution to calculate how large a property area is assigned to each manhole. Even street surfaces can be handled in the system. As an end result, one gets a file with all the surfaces that are assigned to individual storm water manhole,” explains Jörgen Lönnbring, Network Manager at Division Water of Tekniska Verken i Linköping, and he continues: “A picture can also be taken showing the total area of a property, including how much of it is hard surface in both square meters and as a percentage of the total area.”

With more accurate billing for storm water drainage servic-es, Tekniska Verken i Linköping estimates to gain approximately SEK 200,000 (about EUR 22,000) more per year. Automatic property surface mapping saves around two months worth of labor yearly, which translates into concrete savings in costs. “With a consultation fee of SEK 800 (about EUR 90) per hour and the time saving of two months, we save approximately SEK 250,000 (about EUR 27,500) every year,” says Lönnbring.

Text: Joonas Vartiainen

The result has been more accurate billing, which has increased

revenue, and concrete cost savings.


> LOCAL & GLOBAL

Tekla User Days attracted over 630 participants Tekla User Days 2011, held during the last week of January, saw over 630 participants gathered from the energy distribution, public administration, civil engineering, and water utilities in-dustries. The record number of participants made the User Days one of the largest customer events in Finland. The event was held in the City of Tampere.

The theme of the event, reliability, was present at the semi-nar in many different ways. Reliability is required of informa-tion systems during disturbances in energy distribution, for instance, or as the number of users for e-services offered by municipalities grows. The comprehensive seminar program in-cluded customer and other expert presentations on topical themes throughout the different industries.

Partners in the event were Tampereen Energia and Tam-pereen Vesi, the local energy company and water utility in Tampere; A-Insinöörit, an engineering office from Tampere; and Destia, a Finnish infrastructure and construction service company.

www.tekla.com/tekla-magazine-11

Energy industry influencers gather every other year at Tekla’s seminarTekla’s international seminar for the opinion leaders of the energy distribution industry was held in Riga, Latvia, in Octo-ber 2010. The theme of the seminar was “Smart NIS”, a smart network information system.

The presentations and discussions explained how Smart Grids make traditional network property management more efficient. The speakers covered examples of successful projects and the utilization of Tekla’s network information system in Smart Grids. Themes of traditional energy network property management were also discussed at the event, as well as the challenges of a changing distribution network environment.

Welcome to Tekla Energy Days 2012 (TED12)! It is the 9th international seminar, and will be organized on June 13-14, 2012 in Berlin, Germany.

< www.tekla.com/TED12

Tekla involved in the location information project in TikhvinIn the winter of 2010–2011 Tekla participated in an EU project led by Mikkeli University of Applied Sciences in eastern Fin-land. The project created readiness to support location infor-mation solutions and processes in the northwestern Russian city of Tikhvin. The project consisted of, among other things, research work and two training events organized by Tekla.

Tekla visited Tikhvin together with the representatives of Mikkeli University of Applied Sciences. During the visits, the group got to know how the Russian city functions in the tech-nology sector: how the city collects and utilizes location in-formation, how much information is in numerical format, and what kinds of software are used for managing data.

15

Tekla introduced Tekla Solutions for infrastructure and energy industriesTekla has renewed the commercial structure, naming, and market communication of its Infra & Energy business area software offering. Customers in the infrastruc-ture and energy industries will now be offered Tekla Solutions that, in comparison to the previous product structure, are more in line with the current customer-based approach and modularity of the software, as well as the uniformity of the software base. The renewal is a part of the development of Tekla’s software offering for energy distribution, public administration, civil engineering, and water utility customers.

The Tekla Solutions offering will support the sales, development, and supply of cus-tomer group specific solutions – issues to which Tekla has a long-term commitment. The renewed software offering contributes to Tekla’s aim of selling software to new customers and new types of customer groups both in Finland and abroad.

From a technical perspective, the renewal relates to continuous development of software reliability, interoperability, and modularity in addition to providing first-class support for customers’ operations and processes. An even more coherent soft-ware foundation will promote these development areas also in the future.

< www.tekla.com/solutions-for-infra-and-energySeinäjoen Energia chose Tekla’s software solution for its district heating networkSeinäjoen Energia Oy, the energy com-pany of the City of Seinäjoki, Finland, has purchased a Tekla Solution for the management, planning, and mainte-nance of its district heating network. The solution provides additionally inter-faces for external customer information and network calculation systems.

Seinäjoen Energia and Seinäjoen Ve-si, the local water utility, have already long utilized Tekla’s software solutions for the management of their power net-work as well as the water and sewage networks. With the adoption of the dis-trict heating solution, the companies now have a unified solution, and all of the network data is under one roof.

The shared system provides synergy benefits when system expertise and possibilities for sharing resources cross the boundaries of the units. Cost sav-ings are made when the servers, the database, version updates, and back-ground maps are shared.

Seinäjoen Energia adopted Tekla’s solution for district heating during the spring of 2011. To support the imple-mentation, the company also purchased training and conversion services from Tekla.


Survey shows customers are satisfied

Tekla Infra & Energy conducts a customer satisfaction survey annually to assess the business area’s successes and needs for further development. The next survey will be conducted at the end of 2011.

The 2010 survey was sent to almost 2,200 of Tekla’s Infra & Energy business area customers. The survey was completed by 686 respondents, which means a participant percentage of over 30 percent.

Satisfaction with the operations of Infra & Energy has re-mained at the same, very high level as before. Eighty-one percent of customers are satisfied or very satisfied with the general Infra & Energy operations. Eighteen percent are partly satisfied and partly dissatisfied. Only one percent of the cus-tomers is dissatisfied or very dissatisfied.

Tekla will continue the development of its operations based on the customer satisfaction survey, concentrating on the is-sues highlighted as the most important by customers and the development areas that surfaced during the survey. Thank you to all who completed the survey for your time and feedback. You are welcome to participate again in the next survey!

Tekla introduces professional BIM software for free Building information modeled and detailed in Tekla software is meant for the whole construction workflow to utilize. Sharing accurate 3D models streamlines the delivery process of design, detailing, manufacturing, and construction organizations.

Tekla BIMsight was launched in February 2011. It is free-of-charge, easy-to-access BIM software available for anyone in the construction industry to install from the Internet. Pre-senting the complete project, including all necessary building information from different construction disciplines, Tekla BIM-sight is much more than another viewer: construction profes-sionals can communicate using the model with anyone, not just Tekla Structures or other BIM-software users.

Tekla BIMsight has been a great success with tens of thou-sands of installations worldwide. A more complete version 1.2 is now available for efficient collaboration in any construction project. It contains significant new functionality to support the design coordination review process and workflow. The ap-plication will be developed further to meet the collaboration and process support needs of the construction industry. Con-tractors, designers, architects, MEP detailers and fabricators will be able to combine their models, check for clashes, and collaborate even better.

< www.teklabimsight.com

> LOCAL & GLOBALwww.tekla.com/tekla-magazine-11

You are welcome to participate again in the next survey

17

The combination creates new opportunities for customersThe existing solutions of Tekla and Trimble do not compete with each other, but support and complement one another. The shared, wider product offering is intended to create new op-portunities for the creation of added value for the companies’ current and future customers. Trimble and Tekla also intend to develop ever better and more advanced solutions together for the needs of different customer segments.

About TrimbleTrimble applies technology to make field and mobile workers in businesses and government significantly more productive. Solutions are focused on applications requiring position or lo-cation – including surveying, construction, agriculture, fleet and asset management, public safety, and mapping.

Tekla became part of Trimble Group

In addition to utilizing positioning technologies, such as GPS, lasers, and optics, Trimble solutions may include software content specific to the needs of the user. Wireless technologies are utilized to deliver the solution to the user and to ensure a tight coupling of the field and the back office.

Trimble products are used in over 100 countries around the world. Employees in more than 20 countries, coupled with a highly capable network of dealers and distribution partners serve and support Trimble’s customers.

In 2010, Trimble’s net sales were USD 1.3 billion. In the first half of 2011, net sales grew by over 20 percent and the oper-ating result remained at a good level. Trimble’s share is traded on the NASDAQ stock exchange in the US. Founded in 1978, Trimble is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California.

Text: Elina Hollo

< www.trimble.com < www.tekla.com/tekla-magazine-11

Tekla and the U.S.-based Trimble Navigation Ltd signed a combination agreement at the beginning of May 2011, and Trimble made a public tender offer for Tekla’s shares. As a result of the tender offer, Trimble ac-quired 99.46 percent of Tekla. Tekla became a part of Trimble Group at the beginning of July. Trimble’s intention is to acquire all of Tekla’s shares. In addition, Trimble intends to apply for the delisting of Tekla shares from the stock exchange as soon as the prerequisites for it exist.


About Tekla CorporationTekla Corporation drives the evolution of digital information models with its software, providing a growing competitive advantage to cus-tomers in the construction, infrastructure and energy industries. Tekla has two business areas: Infra & Energy and Building & Construction.

Tekla Solutions software offering for infrastructure and energy industries offers high-end process support tools from planning to construction, operation and main-tenance. Each Tekla Solution is a productized package of Tekla software applications and services for a certain customer group. At the core of the solution is the industry-specific product model which contains key infrastructure and business data.

High-level process support for customer tasks is provided by industry applications with built-in GIS functionality. Solution capabilities include high-end interoperability with other systems and excellent support for the customer service of Tekla’s custom-ers.

Tekla’s Building & Construction business area develops BIM (Building Information Modeling) software environments that can be shared by contractors, structural engi-neers, steel detailers and fabricators, as well as concrete detailers, and manufacturers.

The highly detailed as-built 3D models created, combined and distributed with Tekla software enable the highest level of constructability and production control. Centralizing building information into the model allows for more collaborative and integrated project management and delivery. This translates into increased productiv-ity and the elimination of waste, making construction and buildings more sustainable.

19

Tekla in figures

• Tekla’snetsalesfor2010werenearlyEUR58millionandtheoperatingresultEUR10million• InJanuary–June2011,Tekla’snetsaleswereEUR34.5millionandtheoperatingresult EUR6.2million• Internationaloperationsaccountforapproximately80percentofnetsales, with customers in 100 countries• Teklahasofficesin15countriesandaworldwidepartnernetwork• TeklaGroupcurrentlyemploysmorethan500people,ofwhomabout200 work outside of the headquarters in Finland

Tekla Energy Days 2012June 13 & 14 – Berlin, Germany

< www.tekla.com/TED12

Date post:	29-Mar-2016
Category:	Documents
Upload:	tekla
View:	220 times
Download:	1 times

Tekla Magazine 2011

Documents