Managing Director Leif-Gunnar Hanssen from Narvik Science Park in Narvik highlights the importance of annual competition for to find Norway’s smartest industrial company.
Each year Norsk Industri and Siemens organise a competition to elect “Norway’s smartest industrial company”. The companies are profiled on a website (http://smartindustri.no) with a blog and in Youtube videos (listed below). Many of the companies in this year’s competition fall within the category of manufacturing, but some have relevance to process industry, advanced application of sensors, and development of alternative business models where products are associated with increased levels of service.
2017 the winner is Brunvoll A.S.
The decision was made Tuesday the 9th of May on the annual industrial conference in Oslo - Industrikonferansen 2017. The winner this year was Brunvoll. They have been innovative and used new technology and digitalisation to increase their production and get a better position in the market. More information about Brunvoll A.S. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0UdiPRsAJY ) – thrusters/ship positioning propellers.
source: www.norskindustri.no
Other participants in the competion
Finnfjord ferrosilicon (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iHpwzgZEGY)
What is profiled here is a project that uses the nitrogen (NOx) and CO2 in the exhaust gases from the ferrosilicon smelter to produce microalgae, which is used for fish food or biofuel.
Karsten Moholdt A.S. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27zZS8pLKbc)
Is an industrial company that works with independent service of rotating electrical equipment, such as electricity turbines, as well as remote surveillance of machines over the whole world. They are working with development of a “cognitive maintenance robot”,that uses artificial intelligence to process condition data. The system captures real-time data from operating machines, and compares the rotation frequency and produced power with the historical data to predict maintenance requirements. This involves extensive implementation of sensors on the machines that they produce, with data being sent via a cloud network to the automated analysis. This gives the company the opportunity to give a digital business model, with the advantage for the customer that the maintenance can be planned to be done when needed.
Lærdal Medical A.S. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUUNRtULbE4)
Produces First Aid training dolls/dummies, but with many more functions than the original CPR doll that they started with. In the video you can see that they produce lifesize models that allow the amount and type of medicine injected to be registered and compared with the correct dose. The doll can also react to the treatment that it receives, and “die” if the treatment is wrong. The dolls are used in training simulators with hospitals and medical schools.
Hallingplast A.S. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R645jgfYGaY) - plastic pipes, such as for drinking water.
Neumann Aluminium Raufoss (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7kuHLFy5a4) car parts for eg Volvo
Plasto A.S. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RWYoxDAiHc) – plastic molding, High degree of automation in the production, with digitalisation and automatisation giving a robust business model that allows them to compete with lower cost countries. They also recover end-of-life products and reuse the material in production.
Norsk Industri
Norsk Industri is the Norwegian employers federation for land-based industry in Norway and was established in 2005 from a merger of the national organisations for the process industry (PIL) and the technology companies (TBL). Offshore petroleum industry is organised separately in the “Norsk olje og gass” organisation.
In 2016 Norsk Industri and IKT-Norge organised a joint workshop on the increased application of digitalisation in industry: https://www.ikt-norge.no/2016/01/industri-og-it-motes/.
The previous winners
2016: GKN Aerospace (http://www.gkngroup.com/aerospace/Pages/default.aspx) a supplier of parts to the aerospace industry.
2015: Hexagon Ragasco, (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqTBPxD94PE) making composite fibre products, such as LPG cylinders. They 6-doubled production capacity and reduced production time per unit from 74 to 14 seconds, through application of digitalisation and automation solutions.
2014: Borregaard, (http://www.borregaard.no) a biorefinery that produces wood-based chemicals and materials that can replace petroleum-based products.
