Speakers

RFIDLab Spring Seminar
May 31, 2011
Hilton Helsinki-Vantaa Airport, Finland

Mr. Christian von Grone, CIO, Gerry Weber International AG. Mr. Grone studied information science at TU Braunschweig, and gathered first business experience as a software and database consultant. In 1992, he joined CBR, a german young fashion supplier, and went from Head of IT (1995) to Director of Internal Shared Services (2003). In 2009, he became CIO and Global Head of IT and Organisation at Gerry Weber International AG in Halle/Westfalen.

The brands of the Gerry Weber International AG attract attention worldwide with more than 400 houses of  Gerry Weber, over 1,500 shop-inshop areas throughout the world and successful online shops. Gerry Weber, Gerry Weber Edition, G.W., Taifun and Samoon by Gerry Weber today make up the five brands produced by the holding company. Licensed products such as shoes and bags complement the range and the versatile fashion strikes the same chord with customers, whether in Berlin, Dubai or Ottawa. Thirty-seven years after the company's foundation by Gerhard Weber and Udo Hardieck, Gerry Weber has become a listed, internationally known lifestyle group.

Mr. Tero Heino, SCE Development Manager, Onninen Oy. Mr. Heino graduated from commercial institute of Rauma 1993 after studies of marketing oriented to ICT. He got position at Onninen Finland logistics in the summer of 1996. First years he worked at Hyvinkaa distribution center in various warehouse process tasks. In the beginning of 2004 Mr. Heino was nominated to logistics key user of Finnish logistics and from beginning of 2005 to logistics development manager. At this point Mr. Heino was located to Onninen headquarters at Vantaa as member of Finnish logistics management group. Mr. Heino has participated as project manager or specialist to several local and global software and 3rd party solution development and implementation projects during 2004 -2011. Currently main responsibilities involve ERP and 3rd party software support and development. He is also responsible for ICT connections and equipment for logistics department at Onninen Finland and for global SCE master data of current ERP system.

Onninen provides comprehensive materials services to contractors, industry, public organizations and technical product retailers. Onninen is a family-owned company and has operated in the industry since 1913. Onninen has app. 3,000 employees in Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian, Polish, Russian, Baltic, Kazakhstan and Chinese operations. Turnover for 2009 totaled EUR 1.34 billion.

RFID/EPC research project in technical trade started a year ago with 16 global forerunner companies ( LVI Dahl, Onninen, Rautakesko, Uponor, Vallox, Oras, Cupori, Halton, Pipelife, Rettig Värme, Orthex, Fläktwoods, Kaukora, Tikkurila, Ensto , Itella) of this technical wholesale business. The objective is to advance an open RFID/EPC system where all the stakeholders in the value network could participate. During the spring majority of the project participants have tested pallet, case or item level in their own operations and especially in the operations between several supply chain partners. Mr. Heino will focus in his presentation to experiences from research project and RFID as technique for SCE processes.

Mr. Matti Alanen, Vice President, Logistics Finland, Metsä-Botnia. Mr. Matti Alanen has over twenty year's work experience in the Finnish forest industry, with particular emphasis on  the forest industry supply chain and logistics development. Mr. Alanen is currently responsible for the implementation of an ongoing RFID-project within Metsä-Botnia

Metsä-Botnia manufactures first-class bleached pulp grades at four mills in Finland. The pulp is  ideally suited for manufacturing high-quality printing and writing papers, boards, speciality and tissue papers. Botnia is an established fibre partner in Europe, and rapidly becoming a dedicated supplier of fibre and expertise to the expanding markets of the Far East..

Mr. Jukka Salmikuukka, Portfolio Manager, Kone Oyj. Mr. Salmikuukka is managing the development portfolio of integrated solutions in Kone. Previously Jukka has been working in Kone's service business development and also for VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland.

The presentation will describe how Kone utilised RFID technology to improve people flow i the Shanghai World Expo.

Kone Oyj provides complete and innovative solutions for the installation, modernization, and maintenance of elevators, escalators, and automatic building doors.

Mr. Sixten Sandström, Director of Global Ecosystems, Nokia Oyj. Mr. Sandström has been driving strategic and operative alliances, partnerships, subcontracting and licensing solutions from 3rd party suppliers for Nokia. His work continues to focus on big and important industry players and internet brands and services that can be jointly build. The results he has accomplished with the partners over the years are very well recognized and appreciated in Nokia. In these exciting days we live today he has the pleasure and honour to be able to collaborate with leading brands in the industry - companies that innovate and push the boundaries. Being confronted with so much expertise, knowledge and great opportunities makes him very humble, proud, and priviledged to be part of this exciting evolution we see in the mobile telecoms industry today.

Nokia believes NFC will be a transformational technology, changing the way we pair devices and transfer content between them, as well as how we use mobile payment and ticketing services. Nokia is the most experienced mobile device manufacturer in the NFC space, having already launched for commercial devices: the Nokia 5140 (2004), the Nokia 3220 (2005), the Nokia 6131 NFC (2006), and the world's first sharing capable NFC device, the 6212 classic (2008). Nokia is also the first company to have deployed commercial NFC services, and has run more that 80 NFC pilots and trials globally. Today, Nokia continues to spearhead the development of NFC ecosystem by providing NFC devices and experiences for consumers as part of their smartphone portfolio, starting in 2011. The aim is simple: to provide consumers with compelling NFC experiences that they can trust and enjoy in an open industry environment.

Ms. Kirsi Miettinen, Senior Adviceser for Legislative Affairs, Finnish Ministry of Transport and Communications. Ms Miettinen (LL.M. with court training) graduated from the University of Helsinki in 1995. She has been involved in responsibilities relating to communications legislation in the Ministry since 2001, and worked in the field of electronic identification since 2007, when the national working group for the Development of Electronic Identification was set up. She currently serves as Vice-President for the group. Her other areas of interest lie in the field of data protection and privacy in electronic communications and electronic services.

The topics of the presentation will focus on the relevant legal issues relating to the development and use of consumer targeted services exploiting RFID and NFC. Also some scenarios on developing EU law will be dealt with.

The Finnish Ministry of Transport and Communications seeks to promote the efficient functioning of society and national well-being by making sure that people and businesses have access to high-quality, safe and reasonably priced transport and communications networks, and by ensuring that transport and communications companies have the opportunity to compete on a level playing field.

Ms. Elisa Kauria, Development Manager, Konekesko Oy. Ms. Kauria works as a development manager in department of recreational machinery. She leads business development projects, and acts as project manager on this RFID based project. Other ongoing development projects involve Konekesko ERP and warranty systems and extranet services as well as consumer demand forecasting. Ms Kauria graduated as M.Sc. (Tech) in the field of Industrial Engineering and Management at Lappeenranta University of Technology, 2006. She studied at Karlsruhe University of Technology during 2004-2005.

Konekesko has implemented a RFID system for the management of its boad molds and other production tools.

Mr. Pauli Tossavainen, founder and CEO, ToP Tunniste Oy. Mr. Tossavainen graduated from Helsinki Technical College majoring in data communication. Mr. Tossavainen has 20 years of experience in automated identification.  Earlier he has been with Informa (a company focused in bar codes) and  UPM Raflatac. In the present post Mr. Tossavainen has gained a lot of knowledge in passive NFC and RFID.

ToP Tunniste is a system integrator focusing in B2B products and services in various business areas.

Mr. Jouko Tuominen, CTO, Würth Oy. Mr Tuominen has been with Würth since 1997 and before that with Scansped Ltd. His greatest achievements in Würth have been the deployment of SAP system in 1998-1999 and unified SAP template project lead involving four different country organizations of Würth in 2000-2003. Mr. Tuominen has 30 years experience in IT from programming to leadership positions.  Mr Tuominen has graduated from the Helsinki University.

Würth has updated their system for automating their picking line with RFID.

The Würth Group is a worldwide wholesaler of fasteners, screws and screw accessories, dowels, chemicals, furniture  and construction fittings, tools, machines, installation material, automotive hardware, inventory management, storage and retrieval systems.

Mr. Janne Törrönen, Transport Manager, Kuusakoski Oy. Mr. Törrönen is responsible for truck and train transportations in Finland, Sweden and in the Baltic Countries.

Kuusakoski Oy is leading recycling company in the North Europe. In addition to recycling it is developing and manufacturing high quality recycling and environment related solutions for various materials. The revenue in 2009 was 544.9 M€ and the company was employing 2900 persons. Kuusakoski Oy is founded 1914. It has 23 service points in finland.

Mr. Mikko Nikkanen, Business Development Director, UPM RFID. Mr. Nikkanen has several years of global experience in industial, logistic and retail RFID-applications, and NFC technology.

UPM RFID is a globally leading supplier of passive RFID products specialising in the development and high-volume production of HF and UHF RFID tags and inlays.
 

Ms. Maiju Rahkonen, Development Manager, Itella Oyj. Ms. Rahkonen works as a development manager in Itella Innovations. She leads business development projects, and acts as project manager on the “RFID in fashion logistics” project. Other ongoing development projects involve idea management systems both for Itella’s customers and personnel. Ms. Rahkonen graduated as M.Sc. (Tech) in the field of Industrial Engineering and Management at Helsinki University of Technology, 2009.

Itella Oyj has applied or tested RFID technology in its own roll cages and trays, letters and customer products (mainly clothing). Itella is also involved in the technical trade RFID/EPC research project.

Mr. Alexander Aminoff, Sales Manager Scandinavia, Nordic ID. Mr. Aminoff has worked closely with different RFID solutions especially in asset management. Realising this pilot project has required vast studies in RFID, asset tracking, and the systems that tie them together. Mr. Aminoff holds a M.Sc. in Economics and Business Administration from Hanken School of Economics in Helsinki.

Norsk Lastbærer Pool AS (NLP) is owned by grocery manufacturers of Norway (DLF) and suppliers distributors in the Norwegian food retail industry (DMF, owned by ICA, REMA 1000, COOP, NorgesGruppen). NLP organises and operates a pool system of tree pallets, plastic pallets and plastic containers (RPC`s) between the different parties within the industry. RFID technology enables NLP to add information about the content of each pallet, receivers address, order number and SSCC into every tag. NLP deploys RFID to gain visibility of the pallets within its own value chain.

The main benefit for the first stage of deployment is to eliminate loss of carriers and calculate the total cost for the users by enabling secure and automatic data transactions between the user (industry and retailers) and NLP (owner of the pallets) by the use of RFID technology.

Ms. Mirva Saarijärvi, Marketing Manager, Nordic ID

Balearic Island Blood and Tissue Bank in Spain decided to bring in RFID for handling the blood bags in their daily processes. The old barcode based system was time consuming and required a lot of manual work. Now these processes are handled in a more efficient, faster and secure manner with RFID.

Nordic ID is one of the leading manufacturers of mobile computers for mobile data collection.

Dr. Jaakko J. Talvitie, Project & Development Manager, Business Concepts, Tivit Oy. Dr. Talvitie holds a Dr. Tech. degree from University of Oulu, Finland (1997), and and Executive MBA degree from Helsinki University of Technology, Finland (2006). From 1987 to 1998 he was with University of Oulu in various research and teaching positions, lastly as Director of the Centre for Wireless Communications. From 1998 to 2009 he was with Elektrobit Corporation (Finland) holding various management and executive positions in R&D and business management. Currently he is with Tivit Ltd (Finland) as Project & Development Manager, Business Concepts.

Open Smart Space Ecosystem (OSSE) creates an open and horizontal service infrastructure where any local service provider can easily exploit NFC with only the investment cost of an NFC reader machine or an on-site installable NFC tag. Consumer equipment may include both mobile phones as well as existing NFC cards like regional travel cards. OSSE is based on an open access internet cloud server architecture that connects the consumers and the service providers securely.

Dr. Tuomo Tuikka, Senior Research Scientist, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland.  Dr. Tuikka is a Senior Research Scientist at VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland. He leads a team of researchers working on service technology. He currently coordinates the Finnish partners in Smart Urban Spaces project, a pan-European ITEA-based project on contactless city services. He has been coordinator of  SmartTouch project 2007-2008, NFC Forum Marketing Communication WG Vice-chair 2007-2008, and Collateral TF chair. Dr. Tuikka is Inventor of the first NFC enabled and patented social media service called ‘Hot in the City’.  He has been as researcher in many EU and nationally funded research projects. Earlier he has worked in software tool industry and at University of Oulu.

Finland has been a pioneer in research considering NFC hardware, software and applications. This work has  been done by industry, public players and research institutes, sometimes in collaborative fashion, to make NFC happen. This presentation provides a perspective on how NFC research, applications and services, have been conducted and positions the role of Finnish research in general. Besides work on devices and application programming interfaces, a plethora of excellent ideas have been presented and analyzed. A birdseye view is taken to identify opportunities in research and in business in the future.

Mr. Pekka Nivala, Project Coordinator, City of Oulu.

Ms. Kaisa Spilling, Project Manager, Forum Virium Helsinki Oy. Ms. Spilling is in charge of Smart Urban Spaces -project in Forum Virium Helsinki. The project objective is to develop interoperable, easy-to-use urban services utilizing mobile technology and ubiquitous computing.  Ms. Spilling manages the pilot projects in cooperation with companies and the City of Helsinki. The pilots range from three different thematic areas: traffic, tourism and daycare. Her interests lay in user experience and in exploring new urban interfaces for citizens and travellers.

Ms. Spilling  has over 10 years experience with digital marketing and communications, previously as an Account Director at SEK Group, a leading brand and advertising agency in Finland. She has a Masters' Degree from Copenhagen Business School.

Mr. Veikko Salminen, Director of Development, Movenium Oy. Mr. Salminen has been since 2007 in Movenium developing different kinds of web based services including data gathering, invoicing systems, and customer spesific services. He started to implement RFID solutions in 2008. Mr Salminen has studied integrated microprocessor technology at Helsinki University of Technology.

Moveniumm uses NFC devices for automatized tracking of work flow. NFC technology provides verified position and time information for the management of employees.

Ms. Virpi Ollila, CEO, Qvando Ltd. Ms. Ollila is an identity management and IT process development professional. Since 2009 she has been CEO of Qvando Ltd. Formerly she was CEO of a private consulting company.

Qvando is a service that enables users to globally and effortlessly prepare for a loss of an important item by attaching an unique identifier i.e. Qvandi to it. Growing Ovandi selection utilises number of technologies, one of them being NFC identifiers. Qvandi creates a private, immediate, direct and anonymous link between the item and the owner.

Mr. Pekka Markkula, Head of Service Enablers, TeliaSonera. Mr. Markkula has been working with TeliaSonera since 1999 (previously Sonera). He has been working for the areas of B2B telecommunication service development, Sonera Information Society Unit, regional business solution sales management, business development, product management and recently as a Head of Service Enablers, R&D Mobility Services.

Presently Mr. Markkula’s main responsibility is in the area of innovation management in business renewal and development in the areas such as content delivery, authentication, mobile payments, NFC and Operator APIs. Mr. Markkula has Master of Science in Engineering (IT) degree from Tampere University of Technology majoring in Software Systems, Software Production, Industrial Management and International Marketing.

Dr. Kari Kivistö, CEO, WhileOnTheMove Oy. Mr. Kari Kivisto has 25 years of experience in IT. Last seven years he has been focusing on mobile solutions and mobile platform technologies and architectures. Kari holds a PhD in Information Processing Science from university of Oulu, Finland.

Lady shopper is an easy to use, straightforward mobile application providing a new shopping experience to loyalty customers. It helps users to adopt NFC technology and it is the first step to mobile NFC enabled loyalty customer services and NFC enabled mobile payment.

Mr. Ramine Darabiha, Product Manager for Angry Birds Magic, Rovio Mobile Oy. Mr. Ramine Darabiha is Product manager at Rovio for Angry Birds Magic. Previously, he founded Mysites, which focused on cloud computing, and has been working with various startup accelerators in Europe, as well as advocated entrepreneurship in the Nordics and Baltics.

Angry Birds Magic is a new platform which leverages new technologies such as NFC to create new physical interactions for our fans. We'll discuss what this means for a player, and how NFC can be used for more than just payments and location.