Wärtsilä opens the first of four Digital Acceleration Centres to speed up the innovation and co-creation with customers on a range of new business models and solutions, including the industry’s most advanced intelligent vessel and other ground-breaking projects.
The technology group Wärtsilä is changing the clock speed of the company by using Digital Acceleration Centres (DAC) to accelerate new business ideas. The first Digital Acceleration Centre has launched today in Helsinki, Finland; the second will open in December in Singapore and two further acceleration centres, one in Central Europe and one in North America, are anticipated during 2018. In addition “pop-up” DACs will be tested with customers around the globe.
Opening DACs is an integral part of Wärtsilä’s digital transformation, which will shift Wärtsilä towards a data-driven, insights led, smart technology company that enables sustainable societies.
“The Digital Acceleration Centre is all about getting business outcomes at pace. By adopting a start-up mind-set, we can rapidly prototype ideas with customers; including the use of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, block chain and virtual reality,” says Wärtsilä’s Chief Digital Officer Marco Ryan.
Wärtsilä’s first Digital Acceleration Centre in Helsinki has already been running as a beta version for a couple of months and several projects have been accelerated there with different partners. Current projects include for example co-creation with one of the major cruise companies. One of the greatest successes incubated so far in the Helsinki DAC is Wärtsilä’s Intelligent Vessel Strategy.
“The Digital Acceleration Centre shows its true power in such complex concepts like Intelligent Vessels. In a matter of weeks we created an aligned strategy, concepts, roadmaps, and technology requirements that would have taken months or years. Each concept can be cut into smaller projects which are incubated and developed into Minimal Viable Products (MVP) far quicker than ever before. Even if occasionally an idea fails in the incubation phase, we see that as a learning opportunity and a valuable insight into building a better solution,” Marco Ryan says.
Digital Acceleration Centres provide a great opportunity to work in close relationship with customers, start-ups and partners to deliver greater value quickly to customers.
Wärtsilä has also partnered up with Accenture Interactive in the Digital Acceleration Centres to speed up innovation and go-to-market as well as to help grow Wärtsilä’s own talent for creating world-class digital services.
The latest example of the Intelligent Vessel strategy being driven at pace is Wärtsilä’s acquisition of Guidance Marine Limited, a technology leader in the marine industry for sensor solutions relating to dynamic positioning and other vessel control systems.
Further examples include the successful remote control navigation test in August carried out together with Gulfmark Offshore, the U.S. based operator. The testing involved driving the vessel off the North Sea coast of Scotland through a sequence of manoeuvres using a combination of Dynamic Positioning (DP) and manual joystick control. Although the test vessel was in the North Sea, the remote control navigating was carried out from the Wärtsilä office located in San Diego, California, 8000 km (5000 miles) away. The testing was carried out using standard bandwidth on-board satellite communication. No land-based technology was used for the communications between the vessel and the remote operator work station.
“These recent examples prove that we can test new ideas and business models at pace. In the old days, partly due to our proud engineering tradition, we would have not wanted to reveal a new product until it was perfect and fully tested. But now, with the DACs, we keep that focus on quality and outcomes, yet achieve it through a more agile, disruptive and rapid prototyping approach. The Intelligent vessel successes show that we can transform Wärtsilä at pace,” Marco Ryan believes.
Read more:
Acquisition of Guidance Marine
Intelligent vessels images
Intelligent vessels in YouTube
Watch the recording from the press info
Media contacts:
Mr Marco Ryan
Chief Digital Officer & Executive Vice-President
Wärtsilä Corporation
Tel: +358 10 709 0000
marco.ryan@wartsila.com
Ms Jenita Cresswell
Digital Communications Manager
Wärtsilä Digital
Tel: +358 50 584 8097
jenita.cresswell@wartsila.com
Wärtsilä in brief:
Wärtsilä is a global leader in advanced technologies and complete lifecycle solutions for the marine and energy markets. By emphasising sustainable innovation and total efficiency, Wärtsilä maximises the environmental and economic performance of the vessels and power plants of its customers. In 2016, Wärtsilä's net sales totalled EUR 4.8 billion with approximately 18,000 employees. The company has operations in over 200 locations in more than 70 countries around the world. Wärtsilä is listed on Nasdaq Helsinki, Finland
https://www.wartsila.com/
