Finnish process industry driving automation of information exchange

Over 50 Finnish companies have formed a cooperation forum, the Digital Business Ecosystem, aiming to improve digital exchange of information throughout the chain of suppliers and partners.

Big industry like UPM, StoraEnso, and Fortum will lead the work together with their main suppliers. They will jointly move towards standardized integration of business transactions and collaboration processes. The integration solution, DBE Core, can be widely used in the areas of sales, sourcing, procurement, logistics and transaction based financing. DBE Core is based on global established standards.

Huge savings from smart information exchange

Lappeenranta University of Technology (LUT) estimates savings of 2-4 % of the company’s turnover if they would digitalize and automate the business process transaction with their partners.  Dr. Kari Korpela from LUT states that an additional 1.5% savings could be achieved when using accurate data to improve efficiency on company’s internal processes. These figures are estimates from a study conducted among 40 Finnish companies in the process industry.

– The Finnish industry will rearrange entire supply chains from production all the way to consumption. The open standards will help to establish new industry ecosystem for adoption of new technologies across different verticals. This will create savings and opportunities for new value network services to optimize operations effectively across Digital Business Ecosystem, explains Dr. Korpela. 

Ecosystem invites companies – big & small – across industries to join

– The next step is to establish the integration with the entire SME supply network. For this we need value-add service providers. Operators should offer fast integration, ICT companies should develop cost-effective cloud solutions and financing industry should offer working capital through transaction banking services. Our intention is to grow the ecosystem across industries and we welcome you to join us, says Dr. Korpela.

For more information

Kari Korpela, LUT kari.korpela@lut.fi +358406841417

Timo Juvonen, THTH ry, timo.juvonen@ththry.org, +358 400 659274

Digitalization of the supply chain is one of the focus areas in the research project Digital Disruption of Industry (DDI). The DDI consortium studies the implications of digitalization to the Finnish society through the lens of industry. The consortium consists of Aalto University, ETLA, Lappeenranta University of Technology, University of Turku and VTT. The consortium is led by Professor Martti Mäntylä from Aalto University.