A new campus for builders of wellbeing is under construction in Myllypuro, Helsinki. Myllypuro Campus will serve as a study and work environment for 6000 students and 500 employees and will be the largest single unit for the Metropolia University of Applied Sciences. The campus will be completed in two stages and the project is estimated to be finished in August 2019.
The Campus's 40 thousand square-metre floor space is conveniently situated all in one location along ringroad Kehä 1, partly on top of the metro line. The object has a total surface area of 41 000 square metres. The project is also of major importance for insulation services provider Hewaco Oy, which chose PAROC Hvac Combi AluCoat T for the Myllypuro Campus’s pipe insulation.
Product: PAROC Hvac Combi AluCoat T
“The timing was perfect, since the Combi section had just been introduced on the market when the Myllypuro Campus project started for us. Thus, we had the opportunity to test the new product immediately in real life,” explains Hewaco project manager Tomi Elolähde. According to Elolähde, it was possible to show the advantages of the Combi section on a truly large scale in Myllypuro, since around 20 000 metres of piping is required. “This means the insulated piping in this building is the same length as the distance from downtown Helsinki to ringroad Kehä 1, next to where the Myllypuro Campus is situated in Eastern Helsinki.”
By other indicators, too, the Myllypuro Campus constitutes a significant project for Hewaco, since in practice it represents a quarter of the company's total annual work volume. “Naturally, the project also has reference value for us, since from the insulation industry's perspective, it is one of the biggest ongoing projects in the metropolitan area. Along with the size, the project timetable, as is typical for the building industry, was one of our biggest challenges. The object also has many floors and small insulated pipes. As a result, we had an excellent opportunity to test whether we would be able to tackle these challenges with Paroc's new star product,” explains Elolähde.
There have been active discussions and an exchange of experiences between Hewaco and Paroc as the project has progressed. “We listen carefully to our customer's feedback and thoughts, since the end users are professionals who can provide us with valuable user experience. This time, the user experience was of rather special significance, because with the start of the project, there was a completely new pipe insulation product on the Finnish market,” explains Toni Saukkonen, Product Manager, Paroc Technical Insulation.
The uniqueness of the Combi section, which was launched on the Finnish market just over a year ago, is based on the star-shaped inner diameter of the pipe insulation, thanks to which the same pipe section can be used for pipes of various dimensions - a small feature that is of surprising importance from the customer's business point of view. “Based on our year’s experience, the Combi section has for its part sped up turnover in our inventory, streamlined installation work at the site, reduced material spillage and even improved occupational safety and health for our installers at the site. All these factors show in the form of cost savings on the bottom line,” says Elolähde .
Elolähde emphasizes the logistical advantages as the primary factor. “We have been able to reduce the number of stock items and shelf locations in our warehouse, since we no longer have any need for stockpiling pipe insulations of various dimensions as we had before. Our workers have also said that installation work at the site has become easier and faster, as there is no longer any need to take packages of 4-5 different sizes of pipe insulations. A couple of packages are sufficient, so this is also important from an occupational safety and health point of view. During the actual installation work, the Combi section has not resulted in any major changes from previous jobs. It has been just as smooth as it usually is with PAROC products in general.
Predicting material order volumes has been a challenge for Hewaco's daily operations. “We can store only a limited amount of material in our warehouse, so we have to be able to calculate and predict material consumption quite precisely. With the Combi section, this task has now become easier for pipe insulations, which again optimizes ordering materials and delivery processes, and reduces spillage volumes,” says Elolähde.
Saukkonen explains that, based on Paroc's calculations, it is even possible to halve customers' stock items, meaning that inventory turnover can be accelerated by more than 30%. “Thus, the customer's inventory assortment can focus on faster-moving products that bring factual effectiveness to storage and logistics. Hewaco's experiences with the Myllypuro Campus project have proven to be invaluable, and we will continue the intensive exchange of experiences and discussions as the project proceeds. In this way, we will perhaps be able to further turn the Combi section into a star product that serves our customers' needs even better.”
Project information |
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| Category |
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| Year | 2018 |
| Country | Finland |
| Address | Myllypurontie 1 |
| City and zip code | Helsinki 00920 |
| Architect | Lahdelma & Mahlamäki architects and Arkkitehtitoimisto Lehto Peltonen Valkama Oy |
| Contractor | |
