Eleven manufacturing SMEs in Finland told researchers exactly where energy optimisation breaks down. I designed four concepts around what they said.
Enertelligence is a two-year project co-funded by the European Union, run out of Vaasa University of Applied Sciences, studying why manufacturing SMEs in Ostrobothnia, Finland struggle to optimise their energy use even when they want to.
Researchers Tomi Paalosmaa and Asko Uuras led the academic side: interviewing 11 manufacturing SMEs, analysing the transcripts, and eventually publishing their findings in the peer-reviewed journal Energy Efficiency. My role started where theirs handed off. I took those research findings and designed the digital concepts meant to actually act on them.
The research's core insight was simple but easy to miss: existing literature treats SMEs as one homogeneous group. In practice, a 6-person workshop and a 200-person manufacturer face completely different versions of the same problem.
The maturity table that came out of this research plotted micro, small, and medium SMEs across five themes, from energy monitoring to financial readiness. The pattern that emerged shaped every concept I went on to design.
Energy efficiency is seen mainly as a cost problem. No systematic monitoring, no Industry 4.0 tools, and real financial and staffing constraints.
Genuine interest in saving energy, but payback time anxiety dominates every decision. Rented facilities often block bigger investments.
Energy optimisation is already a strategic tool, not a cost center. Real-time monitoring and renewable adoption are well underway.
That divide became the brief. A single tool built for a medium-sized manufacturer would be useless to a six-person workshop, and the reverse was just as true.
Turning an unpredictable electricity bill into a number you can actually plan around.
EnergyView tracks hourly electricity prices, analyses usage, and surfaces savings opportunities directly, then goes one step further by facilitating real quotes for better contracts and infrastructure upgrades, so insight turns into action instead of sitting in a dashboard.
Compliance shouldn't require a full-time job nobody on a six-person team can spare.
Using a company's own ID, Regulation Guide compiles only the standards relevant to that business, sends timely alerts, and gives plain, actionable next steps. I designed three distinct ways into the same information: an AI assistant for a direct question, keyword search for something specific, or open browsing for someone who just wants to look around.
The drill press sitting idle in one factory might be exactly what the next one over needs this month.
Resource Channel lets regional manufacturers share underused machines, transport, and surplus capacity instead of each buying their own. A simple request form and a map of nearby partners turn an informal favor network into something businesses can actually rely on, with the trust and transparency that takes seriously.
Employees usually know exactly where energy is being wasted. Nobody had ever asked them.
Energy Walk turns the floor staff into active participants rather than bystanders. It ships in two halves: a gamified employee app (“Point Team”) for tracking, challenges, and one-tap reporting from the floor, and an employer dashboard where management sets company goals and watches the reports and savings roll in.
A points-and-badges layer over the daily work: track progress, take on challenges, and flag a wasteful machine with a photo the moment you spot it.
The other side of the same system: management sets the targets and reads what the floor is telling them.
"The hardest part wasn't designing any single concept. It was accepting that the same screen would be wrong for at least two of the three company sizes we'd just spent months researching."
The maturity divide in the research could have produced one compromise tool that served nobody well. Instead it produced four focused concepts, each aimed at a different point of friction. That restraint, building several focused things instead of one bloated one, came directly from taking the research seriously rather than rushing past it to the interface.