Scope #17 (12/2022)

KEYNOTE

KNOW YOUR FRIENDS and Strengths

Last year – during about the darkest weeks of November – we set a bold target to invest in good leadership and teamwork, focus more on understanding and developing our customers’ business, and get our daily routines right. As a result, we wanted to see happy employees and customers – and business growth.

What a year it became! When looking at business figures, our eNPS climbed up to 47, NPS to 57 and turnover grew more than 50%, going past the 30M€ milestone. These numbers make us proud and thankful. But as a poet John Donne put it, “No man is an island”; no one is self-sufficient; everyone relies on others. We are humbly grateful to all our friends: customers, fellow prohocians and our partners for the trust and great effort done during this crazy year of growth. It is You, who made this. Thank You!

This year turned out to be crazy from other perspectives too. Horrible war in Ukraine, worldwide logistics issues, inflation, climate change, declining markets and so on. The list is too long. VUCA world is truly here and requires resiliency, a new level of cooperation, partnerships and a focus on building new capabilities.

During the dark and hard times, it is important to be brave and look further, beyond the turbulence. By knowing and strengthening our capabilities, we are better positioned to thrive under future disruptions too. In this Scope magazine, we interpret our growth mindset. I’m sure that they will ignite some insights to you on how to be successful, together.

On behalf of everyone at Prohoc Group, I wish you all a wonderful holiday season. May your holiday be blessed with the love and warmth of family and friends. All the best to the year 2023!

Palola CEO

A smalltown boy, born by the sea. A complex mixture of an engineer and a humanist. Passionate about planning for the next steps. Spends most of his free time on his couch with the family, running with a map in the woods, sweating in Les Mills classes and playing with excel spreadsheets. • LINKEDIN: @ilkkapalola

Ilkka

PHOTO: MIKKO LEHTIMÄKI

PROACTOR DRIVEN BY INDUSTRY 5.0: PROACTOR’S APPROACH

Manufacturing trends, sustainability, human-centricity, further robotization – all this calls for an agile partner to co-develop future winning ways of working. Proactor is aiming to be the number one partner in the manufacturing scene to partner up with tomorrow’s winners.

This article explains how Proactor is helping manufacturing customers win in these unprecedented times. But first, let’s take a look at how we got here.

THE FIRST INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

It was at the turn of the 17th and 18th century when the first motorized industrial machines were built, powered by vacuum generated by a steam engine. Took almost a hundred years before real industrial applications began gaining a foothold in England after James Watt patented the Watt’s steam engine in 1784. Spinning Jennies began replacing laborious manual work in yarn spinning, leading to mass layoffs and the first Jennies being burned to the ground by unemployed spinners. This is how the first industrial revolution started.

It then took another hundred years for the next leap in the manufacturing industry. The era of a vast amount of breakthrough innovations was powered by both electricity and petrol. Light bulb, electric motor, generator, combustion engine, and precision machine tools led to a real influx of mass production lines and conveyor belts working – the second industrial revolution. The two World Wars were the prime movers in the development and industrialization of vehicles. Airplanes and manufacturing machinery made it possible to further increase the pace of development. This was also the turning point of information management. Technological development led to exponential growth of information and

set the new cadence for development of how information was created, managed and consumed.

THE CITY OF COMBUSTION ENGINES

These were the times when companies like Strömberg (now ABB) and Wärtsilä started to bring all this to Finland, and It led to the establishment of Onkilahden Konepaja in 1894, later to be acquired by Wärtsilä in 1936. The first engine manufacturing in Vaasa began in 1901 and companies like Wickström and Olympia made the city famous for combustion engines. Wärtsilä then built on these capabilities and introduced Vasa 14 diesel engine in 1959.

This takes us to the third revolution, which started in the 1960’s fueled by yet another war – Vietnam and the cold war in general. When two superpowers raced for world dominance, huge amounts of investments were made to develop semiconductors, microprocessors, and automation in general. Mechanical became one with electronics, airplanes turned into spaceships, milling machines into CNC machines and humans gradually began leaving the conveyor belts. Mail changed to e-mails and work began to really go global. It also put a phone in your pocket, one that eventually offered access to infinite data.

HOW TO FIND SKILLED WORKERS?

We could say that the current industrial era,

the fourth one, began with the adoption of the internet and digitalization into manufacturing systems, driven by the sharp fall in the cost of semiconductors and the following huge increase in computing power.

Now we have the IoT, AR, AI, ML, 3D, Big data and many other acronyms available to support the increase in productivity. Even autonomous robots, additive manufacturing, advanced simulation capabilities, etc. The central goal has been to remove humans from the equation, and this has led to great improvements in unit economies, quality of work, and especially work safety. Work in general has moved from a shopfloor to offices, but in many industries, humans still play a vital role in manufacturing and assembly work.

We live in truly unprecedented times and witness the central gravity of global power moving to new positions. We are reshaping the markets, cutting ties, and reducing dependencies to the east. Most nations are looking at self-sufficiency and security of the critical infrastructure. This means also that global manufacturing will move from global to more regional, even national. For European manufacturers, this means a radical shift in supply strategies and requires them to increase their local capabilities. One of the biggest challenges for manufacturers in Europe and in Finland is to find skilled workers to enable this. The discussion now is how we make the work meaningful for people again. In contrast to Asia or the Americas, Europe is facing a huge problem with its demographics, and the attractiveness of manual industrial work has diminished over the last decades.

BECOMING THE FIRST-CHOICE MANUFACTURING PARTNER

At Prohoc group, we believe that the future winners are the ones who are able to adopt human-centric strategies and bring meaningfulness. The winners have great company culture and career development. They know how to combine the creativity of humans with the increased adoption of robotic automation. With Proactor, we are shaping how the manufacturing industry is dealing with demand fluctuations, access to a skilled workforce, and the adoption of human-robotic collaboration. We help our customers and people to adopt industry 5.0, meaning we put people, resiliency, and sustainability as the key strategic focus areas in everything we do.

Our vision is to become the preferred industrial partner for OEM’s, replacing payroll services providers with fixed price assembly and production development services, and helping customers to adopt modern ways of operating and maintaining their manufacturing assets.

With our Industry 5.0 manufacturing and Smart Factory solutions, we are a good partner to meet the VUCA world with. Our customers see improved capability to meet demand fluctuations and faster development cycles in their development. Our team of 150 manufacturing engineers and doers at Proactor is ready to take on that challenge!

Our vision is to become the preferred industrial partner for OEM’s, replacing payroll services providers with fixed price assembly and production development services, and helping customers to adopt modern ways of operating and maintaining their manufacturing assets.

STH MOVE PROJECT

Combining the pieces into a new entity — together

During factory relocation projects, multiple actions are underway simultaneously, and the factory must operate as normally as possible to keep up with the schedules. To succeed in these projects, every team member must be on the same page to ensure smooth and safe operations. CONTINUES →

IMAGINE THIS: The STH Move operation required moving more than 200 truckloads of machinery and materials. Hermanni Halonen (left) acted as a operation supervisor for the first time in his career. Lauri Niskanen (above) made sure of proper lifting procedures.

n the Sustainable Technology Hub (STH) relocation project, Proactor transferred goods and equipment from Wärtsilä's old DCV factory in Vaasa to the new Sustainable Technology Hub. Proactor's professionals dismantled and assembled customers' critical manufacturing equipment during the project. The disassembly and assembly of machines and transferring goods with a total weight rising over 2000 tons succeeded without jeopardizing production.

Moving thousands of pallets of goods from one location to another and dismantling walls and doorways out of the way requires extensive attention to safety actions. From the start, Wärtsilä Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) experts and Proactor's personnel planned the best practices to complete the project in good cooperation.

SECURING THE INFORMATION FLOW

Heli Ala-Nikkola was Prohoc's HSE Supervisor in the relocation project. All experts were onboarded to study the project's purpose, goals, and occupational safety rules. Occupational safety and the situation in the work areas were monitored with documented weekly safety walks. Safety matters were also reviewed in the project's regular meetings. Ala-Nikkola highlights risk assessments, made together with the employees, as an essential safety measure.

"Planning together avoids information flow problems. Each participant knows the plan, responsibilities, risks, and how we manage them."

When dismantling production and assembly cells, the focus was to make sure the personnel working in the cells, customer, and Prohoc project management were involved step by step.

"We went through the guidelines with the people working in the cell that would be dismantled. People in the cell next door were equally involved. The move could not endanger their safety or hinder their work", says Jari Saaranen, Prohoc's Head of Business Unit, Operation and Maintenance Services.

Safety matters were a vital topic, especially during the most hectic period of the project, when many operations were underway si-

THIS OUT: Jari Saaranen is proud of his team. "We hauled over three kilometers of shelves."

multaneously.

"Time is money, but you save more money by avoiding accidents that harm health, the environment, or property", emphasizes Ala-Nikkola.

CAREFUL PLANNING DAY AFTER DAY

Proactor's professionals Hermanni Halonen and Lauri Niskanen had long spells in the STH project's logistics and assembly duties. Halonen’s tasks included dismantling the cylinder head assembly line at the old factory and reassembling the same line in the new location. Niskanen was responsible for the arrangements of transporting goods from the DCV facility to STH by informing the transporters of the site's situation.

Both Proactor professionals highlight the importance of teamwork. The team had experts from various fields, and team spirit was high during the project. Halonen says they paid attention to tying down heavy loads, isolating areas, and electrical safety.

"No one was alone facing a challenging situation at the site. There was always a teammate with whom to find solutions."

Sometimes plans had to be updated and changed during work. The role of teamwork was also crucial in these cases.

"We carried on careful planning day after day. If there was a need to make changes, for example, regarding lifting goods, we planned those properly from start to finish", says Niskanen.

NEW CAREER STEPS

At the project, Niskanen learned how tasks are managed on a large scale from start to finish in an environment with multiple changing factors and the critical role of high-quality documentation. He also gives credit to the Proactor's project management.

"Tuukka Rainio, Tatu Hautalaakso, and Seppo Vallberg did their jobs well in our work management. Thanks to them, we could leave work matters at the workplace."

The project was a memorable experience for Halonen as he could challenge himself. At the same time, the project offered him a way to move forward in his career as a team leader. He is now the assemblers’ foreman and a contact person for the customer in another project.

"I learned operating models and got to know many great professionals. Prohoc invests considerably in managerial work and employee well-being. I do my best to guide and support my team members. I want to ensure people enjoy working for us."

CHECK

FROM THE DESK OF COB Matti Manner

Prohoc in the invisible Magic Quadrant

No, we haven’t made it to the infamous Gartner’s Magic Quadrant. It only covers IT-related categories, so there’s no MQ for industry partner services. Bummer! But we can still pretend there is and look at where we are in terms of Completeness of Vision and Ability to Execute and whether it places us as a leader, challenger, visionary or a niche player in our market.

We set ourselves on a growth journey in our strategy review in the summer of 2020. It was a time when business expectations globally turned to an upward trend after an all-time worst downturn by Covid-19.

Our project business had suffered a major impact.

Our focus was only on getting our people back home safely from project sites around the world. We were a bit less than 100 people at the time. It was a good moment for a genuine restart.

Today, Prohoc Group has two main business areas that slightly overlap creating an industry partner service offering for global OEMs, EPCs, and asset owners.

With our project services and a team of more than 200 project doers, we help customers deliver their projects successfully. Our manufacturing and operations & maintenance service with its team of nearly 200 people supports customers to build their products in a smart and sustainable way, and maintain their manufacturing assets for productive use. By combining these capabilities, we can help customers with various demanding projects.

There are opportunities everywhere in our market. On one hand, we see interesting development in the investment project space in the Nordics. Project volumes and sizes are very promising. Investors and project developers

are looking for more collaborative ways to implement their projects. This opens the door for mid-sized project and construction management companies to challenge the traditional large EPCMs. In manufacturing, we see increasing interest in Proactor’s value proposition, challenging the traditional personnel rental business with a more managed manufacturing service setup.

Both markets we serve are roughly 1B in euro size and growing double digits year after year. We see a very foggy future though. It means we have a 2 % market share from the project and construction management services in the Nordics and a roughly 1 % market share from the available market for Proactor’s services in Finland.

That makes us a niche player in both markets. We are very happy about that. When placing our fellow market players in the quadrant though, it excites us to see that compared to our peers, we mostly lack the Ability to Execute. We believe we run a more differentiated strategy and focus than that of our peers. Maybe it’s also easier for a smaller ship to navigate these VUCA times. In fact, we believe we are well positioned now to start putting our focus on the execution as we feel we have found our spot in terms of market strategy.

I am super thankful that we have such visionary partners and customers who have invited us to co-develop new ways of working. They have been dragging us towards the Visionary segment of the quadrant. The same thankfulness goes to all our new prohocians who have joined our team during these past two years. You are almost 300 people during this time. That’s huge!

Our focus is now primarily on walking the talk. Fulfilling our promises to all our great people who have joined us, and to our long-term customers, and the new ones, showing confidence to continue our journey together. Let’s revisit this MQ in some years’ time and see if we’ve been able to claim our space in the Visionary segment.

In addition to a low hierarchy organization with speed, agility, and teamwork, some structures, checkpoints and tools are needed to ensure smooth daily working.

PHOTOS: MIKKO

MANAGE STRUCTURES AND LEAD PEOPLE: Building an organization where people can shine

Many companies, including Prohoc, reconsider their positioning in the fast-growing and instantly changing business field as the competition of professionals gets more and more intense. The organization’s strong growth and the focus on building the best employee experience have pushed Prohoc to think about how to ensure success in the future as well. The organizational transformation has been one step to drive these initiatives.

”We started the transformation by focusing on our strengths and future needs and describing what our future is”, says Johanna Hämäläinen, Chief People Officer at Prohoc.

“Our target is to build an organization where people can succeed together utilizing the professional network inside the company and in our ecosystem. We have clear structures to ensure clarity in working so that people feel empowered to take ownership. In management, we also want to be transparent regarding future choices.”

Another part of the design work was to rethink the roles of line managers. What kind of leadership brings the best outcome? Is it better to manage, control, and instruct how work is done, or is it more fruitful to empower people and create space for them to test their boundaries and grow? Or would it be possible to manage without managers?

THE EVOLUTION OF ORGANIZATIONS

In his book Reinventing Organizations, Frédéric Laloux explains how power structures and human organizations have evolved during the last ten thousand years. History shows the evolution of the way we organize ourselves and collaborate with each other.

The first real organization emerged about 10,000 years ago and was like a pack of wolves. The Wolf Pack Organizations were highly reactive focusing on short-term wins. The chief had the power of command to keep the troops in line. Fear

was the glue.

About 4000 years ago, the shift to agriculture scaled organizational structures towards formal rules and processes as well as hierarchical structures. Top-down command and control were how things were done. These so-called Army Organizations were great at repeating things but not good to adjust changes.

The Machine Organization was invented with the belief that the organization’s goal is to beat the competition and achieve profit and growth. Management told what to do and individuals could choose how to do it, however, people were seen as resources to be optimized in the best possible way and the organizations promoted only the wins.

Family Organizations were born during the 1960s and 1970s. They valued relationships and empowerment with democracy as well as value-driven ways of working. Family Organizations operated like families and were great at breaking down old structures but less effective in delivering practical outcomes and results.

Teal Organizations are the next stage of human consciousness that solves the problems of bureaucracy and infighting. Ego-related hierarchy is not the power anymore. Organizations are run by relationships and networks supporting self-management. People are seen as a whole and they are invited to align their personal calling with the organizational purpose. The focus in Teal Organizations is on strengths and potential.

PROHOC ORGANIZATION MODEL

According to Johanna Hämäläinen, Prohoc’s current setup after the transformation is kind of a hybrid model, with a mix of different ingredients.

“We found out that there is no single solution to solve our needs as people are individuals needing different kinds

11

At Prohoc, Team Lead coaches people to shine and succeed in their work.

FROM PREVIOUS PAGE of support. We have a low hierarchy organization with speed, agility, and teamwork, but on the other hand, to support the growth, we need to build some structures, checkpoints, and tools to ensure smooth daily working. Structures are needed to lead us toward our common goal. We also think it is important that people get support in their work, and instead of jumping right towards self-organized working without leaders, we decided to focus on our leadership practices”, says Hämäläinen.

“One of our guiding principles in our Leadership development was the idea of Servant Leadership. The leader should know her people and be available for them, not the other way around. The value is done through people and when we take care of our people and ensure the work has a meaning, the results will follow.”

Another guiding principle was to build on people’s strengths.

“Servant Leadership focuses on developing people’s strengths. Therefore, we started the journey by supporting our team leaders’ self-knowledge by analyzing their strengths. You must understand your own personality to be able to modify your personal behavior style in different situations.”

Prohoc also asked the whole organization what kind of leadership they expect and value. This was done through a well-being survey to better understand the people’s expectations. Is it to give more space, support, decision-making mandates, or something else?

“The results were encouraging. People don’t expect rocket science. They want very basic things: support, presence, dialogue, interest in one’s work and development, but also assertiveness and support in decision-making when needed”, Hämäläinen says.

LEADERS SUPPORTING PEOPLE TO GROW

Leaders have a significant role in supporting the mindset shift towards a more self-steering attitude and growth of people. In Prohoc, a team lead’s role is to coach people to succeed and shine in their work. It’s all about building a common ground for responsibility and learning and building meaningful work. To support this, Prohoc coaches team leaders for an adaptive leadership style. Different circumstances require different approaches, and one style doesn’t fit every purpose.

“As an organization, we are committed to building the best possible environment for our people. We are not there yet as our ambition is very high. In addition, the development work requires capabilities to tolerate incompleteness from all of us. Luckily, Prohocians are very open-minded, willing to test and learn new things, and cooperative. All this together builds a great foundation for our success,” Johanna Hämäläinen highlights.

According to Daniel Goleman, six essential leadership styles are needed when coping with different situations:

Visionary Leadership Mobilizes and engages people in the same direction.

Affiliative Leadership Working together, involving people. Works best when you need to motivate people to do things in a new way.

Democratic Leadership Focus on communication and agreeing on issues together. Works well in situations where you need to build buy-in or get input from people.

Pacesetting Leadership Sets standards for performance and schedules.

Coaching Leadership Develops individuals’ performance, long-term strengths, and future skills.

Commanding Leadership Sometimes there is a situation needing command. This style works when there is a fire and people don’t know what to do.

PORTRAIT: Antti Pasanen

The Project Breed

Prohoc’s Project & Account Lead, Antti Pasanen, is a seasoned project leader. Pasanen’s career with projects began decades ago in the paper industry and has since carried him through various positions worldwide.

Pasanen once started a conversation with a familiar supplier representative on an airplane and soon found himself working on the company’s projects around the world.

“I’m a quick decision-maker. With project work, you cannot dwell on things – you have to move forward.”

According to Pasanen, project work requires a specific type of person. It is crucial to have the ability to adjust: to working alone, to working in a team, to being on-site 24/7 in a foreign country, sometimes in very rudimentary and harsh conditions.

“You must be willing to enjoy the challenge. The hecticness is part of the appeal for me. As a human, I am "The Project Breed”.”

DON’T FEAR LARGE-SCALE PROJECTS

Pasanen’s career has led him to run large-scale projects. They have taught him his most valuable lesson.

“You can’t be afraid of the projects’ scale. At the end of the day, a project is a project. You move it forward according to the same principles, regardless of the size.”

Pasanen’s more hands-on tricks of the trade include the following practices:

1. DIVIDE: Split things into smaller pieces. You can be sure that everyone involved understands what is happening. If something goes wrong, it’s easier to find out where the problem started.

2. ENSURE: Prepare everything meticulously and double-check at the end. You can rest assured knowing everything is in order.

3. BUILD BUFFERS: Leave some space for buffers in the schedule and budget and keep them to yourself.

4. START AT THE END: Start building your project from the end. You will be able to visualize the end result and engage everyone involved more effectively.

A HUMAN-ORIENTED LEADER

In his current position at Prohoc, Pasanen offers customers project responsibility. Instead of a single project manager, customers receive entire teams and project execution organizations.

“Today, I operate as a sort of a steering advisor between the customer and the project. My current role allows me to bring out my extensive experience for the customers’ benefit.”

Pasanen’s leadership is human-oriented. As projects involve numerous people and different interfaces, leaders need to see the big picture.

“I recognize that no one can stand on top of the pyramid alone. On the other hand, if you flip the pyramid, the burden becomes too heavy for one person’s shoulders. It’s a team effort.”

PROHOC’S OPERATIONS’ CORE IS THE CUSTOMER PROMISE

Having worked at Prohoc only for a few months, Pasanen is pleased to discover that one of the company’s fundamental principles is valuing the people.

“An employer must not only attract talented employees but also hold onto them. We couldn’t sell a single project without knowing we can execute it. That’s how we keep our customer promise and keeping our customer promise is the core of our operations.”

In the future, customers are looking to outsource more and more project responsibility.

Antti Pasanen

PROHOC OY 2022

Project Lead & Account Lead

NIPROMEC OY 2021‒2022

Key Account and Area Manager

METSO-OUTOTEC OYJ 2018‒2021

Project Director

ROSATOM FINLAND 2015‒2018

Site Manager

WIND POWER PROJECT MANAGEMENT 2010‒2015

AHMA INSINÖÖRIT OY 2009‒2010

Project Manager

TALVIVAARA OY 2008‒2009

Site Manager

DANIELI SAUDI-ARABIA/ TURKEY 2004‒2008

Site Manager

OUTOKUMPU TORNIO 2002‒2004

Senior Supervisor

“We must accept the responsibility. It takes courage, but if we can do that, there are no limits to our growth and success.”

PHOTO: MIKKO LEHTIMÄKI

Encouraging test results: the RECOMILL HTC pilot plant in action

The pilot testing of the HTC plant on the Stormossen biogas plant in Vaasa, Finland, has provided valuable lessons and great high points to RECOMILL experts. One of the significant milestones was producing the first pellets with Hydrothermal Carbonisation from dewatered hydrochar. RECOMILL’s Business Development Director Jan Hägg says lessons have been learned, and the future looks bright.

“I’m proud of what we have achieved with our pilot plant. We’re ready to move on to the following chapter of our operations: planning a full-scale plant.”

THE TECHNOLOGY PRODUCES AN AGRICULTURE-SUITABLE FERTILIZER

Right after landing on the Stormossen premises in April, the pilot plant has been up and running to test various feedstocks. The plant is operated with diverse parameters by a joint plan created with the customer.

RECOMILL has cooperated with various universities and universities of applied sciences around Finland. The cooperation has included analyzing the test results and offering valuable feedback and data to researchers.

“The results show no significant change in carbon content and calorific values between the solid content of digestate and hydrochar. Nevertheless, the hydrochar product recovers nitrogen and phosphorous, thus it’s a suitable fertilizer for agricultural fields”, describes the

project researcher, Ph.D. Karhan Özdenkci from Åbo Akademi University.

MULTIPLE USAGE OPPORTUNITIES

The RECOMILL pilot plant provides an opportunity to review an alternative for composting the biogas digestate. That cuts down both the space needed for composting and the unpleasant odors in the nearby areas. Typically, the composting process takes around a year, but the HTC technology can reduce the processing time to just a couple of hours.

The digestate stream from the biogas reactor involves the undigested organics and inorganics including minerals, nutrients, and heavy metals. The harmful content of digestate, such as pharmaceuticals and pathogens, prevents direct usage for soil application.

The reject water is a beneficial side stream to be used in biogas production and other uses. Reject water, including part of the minerals and nutrients, can also be utilized for watering the fields nearby after a treatment operation, converting the organic content, or it can be recycled to the digester unit for more biogas production. The reject water can increase the biogas production yield by up to 15 %.

“The integration of this process to biogas plants will provide fast and economical conversion of digestate to the hydrochar product, thus enabling zero-waste operation from the circular economy viewpoint”, highlights Özdenkci.

PROJECTS

RETHINKING PROJECT and CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT

The industrial construction business is facing unprecedented challenges. In residential and public construction, the trend has been toward collaborative project implementation models for some time. However, industrial construction has kept traditional lump sum EPC as the primary choice. There’s a new paradigm now growing stronger in the market. Turmoil in the supply and construction markets created by a war in Europe and radical moves in the energy market have forced investors and contractors to look for more collaborative ways to take projects to financial close.

Securing the availability of materials, equipment and contractors has not been this difficult for decades. De-risking the investment with a lump sum EPC in this environment leads to contractors applying risk contingencies far greater than ever before, leading to a loss in feasibility. Projects won’t fly. Traditionally, the project risk should always be carried by the party with a better ability to control it – meaning that technology providers must take the performance risk associated with their technology. Typically, contractors carry the construction risk, and the investor is left with risks associated with financing, feedstock, offtake, and force majeure events.

As Europe is facing a double challenge –going green for the climate and going away from the Russian fossils, there’s a real influx of projects in the development pipelines looking for ways to make it. As contractors are either not available or reluctant on lump sums, project developers have had to develop new ways to manage and share risks between the parties. This means increasing risk exposure, especially for the investors as they are left to

Creating an ecosystem of suppliers and partners is in the focus right now.

Iiro Wesslin CHIEF BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT OFFICER

carry their part of the construction risk.

Time is another factor. There’s rarely time for a traditional waterfall in this environment. We see more phased NTPs and concurrent requirements definition, engineering, and construction being done. This calls for more collaborative ways to develop and implement industrial projects.

PROHOC’S TAKE ON THE DEVELOPMENT

At Prohoc, we see this development as an interesting opportunity. Investors and owners taking more responsibility in the project and construction management opens opportunities for technology and engineering independent project services providers. We are grasping this opportunity. There’s an increasing amount of work in the market and maybe the traditional EPCMs have their hands full as well.

We also see more projects where the EPCM has been replaced with separate engineering and project management contracts. Prohoc is partnering with investors to help them manage this increased risk and their project work, either with a project consultancy contract or a project management contract.

Investors are given a fresh approach.

“We see customers looking for more freedom to choose partners, including construction management and engineering, to get the best fit for the job“, says Iiro Wesslin, Prohoc’s Chief Business Development Officer.

“We want to help our customers manage the risk and build the best setup for projects by providing our project and construction management services.“

Prohoc is also looking to share some of the risks with a project management contract that incentivizes both parties to aim for a successful project.

PROJECT MANIACS AT HEART

Prohoc has been growing steadily in the industrial projects business area. We are now a team of 300 industry professionals and a strong network of partners. The solutions are built around three services: Project and Construction Management, Project Resourcing,

and PMC Tools & Data Services.

The recruitment market of engineers and other project professionals is tightening. According to Deloitte, open positions in the engineering and construction industry have doubled within a year but new hires have increased only 10 %. There is a heavy shortage of competence within the industry. Still, Prohoc has been able to keep adding more experts to the fleet with more than a double growth rate compared to the market average.

Providing excellent employee experience and challenging projects for professionals is at the core of Prohoc’s mission.

“I’m glad to see that our message resonates so well with customers, suppliers, and also with potential new hires. People want to work with us and that’s a good foundation to build on!” Wesslin says.

The diversity of projects that Prohoc experts have been working on has another advantage too. Since the industry is incorporating more digital technologies to further enhance productivity, efficiency, and safety at work, the pressure for competence development is higher than ever.

“A project consultant works for several customers, markets, and technologies, which makes our people more adaptive to changes and helps learning new things.”

TOWARDS A CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY ECOSYSTEM

If you want to go fast – go alone, but if you want to go far – go together. Creating an ecosystem of suppliers and partners is in the focus right now.

“Investors and contractors need the best team for their projects and sometimes partnering is the way to go”, points Wesslin.

Especially for large capital-intensive projects, Prohoc can partner with like-minded companies to create the best team, even for mega projects.

“The number of new projects and interesting new discussions we have been able to have with different stakeholders has been eye-opening to us. It is imminent that the investors seek new ways to have the projects materialized and delivered successfully. That’s what we do!”

MODULAR PLANT DESIGN BY WOIMA

Replacing One-off Design Approach with Modular Concept

Plant design has traditionally been the cash cow for engineering companies. Each plant has been designed as “fit-for-purpose” with little regard to existing plant parameters and designs. This has ensured continuous and highly profitable cash flow performing all the engineering disciplines; process, mechanical, electrical and automation. And over-staffing the project development and delivery phases at customer’s expense. WOIMA is challenging this outdated approach.

The WOIMA Modular Design Concept development begun with an idea of a sea-container-based power plant. All the process equipment were installed in, and boiler parts prefab ricated into 20- and 40-foot sea containers in a controlled workshop environment. This ensures easy transportability and fast plant erection on site.

Unfortunately, the restrictive container dimensions also limited the plant’s output. We overcame this constraint by introducing scalability into the Concept – one to four boiler islands could be integrated to create larger plant setups to serve a broader customer base.

EVOLVING MODULAR BOILER CONCEPT

Today, we still adhere to the original design principles of transportability, scalability, constructability, and flexibility. But the modular boiler concept has evolved away from sea containers as a structural core of the modules, while still mostly using their dimensions.

Our “base model” has 15MW thermal power. It incorporates all the power plant’s technical solutions, including electrifi cation, automation, instrumentation, and insulation in the modules. The WOIMA Design Concept enables easy and fast

WELLBEING

FINDING PEACE & CALM: How to Cope in the Stressful VUCA Environment

In the modern world, so many of us experience chronic symptoms of stress that it has become a somewhat normal part of our lives. Stress is a natural response to perceived threats and was once a useful system to keep us safe – back when danger looked like a saber-toothed tiger rather than a pile of urgent work documents.

Saber-toothed tigers are few and far between nowadays. Our perceived threats are very different and rarely life-threatening. While the world has developed and evolved, our stress response has not.

We have a bad habit of trying to push through, surviving on adrenaline. We often overschedule ourselves. We drink another coffee and respond to one more email. We have an illusion that if we stay amped up all the time, we’ll eventually be able to get everything done.

Stress was never meant to be a full-day experience. Stanford professor Robert Sapolsky explains

that you’re only supposed to feel stressed in the five minutes right before you die. When you’re being chased in the savanna by a wild animal, your stress response is supposed to save your life – it mobilizes your attention, muscles, and immune system to get you quickly out of danger.

When animals escape, they come right out of fightor-flight mode and into rest-and-digest mode, where the parasympathetic nervous system works to replenish their resources. Unfortunately for us humans, it doesn’t work that way, and stress can stay in our bodies longer. It comes with many unpleasant symptoms: sweating, heartthrob, headache, digestive problems, high blood pressure, exhaustion, sleep problems, heartburn…

When stressed, we also perceive the world differently. Stress makes us narrowly focused, preventing us from seeing the bigger picture. When we’re calmer, our attention becomes broader. We literally see more things.

WRITE IT DOWN AND REFRAME THE SITUATION

You can write about what's causing you stress and get your emotions out on the page. Sometimes we intensify our experience of stressful situations by how we look at them. If you can look at your situation differently, you may be able to put it into a different perspective – one that causes you less stress.

You could also benefit from journaling. Studies show that people who keep a daily gratitude journal have lower cortisol levels. Try taking a few minutes at the end of each day to write down five things you feel thankful for and see how much better it makes you feel.

benefits accrued more slowly. The time of day and specific locations didn't affect stress levels. So, the next time you need to de-stress or work on your mental well-being, find a nature setting you enjoy and spend some time there.

REST

This should be a no-brainer, but many people sleep too little. And you know that everything seems worse when you haven’t had a good night’s sleep. Stress and anxiety can often lead to insomnia, so you end up in a vicious cycle – not being able to sleep and then feeling worse because you haven’t had enough sleep.

Make sleep a priority, especially if you’re under a lot of pressure. Go to bed early and ban electronic devices from the bedroom!

and you have to replace all the flooring, this could be very stressful. Yet try to focus on the fact that it allows you to update and renovate, and your insurance should cover the repairs. Staying positive allows your brain to avoid producing stress hormones and stay calm.

RELAXING TECHNIQUES

Try progressive muscle relaxation (PMR) – a technique where you tense and release all of your muscle groups, leaving your body to feel more relaxed afterward. Anyone can do PMR, and with practice, you can fully release virtually all the tension you're feeling in your body in a matter of seconds.

GO TO NATURE

A 2019 Harvard study shows that spending just 20 minutes connecting with nature can help lower stress hormone levels. Previous research has shown that interacting with nature reduces stress, but it’s unclear how long and often the engagement needs to be or what kind of nature experience is best.

Spending at least 20 to 30 minutes immersed in a nature setting was associated with the biggest drop in cortisol levels. After that time, additional stress-reduction

If you have had insomnia for a long time, consult a doctor.

FOCUS ON THE POSITIVE

Always imagining the worst case in every scenario is clinically known as catastrophic thinking and can increase anxiety and panic-like feelings. Rather than dwelling on negative aspects or outcomes, spend a few moments thinking positively.

For example, if your bathroom has flooded

Visualizations and guided imagery are wonderful ways to restore peace of mind. They're easy to do and can relax you mentally and physically. With practice, you can easily access your "happy place" and quickly feel calmer when stressed.

Breathing exercises can benefit you in two ways: getting more oxygen into your body and releasing physical tension. And you can do them anytime or anywhere, even if your demanding situation isn't letting up.

Meditation is proven to reduce stress, and it changes the brain over time so you can manage your emotions better and stay calm when you need it the most.

THERE ARE MANY RELATIVELY SIMPLE WAYS TO TACKLE STRESS AND RELAX YOUR MIND. TAKE A LOOK AT THE LISTED METHODS AND TRY TO FIND THE ONES THAT SUIT YOU.

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