Risto Korpi has been working in electrical and automation design at Vitec ALMA since 1996. Currently serving as a product manager, Korpi is responsible for the development of FieldALMA, which is intended for electrical and automation design in industrial environments.
- I joined Vitec ALMA practically straight from school after graduating as an electrical automation engineer in 1996. Before that, I had worked summer jobs at UPM, where I became familiar with ALMA's software and thus became interested in the field, Korpi recalls.
Interest led Korpi to work with FieldALMA first as an implementer and project manager, until the role of product manager took him deeper into the world of software development.
- I have been involved in numerous design projects, for example, at Valmet and Honeywell. In these projects, I have seen how important up-to-date and well-managed electrical and automation information is for industrial processes. Now, as a product manager, my responsibility is to ensure that FieldALMA meets users' needs, develops based on their product development ideas, and our own roadmap, Korpi explains.
According to Korpi, one of Vitec ALMA's strengths is that software development is not detached from the everyday life of the industry. Korpi himself has extensively collaborated with engineering offices on the design side and with production and maintenance on the plant side.
"Although we are a software company, we have strong industry experts working with us. This is important because when developing industrial software, it is essential to understand how devices, processes, and systems work in practice."
Korpi believes that professionals in the electrical and automation field have a lot to offer in software development. Vitec ALMA has provided many industry experts with the opportunity to develop plant operations and reliability from an information systems perspective.
"We need people who understand how the industry operates in the field. Electrical and automation designers could utilize their expertise more in software development because, ultimately, this software is developed specifically for designers and professionals in production and maintenance."
FieldALMA is part of the ALMA enterprise resource planning system, which helps companies transform electrical and automation design into a comprehensive information management system. With FieldALMA, users can create a virtual environment of their plant, ensuring that plant-related information is stored and managed by the plant owner. The solution based on the virtual model significantly reduces the number of human errors in design.
Currently, Korpi's desk includes, among other things, the extension of ATEX management.
- Our goal is to make regulatory inspections smoother for our customers through efficient document management with FieldALMA. Thanks to FieldALMA, ATEX equipment suitability comparisons and the documentation required for regulatory inspections will be found in one place.
It is precisely the development trajectory of the software that has inspired Korpi to work at Vitec ALMA for nearly 30 years.
- Everything essentially starts with design, whether it's a Greenfield plant or an existing plant. When we can offer our customers software where all design expertise and information generated during design can be stored, that information can be used in many other production-related aspects. For the end user, FieldALMA is primarily a competitive advantage. It saves time, reduces errors, and brings certainty to design. Our goal is to make our customers' work easier and safer, Korpi summarizes.