Puhuri Makes the World a Better Place

The world is transitioning toward fossil-free energy production. Wind and solar power are creating opportunities for emission-free and inexhaustible energy sources, and Finland is on its way to becoming a significant energy exporter. Puhuri is a key player in this transformation, leading the way in the renewable energy sector. The company’s first wind farms began operations over 10 years ago, and today, its capacity is approaching 300 megawatts. Many times that amount of wind power—and increasingly solar power—is in preparation and permitting.

To put it in perspective, Puhuri’s parks will soon surpass the capacity of Olkiluoto 1.

However, getting a wind turbine’s rotor blades spinning requires extensive planning, preparation, and finely tuned processes. Digitalization has become a key enabler and tool for Puhuri’s rapid growth and the management of increasingly complex projects.

Eine Uusitalo, with long experience, leads the company’s financial administration and has a strong influence on digitalization development themes.

"With the company’s growth, there was a clear need for both process unification and sharpening. At the same time, there has been room for various technological applications.

The company’s long history and especially the strong personal relationships in the early stages have been a resource, but they have also meant inconsistent processes," Uusitalo ponders.

"Too much personal dependency creates problems over time, and systems help maintain manageability during growth. Change must be made in a timely manner."

Puhuri has been making digital leaps for years with Digileaper. The latest development focus has been on building a system ecosystem related to project management. The processes are long in terms of both activities and lifecycles, and they cut across the company’s operations extensively. There was no ready-made system, so it was built into the existing ecosystem, picking the best capabilities from different solutions and combining them into a whole. Existing tools and their development played a crucial role in this.

Puhuri’s model of today is to consume massive operational management systems for breakfast with a best-of-breed approach.

The best parts are picked from different solutions. These are, of course, inherently more challenging, and especially the formation of uniform and coherent data flows is a key success factor. Similarly, defining the roles of solutions and good architectural planning is particularly important. The advantage of an architecture composed of the best parts is that individual parts can usually be brought into use quickly and independently.

Digileaper has steered the project forward step by step under the leadership of Marko Mustonen. He has ensured that the pieces fall into place and that results can be utilized quickly even during the development phase.

Uusitalo chuckles: "Not all complexities and exceptions were even initially mentioned to Marko. We trusted in the expertise and knew that the problems would be solved piece by piece. We started with invoicing processes, and ideas for further development keep coming."

The development of project management was preceded by the completion of the financial ERP system renewal a good year ago. Now, the added value of the ERP is also growing as system control comes to the beginning of the chain, and financial processes benefit from the end results. Digileaper also took care of the successful management of the ERP procurement and implementation project.

In system projects, it is always essential to consider the human factor. In Puhuri’s project management changes, the biggest impact comes from the clarification of responsibilities and the ability to complete tasks right from the start. Previously, administratively produced internal services are now done as part of operational activities. This brings a bit more work to the beginning of the chain, but the overall benefits compared to the current situation are significant.

The Puhuri team has strong trust in Digileaper. Behind this is strong expertise in the industry and the company’s operations, as well as digitalization development themes. According to Uusitalo, cooperation with suppliers is easier with Digileaper.

"Expertise and the ability to ask the right questions for both the customer and the supplier are important. We speak our own language, and Marko translates things into IT language."

As an independent external actor, Digileaper also brings clinical precision to the process. "The fact that no one is on either party’s payroll is a negotiating advantage. Our suppliers know that things must be handled well. With Digileaper’s help, we have good expertise in the process, and suppliers are aware that quality affects things outside Puhuri as well," Uusitalo continues.

Puhuri’s story continues at a brisk pace with a tailwind, and steps in digital development will also be taken in the future. Project management will be expanded, and the company’s digital twin model in Twin will be broadened and deepened piece by piece. The next step is to integrate IT contract and cost management into the architecture, while continuing to refine the data architecture and information management, as well as building the data platform.

Puhuri seems to know its role as a strong driver of the energy revolution, supported by its investments in digitalization development and the resulting improvements in operations. The pace will accelerate in the future as hydrogen and synthetic fuels are added to the energy market.

In Ostrobothnia, the world is being changed.

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