The research and development work that takes place at the Education and Research Centre for Information and Production Technology is carried out in projects. Project work can be divided into three groups: large R&D projects that receive public funding, development projects that meet acute business and industrial needs as well as the activities and theses carried out in the teaching laboratories.
Our large projects receive public funding from many sources including the EU, TEKES (The Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation), as well as the Employment and Economic Development Centres of Finland. When preparing our projects we strive to find areas of development that are also of interest to our business partners. It is also important that the projects support our own development. We promote the innovativeness and usefulness of our work and support the application of new knowledge.
The areas covered by our current projects include:
- Research in laser-laser hybrid applications
o welding techniques
o cutting techniques - Support for SME marketing
o marketing planning
o marketing research
o marketing and communication materials
o event planning - Development of digital media applications
o e-learning
o digital television applications
o content production
o virtual environment development
Teaching strives to increasingly gear student projects towards meeting the needs of our business partners. In these projects we quickly assess the needs of the business, create a project plan and begin work to fulfill it. These projects generally include interested students, our supporting faculty members as well as personnel from the business in question.
Typical development projects include:
- Lay-out plans
- Development of quality systems
- Production development activities
- Market research
- The utilization of digital media applications in business marketing and communications
- Modelling and simulations
Thesis work is an important part of the student's academic career. Our goal is that all theses be done with the needs of business and industry in mind. In giving the student a thesis topic, the business in turn gets the work contribution of not only the student but also of the supporting faculty members. By having a student complete a thesis, a business is able to realize plans and analyses for which it may not have existing resources. Furthermore, the business is able to assess the student's know-how throughout the thesis process as part of their recruitment strategy. The thesis requires 400 hours of work by the student.
