Behind the Gaskets | Expert interview: Experienced design manager is a valuable source of tacit knowledge

February 28, 2022

Celebrating 30 years at TT Gaskets, design manager Jari Suoniemi’s skills and expertise have grown together with the company. TT Gaskets’ numerous innovations have introduced new tasks and work methods.

Gasket design is at the core of Jari Suoniemi’s competence. His experience is so vast and varied that he spends a lot of his time passing on important information and skills to his peers and colleagues.

– I’ve always had the privilege of learning new skills in my work. For example, water and laser cutting are gasket manufacturing techniques that were originally introduced to me as new work methods, Jari says.

In addition to his design work, Jari is also in charge of managing the TT Gaskets production facility.

– I know the building very well, and I’m sort of looking after it. Our building automation and control system helps me monitor changes in heating and expenses. However, my main passion is still designing and creating, so these other duties are kind of a distraction, Jari says with a laugh.

”Gasket design needs to start as early as possible”

Jari started at TT Gaskets in 1992. His introduction to the company came in 1988 with an eccentric press automation project he designed as a thesis work for his engineering studies. The project proved to be significant as the machine is still in operation today. Jari has seen and experienced the progress in gasket design and manufacturing during his long career.

– Our work used to be more customer-driven as we were focused only on production. In my opinion, the industry is now headed towards a good direction. We begin collaborating with our customers in the early stages of their projects which enables us to design gaskets that match their needs, Jari says.

Jari feels there is still room for improvement in the business.

– Gaskets are small and often forgotten until the final stages of a project. This means that we often have only a couple of months to create a plan and design the final products. The industry is very hectic these days, Jari illustrates.

Working in a hurry is not ideal, but Jari is still motivated by the diversity in TT Gaskets’ projects. Interesting and varied tasks ensure that his work does not become monotonous. Jari likes the fact that he now shares his responsibilities with a colleague and doesn’t have to work alone anymore. Other departments and management also chip in.

Spare time with the family

An active working life keeps Jari refreshed also in his spare time. He has four children and seven grandchildren, the youngest of whom was born in February. The family spends a lot of time together.

– We have big get-togethers a couple of times per year. Food is an excellent incentive for luring everybody in, Jari says with a laugh.

Jari’s active everyday life also includes jogging and skiing. His mornings must include a cup of coffee and 100 grams of blueberries with no sugar.

TT Gaskets supports pioneering ownership research in Finland

February 14, 2022

Samuli Knüpfer has been appointed professor of ownership at the Aalto University School of Business, thus becoming the world’s first long-term professor in the field. As one of the founding donors for the professorship, TT Gaskets is proud to be a part of making pioneering research possible in Finland.

“Professor Knüpfer and his team are doing groundbreaking research. Together with my father Matti Arpiainen, we believe that a deeper understanding of ownership structure and models are vital in highlighting ownership culture as an important aspect of our society,” TT Gaskets CEO Aleksi Arpiainen says.

Established with donated funds, the aim of the professorship is to make ownership an integral part of academic research and to produce high-quality data to support societal discussion and decisions.

“As a family-owned business, we consider the strengthening of Finnish ownership culture and expertise an especially important goal. Us patient family entrepreneurs have no quarterly targets. Instead, we aim to produce long-term solutions that contribute to wellbeing. I believe the professorship can deepen and generate new forms of prosperity, and this is something we really want to be a part of,” Aleksi Arpiainen says.

Sustainable growth for coming generations

With the professorship, Finland will now be in the forefront of producing scientific research on ownership for current and coming generations of entrepreneurs.

“There really hasn’t been a lot of academic research in this field so far. We need information on all forms of ownership to enable fact-based societal discussions and conversations, and also to help companies grow and remodel themselves in a sustainable way.”

The Finnish Family Business Network (Perheyritysten liitto) is one of the world’s most active family business organizations and has been an integral part in establishing the professorship.

“Combining the Family Business Network’s empirical experience with unbiased scientific data will surely result in a more comprehensive understanding of ownership. I hope that we can participate and contribute our own experience to the discussions that professor Knüpfer’s research will generate,” Aleksi Arpiainen says.

Continuous learning helps to exceed goals, boost motivation and create value for customers

February 8, 2022

We supply safer solutions for companies in over 50 countries, and our clients provide service for critical industries in all six continents. At TT Gaskets, we get energized by challenging ourselves and developing better and safer solutions together with our clients.

Our sealing solutions are used on land, at sea and in the air – gaskets are needed everywhere. Experience from different fields has given us insight, which we have refined through experimentation and collaborative projects with our clients. Over the years, we have become a specialized provider of demanding industrial solutions.

As gasket professionals, our motivation stems from being able to build a safer and sustainable industrial world for the next generations while delighting our customers . Another source of inspiration is our very own Smart Lab where we conduct continuous testing, develop new products, and innovate brand new gasketing solutions.

We aim to apply insight from different industries and distill it into an array of interesting product development ideas. We also gain ideas through co-creation projects with research institutes and start-ups in Finland and abroad. To sum it up, we follow the follow the guidance of iconic French microbiologist Louis Pasteur: ”La chance ne sourit qu’aux esprits bien préparés”, chance favors the prepared mind.

Collaborative gasket design

Our strong culture of embracing challenges with vigor comes from our founder Jussi Arpiainen. As a trusted partner of the Finnish defense forces, he was the go-to man for solving problems and inventing something that did not yet exist. After Jussi, my father Matti Arpiainen understood the power of broad teamwork in problem solving and elevated our design department to a whole new level as CEO. During my time as CEO, the same principles have been refined into our Design Board, a flexible and varied work group that complements TT Gaskets’ design department.

With weekly meetings, the Design Board includes representatives from all departments. This steering group approach to design has brought speed, fresh thinking and better tracking to our product development. The Design Board has also made motivating different organizational levels possible. This way we can find the best and safest sealing solutions either in-house or together with our clients.

Organizations need to keep learning

We have always believed that a learning organization needs non-stop internal and external stimuli in order to give life to new ideas and challenge our thinking. This translates to comprehensive and regular training of our staff. Lately, our managers have been given food for thought at the TTG Academy, and I have honed my own leadership methods at the High Performance Leadership training program organized by Insead and the Family Business Network (FBN-I).

According to Gallup, continuous learning together with transparent communication keep companies moving and help organizations on their journey towards the future. Personally, I would also add finding your own model for foresight and future work to the list. Luckily, future-proofing and foresight work are taken seriously in Finland with several related projects underway. I’ve had the pleasure of being a part of the Tampere Chamber of Commerce’s future work group that focuses on sharing knowledge and expertise. Private and public organizations can benefit and learn from each other in e.g. collaborations between businesses, universities and urban areas.

We at TT Gaskets strongly believe in leadership through information, and have begun a three-year program for developing a more intelligent gasket factory. Our pace of investments will only accelerate towards the end of the year and beyond. Stay tuned!

Embracing challenges as a part of company culture

At TT Gaskets, reinventing ourselves and embracing challenges is inherited from previous generations, integrated in our corporate culture and harnessed as a source of motivation in our daily work. A learning organization must have the courage to question their own boundaries and grow beyond them. Often, we do not end up where we intended to, but found something even better in the process. We take joy in learning something unexpected that can benefit us as well as our customers.

We wish to thank all our clients and the excellent culture of collaborating, exploring, learning and succeeding together in the Pirkanmaa region. Happy new year to all our stakeholders around the world! Together we can envision a safer industrial future for current and coming generations. I hope we can meet this year either virtually or face-to-face at trade fairs and seminars in Finland and around the world.

Aleksi Arpiainen

More posts you might be interested in:
We all have a right to good leadership
What if gaskets could talk? – With an innovation culture, we create new customer value and an even more positive employer experience

Aleksi Arpiainen is the CEO of TT Gaskets in the third generation. According to him, the success of a family business is fueled by continuous development and innovation. In the blog, Aleksi sheds light on his thoughts on where the world of gaskets is going.

TT Gaskets challenges startups to develop its products

December 9, 2021

Demobooster Tampere is a concept where a company developing a new product presents a challenge and receives solution options from startups. TT Gaskets is challenging the region’s startups and technology companies to improve their service that supports the global gasket trade.

TTG Smart Tracking service enables customers to verify the authenticity of spare parts and track their location. The service has been tested and it works globally.

– We are now at a stage where information about our tracking service should be disseminated to our customers, and we also need to develop a suitable business model for it. We participate in Demobooster Tampere to get bold ideas for increasing the notoriety of the new service, says Smart Engineer Jaakko Niukkala.

Demobooster Tampere 2021

Startups and technology companies in the Tampere region now have a unique opportunity to showcase their expertise and put the solution they have tailored for TT Gaskets into practice.

Demobooster Tampere is organized by DIMECC and Business Tampere. It culminates in the DemoDay event to be held in January, where the innovation challengers will hear the solution pitches from startups. The challenger, in this case TT Gaskets, will continue to work with the most feasible idea.

Read more and take part in the challenge!

TT Gaskets is developing a smart solution for ensuring gasket installing

September 7, 2021

Can’t get a good night’s sleep because you installed a gasket earlier today? Are you having nightmares of leaky flanges? Don’t worry, we have a solution under way.

Installing is the most critical part of gasket’s lifetime, but currently there are no viable options to ensure the success of it. Except to put the medium to flow and check whether it leaks or not. Training and consulting of gasket selection and installing is of course available, also from us, but eventually the responsibility of successful installing is on the mechanic. Off the top of your head, you could easily think that even a trained chimpanzee can turn a wrench. But in reality, installing a gasket requires thorough preparation and execution with correct tools.

Friction tames even the strongest mechanic

Sealing is based on mechanics where the torque applied to the bolts is transferred to the gasket through the flange surfaces. This force seals the flange to withstand the pressure and temperature stress from the piping and prevents leakages.

The force transferred from the bolts to the gasket depends significantly on friction, so using a proper torque on the bolts does not necessarily mean sufficient surface stress on the gasket. Even though a calibrated torque wrench is an essential tool for installing, the numbers on the wrench are not an absolute truth. If the lubrication and other preparations are not done correctly, applying correct torque on the bolts may still cause a leak.

Once again, we harness technology to help people

In co-operation with top-of-the-class experts, TT Gaskets has started to develop a technological solution for ensuring successful installing of gaskets. The first step we took was a remotely readable tag for gaskets that removes the simplest mistakes. By identifying the gasket in between the flanges, a wrong or missing gasket is much easier to notice.

The second step currently under development is a remotely readable sensor that measures the surface stress of a gasket. The sensor gives immediate feedback of the success after installing. We are currently searching for potential field test partners as we are soon making functional prototypes.

The future goal for this innovation project known as TTG Smart Gasket is to connect gaskets to the IoT network of a facility – to create an IoG (Internet of Gaskets). We are gradually moving towards that goal, as gasket manufacturing is not well-known for acting rashly. All in all, sensors measuring the surface stress of gaskets both during installing and use will have a large role as we create smarter sealing for a safer tomorrow.

Read more >> Smarter sealing for a safer tomorrow – Obtaining information of a gasket

Fast Track Service – Customized gaskets in 24 hours

September 2, 2021

The premium Fast Track Service is suitable for urgent gasket needs. Your order will be shipped from our factory in Tampere within 24 hours of confirming your order.

When time is money and the role of the spare part is critical in production, quick actions are needed. TT Gasket manufactures your order of a few pieces from almost any material except metals. Submit your order, wait for it to be confirmed and we will take care of the rest.

– Normally, our delivery time is about 2–3 weeks, but by using the Fast Track Service, the product passes the queue, and the lead time is reduced to less than 24 hours. It’s not practical to implement large order batches through Fast Track, as the purpose is to serve urgent needs, says Smart Engineer Jaakko Niukkala.

Passing lane for fast delivery

Fast Track Service is meant for flat pieces made from soft materials. For products that need machining or multi-stage manufacturing the lead time is usually longer. The parts are manufactured by cutting, after which the quality control thoroughly inspects the customized product before packing and shipping it.

– The Fast Track Service is priced separately, meaning that the unit price familiar to customer’s purchasing department only applies to orders with the normal delivery time. The purpose is to serve the process of express orders for both parties. When the order goes directly to the Fast Track Service, there is no need for a separate agreement and the parts will be delivered faster, Niukkala explains.

Do you need parts fast? See the easy steps and place your order now!

Fast Track and other services are presented at the 2021 Subcontract Fair – read more!

Behind the gaskets | Expert interview: Developer of digital services and smart solutions

August 13, 2021

Jaakko Niukkala started at TT Gaskets as a summer employee in 2010. After working alongside his studies for several summers, he did his diploma thesis for TT Gaskets on radio frequency identification (RFID) and the use of sensors in gaskets. After completing the Master of Science degree in electrical engineering, he started working for the company permanently.

– My title is Smart Engineer, which in brief is about developing product and service innovations. We produce smart solutions, the future of our customers in our minds. My job is to bring innovations to the traditional field, such as solutions that increase safety by identifying and measuring gaskets at the site, says Jaakko Niukkala.

Under construction: a tool for material selection

Ideas for innovations come either from the wishes of customers, from other TT Gaskets’ employees or from Jaakko himself. The development and implementation of solutions requires active networking and finding suitable partners.

– We are currently developing, for example, a material selection tool, about which we are discussing with an IT service provider and seeking perspectives from various companies. The idea is to help in the selection of the material of the gaskets via the internet, so that the customer gets an answer when needed, taking into account the conditions and the medium substance of the process. The tool is scheduled to be launched at Subcontracting Trade Fair in the autumn.

TT Gaskets’ goals are abroad, but for pilot projects, we are primarily seeking partners from Finland. The material selection tool enables low-threshold to contact us and at the same time it’s a step towards e-commerce-type thinking.

– We will develop the tool further so that we could recommend a product directly according to the specks. Innovation typically progresses step-by-step. Small but sure steps forward, without biting off more than we can chew at once. First, we collaborate with smaller customers, then bigger ones and finally we aim abroad, Jaakko describes the development work.

Long-term work requires restraint

Jaakko tends to think about the goals for the next day in advance. His versatile work includes among other things making documents, test reports and funding applications, meeting with clients or partners, monitoring projects and producing content for the intranet and writing a blog for TT Gasket’s website.

– We have new, great TT Lab facilities where I sometimes physically test the functionality of the samples with a test flange or a hydraulic press. I’m also involved as an expert in internal projects, such as our solar power plant project, which makes us the first in the world to manufacture gaskets by using solar power.

– Sometimes I join customer meetings with the salesperson in charge, to talk about the more technical side of our new services. TTG Smart Gasket is a service for identifying, monitoring, and measuring gaskets, and TTG Smart Tracking prevents counterfeiting through spare parts tracking. My work is motivated by solving problems and developing something new. My long-term goal is to revolutionize the entire world of gaskets.

As a fun fact, Jaakko says his mother started working for the same company when Jaakko was only five years old.

– My mom retired when I was doing my thesis. As a child, I didn’t know one end of the gasket from the other, and now I’m trying to reduce the recurrence in her work by automating what she once did.

Work and leisure in harmony

The people at TT Gaskets are in the same boat, the work is done in good spirit and with the right attitude and good humor.

– We know each other, and we know who’s responsible for what. We have been successful in recruiting, and employees are trusted by giving us freedom and responsibility. I myself have discussed with my supervisor that I could advance my career to the position of supervisor. As innovations expand, we may sooner or later need helping hands. We also have positive experiences with, for example, trainees from Tampere University of Applied Sciences.

– In addition to work, I’m also active in my free time. I’ve been involved in various roles in scouts for about twenty years. Football is another hobby of mine in many forms, on the field, on the sidelines, and in the stands.

– A house we bought at the end of last year keeps me busy at home too. The upstairs surface and kitchen renovation was completed at the beginning of the year, except for the toilet. Underdrain renovation is completed and next we will move downstairs to the sauna-washroom-fireplace department, where preparations have already been made. The summer includes, for example, a scout camp in Lapland as well as renovations and football of course. While hiking in Lapland last summer, I thought it was raining when mosquitoes hit the tent cloth, Jaakko laughs.

We asked our customers for their opinion: TT Gaskets is responsible, friendly, and honest

August 9, 2021

TT Gaskets’ customer satisfaction is really good. This was revealed in a ValueScout survey conducted in April–May 2021. We received nearly 100 responses to the survey from our customers, which we are glad about since the responses will help us improve our operations.

About 60 % of the respondents were from Finland and the remaining about 40 % from several different countries. Almost all our Finnish customers were quite satisfied (47 %) or very satisfied (47 %) with us. In other countries, respondents were mostly quite satisfied (50 %) and almost as many said they were very satisfied (43 %). The proportion of neutral respondents in both groups was a few percent.

Most of the respondents are our long-term customers, so we were interested in their willingness to recommend TT Gaskets to others. In this respect, too, the results of the survey were excellent: in terms of the NPS indicator, the willingness of our Finnish customers to recommend us was 60 and that of foreign customers 64.

Developing in desired direction

We conducted our first ValueScout survey in 2018. With a comparable survey in 2021, we found out what changes have taken place in recent years. Eezy Flow Oy was responsible for carrying out the research.

The ValueScout method is used to find out customers’ experiences and expectations. TT Gaskets’ customer experience has developed both in Finland and abroad in accordance with customer wishes.

Based on the results of 2018, we set our goal that the experience of Finnish customers would develop even more towards active, proactive, innovative, and fast as well as positive. Based on the recent results, we have succeeded well and the experience with TT Gaskets has gone in the desired direction. According to Finnish customers, such qualities as responsible, friendly, direct, honest, and careful have been strengthened. They have an even more confident, safer, and more comfortable feeling about doing business with us than before.

Respondents from other countries said that their customer experience has developed very close to the ideal. In addition to the features that Finnish customers associated with TT Gaskets, other countries highlighted, among other things, openness, initiative, and innovation.

Collection of our customers’ comments

”TT Gaskets is already good, definitely one of the best, hard to come up with anything that could be greatly improved.”

”I’m satisfied with TTG’s service, quality, and smooth cooperation as a whole. And the staff is nice, business with them is pleasant.”

”TT Gasket is pretty close to ideal. Admittedly, an ideal doesn’t even exist, but you have a lot of good elements in your package!”

Our staff thinks we are more courageous than before

On both occasions, our staff also participated in the ValueScout survey. Between 2018 and 2021, the employees’ experience with TT Gaskets became clearly bolder: the pioneer and the innovative were associated with the nature of the company, and the most important features were responsibility and activity.

A confident and comfortable and warm-hearted feeling were new adjectives in the emotional experience. The staff perceives TT Gaskets as a confident player and appreciates it.

TT Gaskets takes part in the Subcontracting Fair this autumn – Welcome!

August 6, 2021

The Subcontracting Fair will be held at the Tampere Exhibition and Sports Center from 21 to 23 September 2021, if the pandemic situation allows. Let’s meet each other face-to-face after a long time and exchange news!

Finland’s leading industrial fair will provide a comprehensive overview of the industry’s outlook. TT Gaskets presents its new development projects from a material selection tool to a solar power plant.

The main theme of TT Gaskets at the fair is responsibility and related intelligent solutions. The world’s first solar-produced gaskets were completed at our factory in Tampere, and we are innovating intelligent gasket solutions for future needs. For example, TTG Smart Gasket is a service for identifying, monitoring, and measuring gaskets, and TTG Smart Tracking prevents counterfeiting through spare parts tracking.

Welcome to the fair to hear more – see you in our stand A1103!

TT Gaskets in the museum as part of the story of Tampere’s industry

August 3, 2021

The new Industrial Museum at Tampere’s Finlayson tells the 200-year-old story of the city’s industry and the present day. The exhibition presents different periods of the factories, products made in Tampere and people employed by the industry. The showcases include products of TT Gaskets (Tampereen Tiivisteteollisuus Oy). In addition, you can listen to stories from the early 19th century to today’s corporate world. One of the recordings tells the story of our company.

It’s absolutely wonderful for us to be elected to the small group with which the Industrial Museum tells how Tampere grew and developed to be Finland’s Manchester. Tampere is a dear home for the company. My grandfather Jussi Arpiainen and his two business partners founded Tampereen Tiivisteteollisuus Oy in 1943 in the garage of the Aaltonen shoe factory, on the outskirts of Tammela’s market square.

The roles and the main focus of production changed

During the war, almost no raw materials were available. Innovation and courage to try were the only medicine to cope with the time of scarcity. Working on behalf of the motherland brought real meaning and motivation to work. Years and decades rolled forward. TT Gaskets has developed an automated its production and internationalized its business. The roles changed, and the Aaltonen shoe factory became our tenant in our empty factory in the 1990’s. Textiles and shoes were replaced by machines and components.

Today, Tampere has a remarkable group of large and medium-sized machine workshops and other industrial companies, at the international top of their fields. Tampere is still the home base of TT Gaskets, which continues to give us many opportunities to try and delight our customers around the world and to offer quality working conditions with good transport connections. We are proud of the fact we are part of Tampere’s unparalleled industrial history. At the same time, we are humbly building a more environmentally friendly future for Tampere for the benefit of us all.

I warmly invite everyone to get acquainted with the history of Tampere’s industry and wish you a rewarding museum visit!

The Industrial Museum was opened to public on Friday, June 11th, 2021. The museum is open from Tuesday to Sunday at Väinö Linnan Aukio 8, Tampere. www.tyovaenmuseo.fi

Admission to the exhibition is free. The exhibition, co-produced by the Finnish Labour Museum Werstas and the museum centre Vapriikki, tells the 200-year-old story of Tampere’s industry as part of global industrialization. The implementation has been made possible by the Finnish Cultural Foundation’s Museum Vision grant of EUR 250,000.

Aleksi Arpiainen

Aleksi Arpiainen is the CEO of TT Gaskets in the third generation. According to him, the success of a family business is fueled by continuous development and innovation. In the blog, Aleksi sheds light on his thoughts on where the world of gaskets is going.