VAISALA'S PROJECT

Vaisala’s Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage device through Agile Development

Path makers: Antti Heikkilä, Julia Salovaara, Irene Zakrzewski, and Antti Viitanen

Vaisala created a measurement instrument for carbon dioxide (CO2) and humidity, optimized for carbon capture, carbon dioxide sequestration, and carbon dioxide utilization applications. Existing solutions were cumbersome, maintenance-intensive, expensive, and power-hungry analytical instruments designed around 30 to 40 years ago, and they have remained relatively unchanged ever since. The new solution answers real-life customer needs identified across the globe. A more compact and cost-efficient alternative was clearly needed for carbon capture capacity to grow over ten-fold in the next years. Vaisala’s solution offers more rapid adoption of carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) methods. It needs only minimal energy and next-to-no maintenance over its 10+ year lifespan – at a fraction of the expected initial and lifetime investment.

In late 2023, Vaisala launched an initiative to explore industrial decarbonization, focusing on CCUS. While the direction was initially uncertain, the urgency of customer demand for higher CO2 concentration measurements required the team to embrace rapid development over perfection. Traditionally, such solutions would take years to perfect, but the team aimed to explore the potential of CCUS within just one year, even if some uncertainties remained. This meant accepting that imperfections might arise along the way, but the focus was on learning and adapting quickly. The team, consisting of Julia (Strategy and Business Development), Irene (R&D Project Manager), Antti V. (Product Manager), and Antti H. (Product Manager), set clear goals and embraced a flexible mindset. Rather than seeking approval through large steering groups, their small, specialized team made independent decisions, allowing for faster pivots and adjustments. Market and customer research was thorough, but they remained open to evolving needs, understanding that customer demands would likely shift as the project progressed – even after the launch of their first iteration. By leveraging existing technical designs and learnings from past projects, they quickly aligned new technology with market needs. Two product concepts were developed, and one was chosen for further refinement. Selection was made based on customer needs, needed product design effort, fit into existing production capability, and business expectations. This approach highlighted the importance of moving quickly, valuing progress over perfection, and adapting to real-world feedback to meet emerging market demands.

This one-year product development process illustrates the importance of accepting not all customer wishes can be addressed. The team needed to focus on delivering a “good enough” version and defer further refinements to future iterations. This required a mindset shift from accommodating every request to prioritizing key needs for the first release.