According to Vesa Kiviranta, the design manager at Champion Door, the design of industrial doors requires solid professional skills, smooth collaboration, and some courage.
The key factors in the design process are the door's durability, materials, functionality, and accessories.
"We take on even the design challenges that seem incredibly complex and offer our customers unique solutions," he says.
For instance, Kiviranta mentions a situation where the customer needed to get the side rails of a craneway opening out of the way of the crane. Champion Door developed a solution where the rails turned horizontally using a hydraulic cylinder once the door was opened. Thus, a crane with a difficult shape could pass through the opening without any modifications to the structure.
"The doors for craneway openings are always special cases. The traditional opening is T-shaped, but we have developed all sorts of door openings for our customers' buildings. Our doors are single-piece, so the user doesn't have to open several different parts to get the crane out."
Customer needs are at the heart of the design work
The development of doors for craneway openings at Champion Door was originally sparked by customer needs. The customer's needs remain the starting point for every door project.
"The design begins with mapping the customer's needs and applying them to the building and its operations. For example, in craneway opening projects, the building must be tall enough. If this is not the case, a frame must be designed for the crane outside the building."
Customers' potential special needs can be met with accessories and additional features. An accessory can be, for instance, a hydraulic emergency opening system, which ensures that the door can be opened in any situation.
"When it comes to new features, it is essential to consider whether they are truly necessary and practical. The solution must always fit the building's structures and serve its operations as well as possible."
During the design phase, the potential special requirements of the doors are taken into account when selecting the right designers for the project. Champion Door's design team includes mechanical, product development, and electrical designers, as well as an engineer providing technical documentation. Kiviranta assigns projects to certain designers based on their experience and special expertise.
"Anticipation and our long experience have together led to the fact that we are quite flexible in problem-solving. This is characteristic of Champion Door. Our design team has a very high level of expertise, which enables us to help our customers with problems that would be very difficult for them to get help with elsewhere."
Smart features and solutions are the directions for future development
Champion Door uses 3D modeling and automatic design in its design work, which speeds up the process. Automation is often used for the design of a certain part of the door. All models are stored in the system, from where they can be shared directly with the customer in their own system.
"This way, the customer can easily see if anything has come up during the design phase that they had not previously considered. This brings important added value to the customer."
According to Kiviranta, it is important in future design work to stay on top of the development and offer solutions that best serve the customers. Smart features and solutions are constantly evolving in every field, including door design and manufacturing.
"In the future, we will see network solutions for managing large door masses and, for example, door maintenance. Even artificial intelligence, which is currently a hot topic, could be part of our field in the future. We need to be aware of whether AI is beneficial to us and whether it can be applied to our work and processes."