Three ways to make innovation more accessible to small businesses in the NPA

For small companies in the Northern Periphery and Arctic, taking the first step towards innovation can be difficult. New technologies may exist, but accessing the right equipment, expertise or testing environment is not always straightforward.

Innovation rarely moves directly from an idea or research finding to a finished product. There are usually several steps in between: testing, adapting, redesigning, finding the right materials or production process, and working out whether an idea makes business sense. Large companies may have the resources to do much of this in-house. For small and micro-enterprises, they often do not.

This is where access to shared innovation facilities and expertise can make a difference. They give companies opportunities to work with researchers and technology specialists, use equipment they may not have themselves, and test ideas before making larger investments.

Three Interreg Northern Periphery and Arctic projects – RoboDemo, AMPLE and BIO-2-PRINT – are helping to create these opportunities. Their approaches are different, but they share a practical aim: making it easier for small businesses to explore new technologies, develop ideas and test what works.

Testing the idea before making the investment

RoboDemo helps companies test whether robotics could improve their production before investing in new equipment.

Consider a company that paints metal components. Its workers have always carried out powder coating manually. The company suspects that robots could make the process more efficient, but investing in a robotic system is a major decision.

Would a robot actually work in the company's production environment? What would the process look like? What equipment would be needed? And what would the investment mean for the company's future production facilities?

For a small or medium-sized company, answering those questions can be difficult without specialist expertise.

This is where RoboDemo comes in. Rather than asking the company to take the leap from a traditional production process to a major technology investment, the project provides a way to explore the possibilities first.

Robodemo's specialists created a simulation of the company's painting process, allowing the business to examine how robotics could be introduced. The simulation gave the company something concrete to work with: instead of discussing automation in abstract terms, it could begin planning what a future production facility might look like and what investments would be required.

The technology was not simply demonstrated. It was connected to a real business problem.

That distinction matters. For many SMEs, the obstacle to adopting new technology is not necessarily the absence of technology itself. It can be the lack of knowledge, confidence or opportunity to test how that technology would work in practice.

From a desk-drawer idea to a prototype

AMPLE gives micro-enterprises access to the equipment and know-how needed to turn ideas into prototypes.

The challenge looks different for a micro-enterprise with a new product idea.

A designer or entrepreneur may have an idea that could become a viable product, but moving from the first concept to a functional prototype requires more than creativity. It can require knowledge of materials, product design, digital manufacturing and production methods – as well as access to equipment for testing and making.

AMPLE focuses on this early stage of the journey.

The project connects innovators and micro-enterprises with advanced makerspaces, digital manufacturing tools and pilot-production capabilities. These facilities can provide access to equipment that would otherwise be difficult for a very small company to use.

But AMPLE has also identified another barrier: equipment alone is not enough.

Many makerspace technologies are already available to private users, start-ups and micro-enterprises. What is often missing is the know-how to use them effectively – particularly knowledge about materials and how to take a product from an initial idea, through design and a 3D model, towards a prototype and eventually a production concept.

AMPLE therefore works on the knowledge around the technology as well as the technology itself. The aim is to help companies turn an idea into something that can be tested, improved and eventually taken towards the market.

For a micro-enterprise, that can change the question from “Can we afford to develop this?” to “What can we test, and how far can we take it?”

Turning natural fibres into new industrial possibilities

BIO-2-PRINT tests how underused natural fibres can be turned into new materials for manufacturing.

In BIO-2-PRINT, the starting point is different again. Across the region, natural-fibre resources and waste streams are available but not always used to their full potential. At the same time, manufacturers are looking for new materials that can support more circular production.

The project brings together research into natural fibres, materials processing and 3D printing and asks a practical question: can these resources become useful, high-value materials for manufacturing?

Instead of stopping at research results, BIO-2-PRINT develops and tests bio-based materials and explores their performance in real manufacturing applications. Companies can therefore see and assess prototypes and practical evidence rather than having to make decisions based only on laboratory findings.

One example is the project's ongoing collaboration with Baltic Yachts Ltd. to develop and validate thermoplastic moulds incorporating underutilised natural fibres for fibre-reinforced polymer manufacturing.

The aim is to develop recyclable moulds that could reduce production lead times and material waste. The project is also exploring whether extractives from underutilised fibres could be used as additives for plastics.

If successful, the work could open opportunities at several points in the value chain – from the use of previously underutilised natural resources to new industrial applications and potential markets for bio-based companies such as project partner Innomost Ltd.

Here, research is not an end point. It becomes a starting point for testing something that could eventually be used on an industrial scale.

Small steps, wider effects

None of these projects begins with the assumption that every experiment will become a commercial success.

The important step is often earlier: giving a company the opportunity to find out.

A simulation can show whether robotics is worth exploring. Access to a makerspace and the right design expertise can turn an idea into a prototype. A test mould can demonstrate whether a new bio-based material has industrial potential.

These are practical steps, but they can also have effects beyond an individual company.

When knowledge and technologies are tested in different businesses and different regional settings, solutions can be adapted, improved and shared. Experiences gained in one part of the Northern Periphery and Arctic region can become useful somewhere else.

That is where transnational cooperation becomes more than simply working across borders. It creates opportunities for ideas to move – between researchers and businesses, between regions and sectors, and ultimately from experimentation towards solutions that companies can use.

For a small company, that might begin with a simulation, a prototype or a material test.

For the region, it can be the beginning of something larger: a stronger connection between the knowledge already available and the businesses that can turn it into practical innovation.

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Header photo - Interreg NPA BIO-2-PRINT
Could composite waste pellets from the boat industry be used as a material in 3D-printing? Pamela Honga, Head of Quality and Sustainability at Baltic Yachts and RDI specialist Stefan Nazaruk from Centria examining composite waste pellets, which are taken to Centria for testing.

 Photo credit: Harri Joensuu (Centria)