Original story

RetailNET 16.6.2012

Report from the Housing Fair at Vihti Cyber Village

“Wagons, Roll! We’re all out of coffee!”

DAQ has been “up north”, checking out the new cybervillage that is drawing enormous crowds from far and wide at what would otherwise be a rather humdrum housing fair in a small town in Finland. The cybervillage is definitely a miracle of the information technology age. All the detached houses in the area have at least one videowall, and the entire village is hooked up to a massively powerful local area network. And as for the DeliWagon, well… every home should have one!*

Those Finns have always been a bit fixated on technology - remember, they were the first to go completely crazy over mobile telephony, they flocked to the Internet in huge numbers in the ’90s when it was still “leather helmet and goggles” technology, and their Nokia and Micronokia are forever bringing out newer and more terrifying video-monster-silent-translato-phones. All the same, Finns have had some headaches in the past with online shopping, particularly in the current consumer goods trade, and a few years ago it looked as though the whole project would have to be shelved after arguments over funding and the building of exterior cold storage facilities (see RetailNET 24.8.2005).

The houses in the Vihti cybervillage aren’t fitted with outdoor refrigeration units, either, although clearly this has become the norm in many Finnish households today. Here things have been taken a step further: all the goods delivered are distributed right into the individual dwelling via a network of cable-driven DeliWagons. All the roads in the community have underground cable ducts which the DeliWagons follow. The large retailing house Kesko has built a fully-automated current consumer goods distribution depot on the edge of the village, from where the wagons collect and deliver orders.

We spoke to Krister Jylha, the man responsible for the technical design of the model village, who told us that each individual home-owner has a DeliWagon, and it can be sent out on errands at any time of day or night. The user simply enters the goods required, the quantities, particular brands if specified, and his or her shopper identification code into the wagon’s memory, and it goes and collects the items from the distribution depot. The customer can follow the path of the wagon in the depot from a camera mounted on the front, and can make last-second changes to the order if required. This allows for impulse buying and for the sort of goods you only used to remember when you were in the store itself, or worse still, at the check-out line. Kesko’s Regional Manager Toivo Palanen believes the system is the most advanced anywhere, and I had to agree with him. Apparently Finns have not taken very well to the concept of exterior reefer units, since the idea of two cold storage areas was seen as inconvenient in the long run, and I suppose with the harsh Finnish winter the idea of “popping out for the milk” doesn’t sound too pleasant at -30oC.

According to Palanen, the main design objective was to collect and transport items to the home in the simplest and logistically optimal manner. In later applications, as the cable duct network expands, wagons will be able to collect goods from Kesko depots and similar unmanned stores owned by companies with whom Kesko has entered a delivery agreement. If the store is not automated, then sales staff will be required to load the wagon.

A number of practical problems arose during the design phase, but it seems as though these have all been overcome. For example the electronic contamination detectors introduced gradually over the last year have allowed for goods past their sell-by date to be automatically removed from circulation at the depot. The DeliWagon also has its own onboard anti-theft devices that protect the items on their way to their destination. This has already been shown to be necessary, when student hackers attempted to hijack wines and spirits en route. At present the major complaint among householders in the cybervillage seems to be one of speed. For instance, if someone notices while cooking that a certain vital ingredient is missing, it still makes a lot more sense to run and get it himself. Krister Jylha defends the system against the slowness charge, however, by arguing that the low speed is a safety precaution, as children often play near the wagons when they are on the surface. He also sees the leisurely pace as an image question, as the cybervillage has tried to capture the atmosphere of an unhurried, peaceful small community.

Toteuma-arvio 2026

Toteuma lyhyesti

  • Ilmiön toteuma: 4/5
  • Toteuma viiden vuoden tarkkuudella: kyllä; arviointi-ikkuna on 2007–2017
  • Toteuma väljemmällä aikahorisontilla: kyllä, erittäin vahvasti
  • Ilmiön ydin: asuinyhteisö yhdistää älykodit, nopeat lähiverkot ja automatisoidut paikalliset palvelut kuten tavarantoimituksen.

Älykodit, valokuitualueet, yhteiset digipalvelut ja viimeisen kilometrin toimitusrobotit ovat toteuttaneet cybervillagen osat. Ne eivät yleensä muodosta yhden valmistajan kokonaisjärjestelmää.

Johtopäätös: verkottuneen älyasuinalueen ydin toteutui, vaikka ratkaisut jäivät useiden palvelujen ekosysteemiksi.