Episode 21: Breaking the Product into Value: Jussi Sippola on Modularity at Wärtsilä

In this episode of the Share PLM Podcast, we are joined by Jussi Sippola, Chief Expert in Product Architecture Management & Modularity.

Jussi Sippola is a seasoned expert in product architecture management and modularity, with nearly two decades of experience at Wärtsilä shaping the future of engine platforms in the marine and energy industries. Throughout his career, Jussi has helped organisations navigate complex technological transformations by combining deep engineering expertise with a strong understanding of culture, collaboration, and human behaviour.

With over ten years dedicated specifically to building and managing modular platforms, Jussi believes modularisation is far more than a design strategy—it's a mindset shift. His work focuses on using modular architecture as a strategic driver to improve efficiency, accelerate innovation, and bring teams together around shared ways of working.
Join us as we dive into modularity, product architecture, and PLM transformation with Jussi in a deeply practical, experience-driven conversation.

Here are some of the highlights from our conversation:

⚉ Modularity as a Company-Wide Strategy 
⚉ What Modularity Really Means in Practice
⚉  The Challenge of Defining the “Right” Modules 
⚉  Ownership and Responsibility in Modularity
⚉  Why a Dedicated Modularity Team Matters
⚉ Tools Support Modularity—but Don’t Replace Skills
⚉ Modularity as an Enabler of Sustainability 
⚉ Culture, Change, and Human Factors
 ⚉  Business Value of Modularity

CONNECT WITH JUSSI: 
⚉ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jussi-sippola-5199124/ 

⚉ CONNECT WITH SHARE PLM:
Website: https://shareplm.com/ 


Join us every month to listen to fascinating interviews, where we cover a wide array of topics, from actionable tips, to personal experiences, to strategies that you can implement into your PLM strategy.

If you have an interesting story to share and want to join the conversation, contact us and let's chat. We can't wait to hear from you!

Transcript

[00:00:12] Beatriz González:
Hello everyone and welcome to the Share PLM podcast. My name is Beatrice Gonzalez, co-founder and CEO of Share PLM. And today as always, I'm with my co-host Jos Voskuil. Hi Jos. How are you doing today? And who is with us?

[00:00:26] Jos Voskuil:
Hi, Bea, great to be back. And, uh, today we have the pleasure to speak with Jussi Sippola, who is an expert in product architecture and modularity at the famous company Wärtsilä. And with that I look forward to an interesting discussion and perhaps for many listeners, also an introduction to this topic. I think modularity is important.

So Jussi welcome in our podcast and we are very happy to have you with us today. But let's start with who is Jussi? What is his passion for PLM and modularity?

[00:00:55] Jussi Sippola:
Yeah. Hello all, like Jos was introducing me. My name is Jussi Sippola, and I, I'm working in company called Wärtsilä . I started there 2008. I’m mostly working with, at that time with fuel cells. But during the 2009 I was already hijacked to modularity organization, newly established.

I don't know, was I just simple to brainwash with modularity, or did somebody see a potential in me? But yeah, on that road, I'm at the moment as well, so close to 20 years already.

[00:01:31] Jos Voskuil:
Okay. Can you tell us what is modularity? It sounds like a fashionable word, but what does it mean for you?

[00:01:36] Jussi Sippola:
Yeah. For me, modularity means a way to manage the end-to-end value chain for a product or group of product systems. So a way in the end for, to make product profitable and being able to sell, produce, procure, and service it.

[00:01:56] Jos Voskuil:
Okay, so it's not only an R and D topic, it's company wide?

[00:02:00] Jussi Sippola:
Yeah, that's, that's often the bottleneck that many, many sees it only in R and D, but it's a company wide, if you want to take the strategical benefit out of it.

[00:02:09] Beatriz González:
How do you make sure that the modularity concept stays not only in R and D, but it's also expands and to other departments, so other departments are included?

[00:02:21] Jussi Sippola:
Yeah, that is actually a key point when kind of starting the journey in modularity, the whole organization needs to be involved and people need to see the benefit out of it. For in each of the organization maybe the kind of wide scene in design so often, because design normally sees the initial benefits out of it. They can see it, okay, these and these variants I need to do, this is the specification I need to create against. But the benefits for the other organization, they come a bit later on in the chain. So for them, they just need to see to believe it. And that's why it often stays, stays in the design as well, that people don't necessarily see the benefit for them. But that's the key point that you need to bring the benefit for everybody. Explain what it means for each and every organization.

[00:03:14] Jos Voskuil:
Okay. Coming back to, you see in the beginning, what is your passion and modularity? Is modularity a mathematical thing? Is it something complex? Is that what you like about modularity?

[00:03:25] Jussi Sippola:
I would say that it's practical. So I would say that it makes products more simple. And with a simple, I mean, that in my simple brain, simple is good or simple is nice. You break it into a certain pieces and packages, what you can control and maintain. Rather than thinking the whole product as a whole, you break it into pieces to controllable and manageable pieces. And yes, when you are doing the morality, you can use algorithms and things like that. But I wouldn't say it's mathematical, but it's just a way to communicate and work.

[00:04:04] Jos Voskuil:
Okay, but when you say breaking into pieces, this is what everyone can do, but breaking it in the, I would say relevant pieces, I think that's the big challenge is modularity, right?

[00:04:15] Jussi Sippola:
Exactly. Exactly. In our company, we have been speaking more about modularity for a long time, just long time before I joined Wärtsilä. But it has been just on the design side that somebody thought that, okay, this is a good way to break it for my purposes. Then you go to the production and they see, okay, this is a good way to break it for my purposes. That's the point that you need to bring all the departments together, that what is the best way to split the cake. And actually, before the next one that normally I've seen that uh how do you break the product people don't go deep or doesn't go enough deep that people think about delivery units and these kind of things, which are far too big to be modular in my advice.

[00:05:07] Jos Voskuil:
So Jussi, you are saying that modularity is a company wide, I'll say activity? Who is responsible for modularity in your company, for example?

[00:05:16] Jussi Sippola:
I would be glad in saying that there is one person responsible of it. But no, there is no one single person, it depends on what decisions you do touching modularity. It can be on different levels.

So design department, they can be responsible on certain parts of the modularity, namely the modular variance and the specification of them. And then, for example, in my organization, we are responsible of the modular architecture itself. Meaning that what are the modules? How do they interact? How do they go to kind of, following systems in the chain? P-D-M-S-A-P, whatever.

And then, when we go to see the, kind of the cost side of it, and then there is the responsibilities on the product management who has the profit and loss responsibilities? So it's a kind of, depending on, there is no one single person, but you divide it to different organizations.

[00:06:14] Beatriz González:
Mm-hmm. And how important is to have a team responsible for the modularization in the company?

[00:06:21] Jussi Sippola:
I would say that in our case it has been a deal breaker. I've discussed with many companies who have had a modularity project consultants coming in and out. And they haven't had a dedicated team to take the learning and build the knowledge. So when the consultants go away they don't know where to continue and how to take the responsibility. So I think it's crucial to build the own knowledge in-house, to be able to manage it and further develop the processes and knowhow.

[00:06:56] Beatriz González:
And not only having in-house, because I suppose that if you have this knowledge in one person, two persons, they leave the company, you lose the knowledge because indeed it's a knowledge that is very difficult. So people in general is not skilled to have like complete overview of the product design to be able to identify by themselves the modules.

So I suppose having a team that can collect that common information, it's what is valuable for the company to have the IP and all the concepts well defined.

[00:07:28] Jussi Sippola:
And I think there is the, what I mentioned earlier, that there is no single person responsible on the whole thing. When it's distributed around the organization for the people who feel responsible on the information. And also the knowhow is in those teams. So if a single person leaves, it's not the end of the world.

[00:07:50] Beatriz González:
And how critical is having a software to collect all of this information? Because you are having one software, right?

[00:07:58] Jussi Sippola:
I would say that the tool is not a savior, but the tool is shaping the processes. What do you use for collecting information and maintaining information? So in our case for the modularity related things, we are using software called Polymer, developed and maintained by modular management. We feel that that's in a key role for our modularity governance. But I know many companies who are not using any specific, they have distributed the task into PDM, ERP, and other systems. But why we chose to have a dedicated tool to support it is to have the overall view, the high level picture on the things.

[00:08:44] Jos Voskuil:
Exactly. Yeah. There you make the good point. Traditional PDM system or ERP systems are very bomb centric, where, uh, if you want to do modularity, you need to have the level above on the product. I've seen examples from companies that bought a tool that could do this, but then they lack the knowledge.

So it's not only the tool. You need to have the skills. And we were both also in the North European Modularity Network. Once, I saw a lecture from Scania and they even discussed interfaces at the C-level. I mean, that illustrates how important the modularity in a company can be embedded.

[00:09:21] Jussi Sippola:
Exactly. And I think in case of Scania, it has kind of the modularity in the walls. They don't necessarily know that, okay, it's this and this process is about modularity. It's everything. And when you bring a modularity to a company afterwards, in a way it's a long journey to set up all the processes and teach the people why we are doing something like we are doing.

[00:09:47] Beatriz González:
How is the legacy information influencing the decision of the new modular approach? All the project that has been delivered before, et cetera.? It's what's your recommendation? It's to really understand it, analyze it, or it's better to start from scratch with the knowledge from several people?

[00:10:06] Jussi Sippola:
Yeah, I would say that it's easier to start from scratch maybe, than starting too much work with the legacy. Definitely you need to understand the business side and all those things that you don't kind of do things in vain. But yeah, in our products, they have very, very long, kind of, lifetime. I would say if we take four stock engine, it's, we normally say it's minimum 30 years.

So it's not so easy to work with the old and new ones parallel when they have certain processes or different processes inside them. I would say it is a challenge that we would need to work with new kind of processes and all kind of processes. And there is the constant worry, at least in my head. The new one starts to slip to the old one, and how to make sure that we, we don't do that.

[00:11:04] Jos Voskuil:
I think you said, uh, you see it, it would be easier to start from scratch, and there I'm thinking no company starts from scratch. They always have a history and most of the time they have a kind of engineering to order history. They make a product for the first time and then they start learning that they do things repetitive. And then sometimes the awareness of modularization comes in.

But also now, it's an economical benefit. But now I also see there is a new trend for modularization in relation to the circular economy. Is that also happening in Wärtsilä? Is that also a driver for advanced modularity?

[00:11:41] Jussi Sippola:
Yeah, definitely it's a driver. I would say that we started the morality journey before those, those, this kind of, so deep discussion on the, on the sustainability and all of those. But if we think that kind of sustainability, there is definitely a legislation. You need to understand what kind of business model you need to have to kind of meet the legislation, but also how the product is prepared to meet those requirements.

On the sustainability side, there is this lot of RR, so repair, refurbish, and all these ones. So you need to understand that how do you prepare the product that it can be refurbished and repaired in a way you have. So if we take an old product, I'm sure that there is ways to do things there as well. But in the modularity, it's kind of built in with the plug and play with the interfaces.

[00:13:16] Jos Voskuil:
Exactly. Yeah. And maybe also for the listeners important point that, uh, the circular economy is about the refurbish, the repair loops. And in order to do that, how you have to decompose your products in unions that you can handle separately. Also, another concept close to modularity is EBOM, MBOM. Is that also a concept you're using in your PLM world?

[00:13:38] Jussi Sippola:
Yes. I can say that we are yet all in, we have still a old way of working, converting the PBOM and kind of conversion between PDM and ERP. But we are already for many of the products having the approach of EBOM and MBOM, and bill of processes and all these, and there is a link though. When you are having an MBOM, there is a trace that, okay, it's coming from this and this module variant. So we can trace it back, and it's, I would say, rather flexible, but it always can be better.

[00:14:13] Jos Voskuil:
Exactly, and here we are discussing modularity as a starting point and it spins off to so many directions eh?, I mean organization, business, materials.

[00:14:23] Jussi Sippola:
Yeah. This is actually the kind of what we discussed already, already, that modularity is not just the design. Though the design is maybe the most visible thing for many, but how do you build the architecture, it reflects to many areas in the organization.

[00:14:41] Beatriz González:
And you were mentioning you see modularity governance. So how is it for you? How are you managing all of this? What is the governance? How do you do so you involved all these different areas?

[00:14:55] Jussi Sippola:
Yeah. In our company we're not using the governance term in the past too much. But we have tried to introduce it, because for me, the governance means that how do you develop, how do you sell, how do you procure, produce, and service the product. So it's the whole thing. It's not just that how do you develop, development process or how do you sell, but the way to combine all these together, so as a holistic governance, that's the idea what we have had.

[00:15:22] Beatriz González:
Okay. I was thinking more on the governance itself for your team, for the modularity team, what are the projects that you have? How are you defining new products, modular decision concepts? The governance in your program itself?

[00:15:37] Jussi Sippola:
Yeah, so if we separate that we have modularity projects and then we have the kind of normal line organization work, kind of the normal maintenance work when we are, when we are developing and maintaining things. So we have a process called MFD, Modular Function Deployment in the background that is guiding us in, in many of our operations. And if you go and, and read the books about MFD, it doesn't tell all the things or it tells. But when you are working with the modularity, you start realizing, okay, here and there, there's a bits and pieces, which you didn't expect necessarily, but you understand, okay, this is something that I can control with architecture as well. But as a backbone, I would say that it's the MFD process.

[00:16:27] Beatriz González:
Okay. And have you found some cultural barriers when introducing the molarity concept to the, to the team?

[00:16:37] Jussi Sippola:
Yes, I would say that we have, we have got the whole scope of the cultural, behavioral aspects. So we have got, if we just think that we have got, maybe not anger that we haven't got, but disbelief and maybe concerns, and also the nationalities there. I'm located in Vaasa, west coast of Finland. We have Swedish speaking and Finnish speaking people. And definitely other cultures, but you see the differences in, in different kind of backgrounds as well. That how do they react to to change, because in the end, the modularity is change management to large extent. And I think those questions, what people have, they need to be handled one by one. So if there is, for example, disbelief, many of those are kind of sold when people see the benefit or see the change. But also explaining the things one by one, it helps people understand and be aligned.

[00:17:45] Beatriz González:
And how critical is the management support for the success of the modularity?

[00:17:51] Jussi Sippola:
I would say it's 50% of the success. The other 50% is the, if we take the top management, these top down approach, and then we have a bottom up approach, where people that do the doers needs to believe. So that's the rest of the 50%. So if there is no commitment from the people and from the top management, it just doesn't fly. It stays as a hobby for different people.

[00:18:17] Beatriz González:
For you…

[00:18:18] Jussi Sippola:
Yeah. For me and for many others.

[00:18:22] Jos Voskuil:
If you look to your daily life, Jussi, we started with modularity as a kind of mathematical or structural concept. Now, if you look to your daily life, is it a human challenge or is a mathematical challenge? What's keeping you busy the most?

[00:18:38] Jussi Sippola:
Definitely human challenge. Sometimes I feel that I'm a psychologist trying to convince people and answering their concerns. But also on the other hand, it's very important for us to understand the technology, at least on some level. That we can kind of answer, definitely, we are not the ones developing the product from the technical point of view, but certain level of technical understanding, we need to have to be able to communicate with the people.

And I would say that the people aspect is crucial. How do you communicate and treat different people? Some people you need to, you don't necessarily, it doesn't take you further if you say that you need to do it like this. You need to pursue and let them figure out themselves that this is good way and not saying it's right.

[00:19:32] Beatriz González:
And Jussi, you were mentioning before that your recommendation is to have the knowledge in house, but for those companies that are starting the journey and maybe they don't have the knowledge, what would be the practical steps?

[00:19:47] Jussi Sippola:
For all the companies who are kind of planning to go on the modularity way, it was also for our case that we took the kind of externals to help us in the beginning. Depending on the company size, how long and how frequent they are, depends on how big the project will be. But when there is the externals in and doing the work, there needs to be a kind of partner in-house, which are taking the information and building the knowledge in-house. So kind of learning from the externals and at the same time building the knowledge in-house.

And that's actually, that’s my track record in a way. I've been taught by mainly smaller management, but also some other consultant companies. Because you, you know, company, which is a size of Wärtsilä, there is many consultant companies eager to come and tell things.

[00:20:44] Jos Voskuil:
Exactly. And now coming to the business side, we talked about modularity. What would you say are the, the biggest advantages for a company to be modular in their product approach?

[00:20:57] Jussi Sippola:
I would say that the reduction of internal complexity, and that is then I would say that the modularity is mainly internal thing. How do you improve the processes? How do you make it more cost effective? If definitely you are able to out measure, or what's the word to, for the customer as well, but I don't see a reason why we would go and market that this product is modular for a customer. I know we are doing it because it's a trendy word, but I would say that primarily it is to improve the EBIT…

[00:21:34] Jos Voskuil:
Okay.

[00:21:34] Jussi Sippola:
…of a company.

[00:21:36] Jos Voskuil:
I have a good example of modularity, which as a customer I like. I don't know if you know the Fairphone?

[00:21:42] Jussi Sippola:
I've heard it. Yeah, I heard it. Yes,

[00:21:45] Jos Voskuil:
You can repair the camera, the battery, et cetera. So also on the sustainability level, you see that modularity can become a business model for the future.

[00:21:53] Jussi Sippola:
definitely. I see that it's uh enabler, putting it that way.

[00:21:57] Jos Voskuil:
Exactly.

[00:21:59] Beatriz González:
So for services and maintenance, when you have identifying your models, your preferred suppliers, it's, you can also get to an agreement with them. You can have better cost there and you can also sell fast to your customers and cheaper and be competitive.

[00:22:15] Jussi Sippola:
Yeah, so if thinking that kind of, internal and customer benefit. So if we are reducing the complexity, then there is the, the other side of the coin. How does the customer see it? It can be a reduced price, it can be shorter lead time, less quality issues. So there is a bunch of different things of what can be seen by the customer.

[00:22:40] Jos Voskuil:
Exactly. And then you have the two differences that you have the modularity at the, the business level and at the consumer level. I mean consumers are probably less interested in, in modularity than in businesses.

[00:22:51] Jussi Sippola:
Yes, yes.

[00:22:52] Beatriz González:
Yeah. Okay. We are coming to the end of the episode. Jos, you have more questions?
 
[00:22:58] Jos Voskuil:
I have only one question as usual, it's about the experience. And experience is what you get when you don't get what you expect. So Jussi we are curious, can you share one of your experiences with us that others can learn from?

[00:23:13] Jussi Sippola:
That is a very, very hard question. One thing, that comes to my mind is that just explaining how, how did it go? I was preparing a template for PDM import and that file lives still on. In a way when people see that something is helpful for them, there is a real, real push or real pull for that thing. So for me, it opened the eyes that the information, all you do, you need to understand that who will benefit out of this. And how people can use the information and how it can be connecting together.

So the import template, what I was referring was when we were pushing the modules and module variance to PDM system that people can see them there as well. But people saw the import file and they realize that shit, this kind of information is not available anywhere else, not even in the PDM after the import. So it has kind of increased the use of it. I try to get rid of it and people using the not Excel tools, but official tools. But the key point is to, to understand that what and how people are using the information.

[00:24:36] Jos Voskuil:
And they see the value.

[00:24:37] Jussi Sippola:
Exactly. Yeah.

[00:24:38] Jos Voskuil:
Yeah. Yeah.

[00:24:40] Beatriz González:
So then would this one be the message that you want the listeners to live with? Or do you have another important message that you would like to share?

[00:24:50] Jussi Sippola:
Yeah, I think that the last word I said, but also the thing that modularity is not just design that we have repeated many times. So it's a way to, to manage with the information model around the modularity, the end to end value chain. So I think those are the two things what I want people to remember.

[00:25:11] Beatriz González:
Thank you, Jussi, for joining us today on this episode, and to our listeners for tuning in.

[00:25:16] Jussi Sippola:
Thank you. It was my pleasure.