Twenty years of products and brands

I designed my own product, built a factory around it and exported about 80% of production. I have also priced the products, paid the freight and done the post-calculation. That is why I assess AI work through production and margin, not through the tool alone.

Our own product and factory: The Machine

In 2017 Pole introduced a hollow, CNC-machined aluminum frame. We designed a completely new manufacturing method for it, applied for and were granted several patents, and built a factory around the method. The factory was arranged to keep the route from raw material to the customer as short as possible. The latest generation is Hiisi, a made-to-measure e-MTB machined and assembled to the rider's dimensions in Jyväskylä.

What the journey taught us

• Design and mechanical engineering: 3D design, geometry, kinematics, structural analysis.
• Materials: aluminum alloys, plastics, composites and structural adhesive bonding.
• Surface treatments: chemical pre-treatment chains, anodizing and e-coat. We designed and ran a surface treatment line ourselves.
• Design for manufacturing: CNC machining, injection molding, aluminum casting, extruded profiles, series production processes and assembly.
• Business: pricing, margin calculation, freight and post-calculation. About 80% of production was exported.

Brands and hand-drawn logos

Pole was built into an international brand without its competitors' marketing budgets, and the industry's biggest media (Pinkbike, ENDURO, Singletracks) still tell the story. I have designed dozens of logos, and I still draw them by hand. AI spits out marks in a second, but what comes out is mush that looks like the neighbour's mush. The bull mark on this site is our own work: it reads at 32 pixels in a browser tab and just as well on the wall of a hall.

3D visualization

I modeled and rendered the imagery and video for OC-System's OC-NET machine guarding system as a sales tool. The client sees the finished product before a single mesh panel is manufactured. The same animation runs on our front page.

Where I use this experience

When I assess an AI use case, I recognize the practical work behind quote calculation, waybills and ERP data. I still take on design and brand work case by case. Mahtisonni's main work is moving AI into daily use in manufacturing SMEs.