PolyPoint – a company developed by likeminded visionaries
In 1998 a group of friends united with the mission to translate CAD-programs from Finnish to Swedish and therefore founded a company named PolyPoint. It didn’t take long before the ambitious founders started discussing further developments of the company’s operations – and the area of operation was ultimately extended to a large range of various engineering services in relation to technical planning.
Senior Engineer and Partner at PolyPoint, Johan Granholm, sat down with us to discuss their maritime engineering services and the importance of listening to the client to achieve the best possible solutions in each project. When the company was founded, Johan was working inhouse at Nautor’s Swan, but once the area of operation expanded, he started working fulltime at PolyPoint bringing his acquired maritime knowledge with him. This resulted in an updated company structure which now included a maritime sector, and the team started to offer their services to the local boat yards. “It was quite popular at that time for companies in the Jakobstad region to hire external services from other companies, rather than having everything inhouse” Johan explains. Providing companies with top class engineering services has been at the core of PolyPoint’s operations ever since. In addition to this, thanks to their belief in lifelong learning and developing skills, PolyPoint has been committed to teaching courses for both university students and for the already educated during periods when they have had extra time on their hands.
Comprehensive engineering services
Peter Granholm, co-founder and former CEO of OQS, was during the 2000’s running the administration at PolyPoint but dreamed of creating something of his own – a new line of innovative catamarans. During 2009, Peter started building a network, consisting of people and businesses that we today know as the OQS team. It was only natural that PolyPoint with their extensive maritime engineering knowledge would be one of the founding partners of OQS and Johan was quickly appointed to have the main responsibility for the engineering from PolyPoints’ side. Their role in achieving this goal was to offer general technical planning and technical plumbing solutions deeply rooted in extensive experience and ability to get creative. Johan fondly recalls the dream of designing and manufacturing the best catamarans in the world, and the excitement of that turning into reality.
Madeleine Nyvall joined PolyPoint as an engineer in 2018 and has been an invaluable asset to their team since day one. In OQS’ two most recent catamaran projects, she provided technical solutions regarding the interior, which further extended PolyPoints range of services.
Johan Granholm photographed on OE72-001
From design to reality
“It’s all about puzzling everything together. As engineers we need to make everything fit together perfectly in a limited space, and in a strategic manner” Johan says. The road from design to reality is always iterative; the iterative processes are used to create, test and refine the solutions until everyone is satisfied with the result. One can see an iterative process as a methodology that is used to get the project closer to its end goal by regular and frequent discussion between the yard and the client. PolyPoint also cooperates coherently with our naval architect when needed to refine the solutions in the case that they possibly could have an impact on the design as a whole.
The planning is mostly happening in 3D using SolidWorks, giving both the engineer and the client a multidimensional perspective on how well items fit in together. AutoCAD is also used for the layouts, to get accurate two-dimensional proportions and dimensions. Using these tools together makes it possible for anyone, regardless of the level of technical knowledge, to get a good idea on how the technical planning is taking form.
The client is always included in the decision-making throughout the whole process. In Johan’s opinion, the clients’ input is one of the most important guidelines for his work. “I want the client to get a product that really feels like their own, because if it does, the client will definitely enjoy it to the fullest – a combination of customized functionality and comfort is everything” Johan says. If the client is unsure what kind of solutions would be optimal for their catamaran, the team at PolyPoint is always ready to present different options inspired by solutions on previous projects which can be used as a base for further discussions. “We always listen to our clients and have completely open discussions, because at the end of the day, they have the best ability to recognize what they need and it’s our job to fulfill that need.”
The driving forces behind the continuous innovation
The engineering is one of the foundations in the continuous innovation, which ties back to PolyPoints belief in never-ending education. Johan speaks about the challenges that can follow when a yacht is either fully customized or semi-customized, and how the engineers need to assess to what extent functioning solutions used in previous projects can be applied together with the current needs and fresh ideas, resulting in a new modified and unique technical solution.
“Actually, if you start to look into what the driving force behind the innovation is from our side, it’s the feedback – and who is behind the feedback? The client and the clients’ crew. So, you could say that ultimately, it’s the yacht owners that are real catalysts for the innovation.” Johan finishes.
The goal for PolyPoint has always been to create a final product with an outstanding quality that reflects a seamless cooperation with each involved stakeholder.
To learn more about PolyPoint, please visit https://polypoint.com
