Innovation and collaboration take center stage at Zero4 Symposium
Konecranes brought together industry leaders, academics, and innovators to explore the future of intralogistics at the program event in Hyvinkää. Held at Konecranes Headquarters, the Symposium attracted approximately 100 attendees from different organizations, universities, and research institutions.
Attendees of the Zero4 Symposium at the Konecranes Business Factory, a new flagship site dedicated to boosting innovation and showcasing the latest technology research projects.
Setting the stage for innovation and collaboration
The Zero4 Symposium highlighted how digitalization, artificial intelligence, and system integration are transforming the future of material handling. Throughout the day, the message was clear: continuous innovation and close collaboration are no longer optional – they are essential.
"Material handling continues to digitalize, and the breathtaking developments in AI demand even greater data and end-to-end integrations. It's crucial for equipment manufacturers to actively engage in these changes, not merely observe them. By building the future ourselves, we can innovate new products, services, and business models," Mikael Haag, Konecranes Research Fund Manager tells.
The event gave participants insight into the program through a range of co-innovation projects. These joint initiatives between academic and industrial partners tackle real-world challenges from multiple perspectives. One such initiative is AiWo, which explores how AI can enhance human-machine collaboration in fieldwork operations.
"Today we demonstrated how machines can communicate, co-operate and work as a fleet with humans. However, the work is not ready yet - new research is needed," Haag continues.
Exploring the future of automation at the Business Factory
The event continued in the recently opened Konecranes Business Factory – a new flagship site dedicated to showcasing the latest technology research projects.
Business Factory Lead Juho Lauronen believes that the site will offer great possibilities for co-creation in the future.
"As part of the Zero4 program, we wanted to create a space where we could end-to-end develop and test new research in practice with our partners and customers. The newly renovated venue provides opportunity, for example, to follow interaction with cranes, their environment, and control system behaviour," Lauronen tells.
At the Business Factory, attendees witnessed how automation, robotics, and smart factory technologies are reshaping industrial work. Demonstrations Inverse and Human detection with laser sensors showcased how intelligent systems can boost safety, precision, and collaboration. Inverse, for example, revealed how cobots and cranes can safely work alongside humans in shared tasks.
The Inverse demonstration showed attendees a phase of a broader collaborative assembly process, where two components are joined together through the cooperation of a crane, cobot, and human.
In addition, the HiFive project, presented by researchers Matias Vierimaa, Taru Hakanen, and Vladimir Goriachev from VTT, brought a human-centric perspective, focusing on how meaningfulness of work can be maintained in increasingly hybrid human–machine environments. Through these projects, Zero4 is paving the way for safer, smarter, and more adaptive industrial ecosystems.
Paving the way for Zero4's future initiatives
The Symposium’s final session, Research to Business, offered a glimpse into the academic frontiers shaping the future of material handling. Through 20 individual presentations given by researchers from Aalto University, Tampere University, University of Oulu, University of Jyväskylä, LUT University, and VTT, participants explored emerging research themes such as AI, data, intelligent systems, and human-technology interaction.
These sessions not only reflected what academia is focusing on today but also pointed toward the future directions of the industry. As Zero4 moves forward, key areas of exploration include the combined potential of accurate DigitalTwins, AI, and high computing power in optimizing material flows and enabling autonomous machine operations. Another strategic research focus is energy efficiency, which is expected to become a defining competitive factor in the industry. At the same time, human-centric innovation remains a cornerstone of the program.
The Symposium made clear that collaboration between academia and industry is key to unlocking the next generation of material handling innovations. Whether it’s smarter automation, safer human-machine interaction, or more sustainable logistics, the foundations are already being laid.
"We are now at halfway of the Zero4 program and we will continue with the mission of creating more sustainable, optimized and safer material flows," Haag concludes.
Interested in hearing more? Contact Program Leader & Research Fund Manager Mikael Haag (mikael.haag@konecranes.com) for more information.