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Case Study

Honkajoki HELOS concept

Growth by recycling

Comprehensive logistics for high-quality animal by-product operations

Introduction

Honkajoki Oy is a global leader in the circular economy, specializing in the processing of animal by-products. With over 50 years of experience, the company handles over 200,000 tons of by-products annually, ensuring their safe, responsible, and sustainable transformation into valuable products like proteins, fats, fertilizers, and biofuels. The logistics involved in this process are vast, covering 21,000 container cycles and 1.7 million kilometers of transport, making efficiency crucial.

Siili was brought on board to modernize and optimize this complex operation through a custom-built, modular system that automates animal by-product logistics and ensures seamless integration with financial and regulatory reporting.

Challenge

Due to the scale and specificity of its business, Honkajoki faced several challenges in managing its vast operations.

  • Complex yard and container management – Tracking over 21,000 container cycles and ensuring efficient yard operations posed significant challenges.
  • Efficient transportation planning – Precise route optimization was needed to manage the transport of animal by-products and waste across Finland and internationally.
  • Real-time monitoring and optimization – Monitoring thousands of transport operations in real-time enabled immediate response to issues, preserving by-product freshness.
  • Temperature impact on by-products – Seasonal temperature changes in summer (heat) and winter (cold) can affect the quality and freshness of animal by-products, requiring timely action in high-temperature seasons.
  • Financial flow management – Automating payments, invoicing, and financial transactions ensured transparent and streamlined logistics financials.
  • AI-powered route optimization – Leveraging AI to continuously improve route planning and minimize delays in transporting perishable materials.
  • Proactive alerts and interventions – Automated alerts based on real-time data helped operators quickly address any deviations in temperature or delays, reducing waste.
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Solution

To address these challenges, Siili collaborated with Honkajoki to overhaul HELOS (Honkajoki Electronic Logistics Operating System). The new system, HELOS 2.0, had to integrate multiple facets of animal by-product logistics into one seamless platform, offering capabilities such as:

Order management 

HELOS facilitates effective logistics planning by correlating historical by-product data to planned slaughter amounts.

In the next phase of the system renewal, historical data will be applied also to carcass collection. The system will have capabilities to leverage AI to improve accuracy and allow real-time optimization when there are changes to planned logistics.

Container management 

HELOS manages over 21,000 container cycles, ensuring smooth operations in yard management and container tracking.

Transportation planning

Intuitive UI for transportation planning with effective automation. The system facilitates scheduling optimization with value vs cost metrics and the capability to leverage external tools or AI-powered algorithms.

HELOS leverages different route planning solutions, such as AWS services and, in the next phase (carcass collection), third-party solutions or AI.

Yard operations

Filling Stations at slaughterhouses, commercial weighing of the received by-products, feeding Processing Lines at processing plants and registering to the system other container operations, such as sanitization.

Temperature control

Capability to leverage weather data or IoT sensors. 

Reporting and analytics 

The system collects rich and accurate data of all operations and offers comprehensive reporting tools, including carbon footprint calculation and details for financial reconciliation. 

Project overview

Siili’s role in the project went beyond traditional software development. As Honkajoki's partner, Siili introduced innovative technologies and methods to ensure that the new system could meet the company’s present needs while being scalable for future growth.

  1. AI-assisted system specification
    Siili used LLMs to combine relevant information from various sources, such as international logistics, animal by-product legislation and commercialization of IT-systems, to help refine the original system requirements into a cohesive whole that would allow a detailed comprehensive system specification.
  2. Iterative development approach
    Siili adopted a layered approach starting with the cohesive system specification and progressively elaborating it into more refined user stories and scenarios leveraging custom GPTs to produce clear and distinct functional definitions.
  3. Agile and test-driven development
    With a focus on test-driven development (TDD), Siili aims to produce strong foundation for the quality of HELOS 2.0. The team further leveraged AI to generate test scenarios in Gherkin language, facilitating easier integration into the test automation process. This approach will lead to higher code quality and reduced potential errors during the deployment phase.
  4. International scalability
    Siili’s involvement ensures that the HELOS platform will not be a solution just for Honkajoki, but a platform that can be commercialized internationally. By developing a modular, cloud-based system, HELOS 2.0 can be scaled across global markets and varying operational environments, providing a robust next generation logistics solution for handling of animal by-products as an important part of future circular economy. 

Technologies used

The HELOS 2.0 system incorporates a blend of cutting-edge technologies to ensure scalability, security, and efficiency.

Event-driven AWS serverless architecture

The platform leverages AWS's event-driven serverless architecture, where real-world events are modeled as intrinsic components of the system. This design enables seamless scalability and responsiveness, dynamically reacting to operational triggers. With built-in security, rapid scaling, and robust disaster recovery, the architecture is both resilient and future-proof. 

Cloud-native serverless architecture 

To ensure scalability and flexibility, the system is designed using a cloud-native serverless architecture. This approach allows different parts of the system, such as yard management, transportation planning, and financial management, to operate independently without the need to manage infrastructure. Each component is fully decoupled, leveraging serverless services to automatically scale and respond to demand, while reducing operational complexity and enabling seamless integration across the entire system.

Modern web technologies and mobile-first design

HELOS 2.0 is built using modern web technologies to ensure that the platform works seamlessly across browsers and devices. The system incorporates a Progressive Web Application (PWA) for mobile users, enabling drivers and on-ground staff to easily access the platform on the go, while delivering a fast, responsive, and app-like experience across various devices.

React, TypeScript, and serverless backend utilizing tRPC

The system is built with React and TypeScript, using tRPC as intermediator to ensure full typesafety between the frontend and a serverless backend powered by AWS Lambda functions. This architecture delivers a fast, responsive, and scalable application without the need for traditional server management. 

Temperature control

Capability to leverage weather data or IoT sensors. 

Reporting and analytics 

The system collects rich and accurate data of all operations and offers comprehensive reporting tools, including carbon footprint calculation and details for financial reconciliation. 

AI-assisted development and machine learning 

AI is central to HELOS 2.0, driving decision-making, logistics optimization, and analytics, while also being used extensively in the development process.

Tools like Amazon Q, GitHub Copilot, and especially Cursor (with Claude  3.5 Sonnet) serve as expert pair-programmers, allowing Siili developers to focus on problem-solving and value creation instead of repetitive coding.

Cursor's advanced capabilities in code generation and collaboration have been pivotal in streamlining development. In the HELOS project, AI has also been used to automate tasks like documentation, scoping, and testing, and AI-powered analytics were implemented to enhance critical insights. 

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Results

While the system has not yet been released commercially, once deployed, the Helos 2.0 is expected to improve operations in several key ways: 

  • Increased efficiency: The optimized planning and execution of container and transport cycles significantly reduced logistical delays and enhanced overall efficiency. 

  • Real-time visibility: The introduction of real-time monitoring tools provided stakeholders with immediate insights into operations, improving decision-making. 

  • Cost savings and scalability: The system’s ability to streamline processes led to measurable cost savings, making it scalable for Honkajoki’s future needs, including international expansion. 

  • Sustainability and transparency: In alignment with Honkajoki’s circular economy model, HELOS 2.0 brought greater transparency to the logistics process, supporting their sustainability goals. 

Future steps

The HELOS system is under development and will be released by Honkajoki in May 2025. This first deployment will include the by-product collection and transports from slaughterhouses. The next phase after this slaughterhouse collection will comprise carcass collection from about 12,000 farms in Finland.

The commercialization of HELOS 2.0 is a natural next step for Honkajoki. With its flexible, scalable architecture, the platform has broad applicability across the animal by-product industry. The innate capabilities for AI combined with vast amounts of operational data set the stage for not only transforming internal operations but also setting a new benchmark for cost-efficient and environmentally responsible handling of animal by-products.

Through the use of advanced AI, cloud-based architecture, and a commitment to sustainability, Siili and Honkajoki are creating a logistics solution under the broader Honkajoki Concept that is poised to revolutionize how companies around the world will pursue the circular economy involving food production, agriculture, green energy, and clean water.

    • Agile development
    • Design System
    • Co-creation
    • AI-assisted development
    • AWS Cloud Services
    • Progressive Web Application (PWA)
    • React
    • TypeScript
    • tRPC
    • AWS Lambda functions
    • Amazon Q
    • GitHub Copilot
    • Cursor (with Claude 3.5 Sonnet)

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