Company Introduction: MexLink
A brief overview of your company, what do you do?
MexLink has two business lines. We carry out research and product development projects for industrial companies and help them improve their productivity. Our background lies in the industrial machinery sector, ranging from the design and manufacture of machinery to maintenance and spare parts. For complex issues, we draw on our network of Senior Advisors - people who have personally solved these problems within the industry. Our core team has a natural understanding of the language of experience, having witnessed several product generations ourselves.
Our other line of business is our own product, Mexwiser, in which we see our greatest potential for growth. It helps capture how an experienced professional solves a problem. In maintenance, reports usually only record what was repaired. For the next maintenance technician, the most valuable information may be the observation that steered the fault-finding in the right direction. Mexwiser makes this line of reasoning available to the next person involved. Over time, this builds a company digital memory that people can draw on across teams and locations.
What are your company’s policies on remote work?
The work is carried out flexibly, alternating between the client’s premises and our own remote workstations. We visit the client when we need to see for ourselves how the work is progressing and where there are any issues. At Nokia Portti, we have a shared space where we gather as and when necessary. On a day-to-day basis, we call each other and hold meetings on Teams.
Our collaboration is built on a long history of working together in industry. We’ve known each other for a long time, having worked at the same industrial company. This means that when we’re on the phone, we get straight to the point. There’s no need to explain the background from scratch every time.
What are your employees particularly satisfied with right now?
Our staff appreciate that MexLink provides a framework for their work and brings sufficiently challenging projects to the table. These projects allow them to put the value gained from their experience to good use. At the same time, every project forces us to consider which of our past lessons apply in this situation and what else we need to learn. Work arrangements are largely determined by the client and the project. So far, we have been able to agree on these flexibly.
How is the expertise of experienced people passed on to others, and what do you want to bring from this to the WorkWell project?
When we were developing Mexwiser, the crucial question was how an experienced professional approaches a problem they have never encountered before in exactly that form. A sensor alarm might prompt a search for an electrical fault, even if the cause is a jammed mechanical joint. We went through real-life maintenance scenarios with seasoned professionals. We wanted to identify what they pay attention to, the order in which they investigate the issue, and what causes them to change tack.
This work laid the foundations for Mexwiser. The Competence Map outlines what a master technician needs to know. The main work process describes how they proceed. The AI assistant uses this information, along with knowledge captured from previous cases, to help the user move forward in a difficult situation. When a case reviewed by a professional is added to the company’s shared knowledge base, the lessons learnt from it become available to the next practitioner, even in a different location.
We joined the WorkWell project so that, above all, we could bring this aspect of industrial expert work to the attention of the research community. For an experienced practitioner, many crucial insights are already second nature. It is worth making these visible so that expertise can be transferred even when people are working in different locations. As MexLink grows, we are also keen to learn from other companies involved in the project how to support those at the early stages of their careers in such a way that skills, wellbeing at work and work performance develop hand in hand.
