Innovative log engineering and going beyond Archicad with Kontio

Kontio is the largest log home manufacturer in the world. Kontio’s success is partly driven by its continuous investment in its BIM environment, showcasing the company’s commitment to digitization and innovation.  

Kontio relies on Archicad, ArchiLogs, and ArchiFrame, to model its log homes and run its element production line. By customizing and integrating software, Kontio streamlines its production line and simplifies processes – here is how Kontio uses technology to boost innovative log engineering and build tens of thousands of log homes.  

KONTIO'S VISIONARY LOG HOMES RELY ON GREAT SOFTWARE TECHNOLOGY  

Kontio's position as the largest log manufacturer in the world is reflected in its long history of both tradition and innovation. Employing over 200 people, Kontio has produced over 50,000 log homes over the past 45 years. Kontio is also the only log home manufacturer in the world who completely independently and industrially produces log houses end-to-end, all the way from raw material to the finished product.  

Glass House © Kontio

Kontio Glass House, a mixed material log, timber, and glass element house, is a recent example of Kontio innovation product-side, but Kontio also works hard to ensure internal processes are equally current. 

Investing in the right kind of technology allows Kontio to both scale and optimize. Using ArchiLogs to model its log structures gives Kontio a software environment that it can adapt to their processes.  

Over its almost 30 years of software development history, ArchiLogs has been steadily working towards enabling the 3D printing of log homes. In fact, this vision and commitment to modularity was already set in motion from the very first Archicad API. 

Kontio combines log building heritage and premium materials and designs with an agile approach to software development, continuously improving and refining their processes. 

CUSTOMIZING LOG BUILDING SOFTWARE ARCHILOGS

Over the years, as Kontio has continued to make ever more complex and diverse log structures, ArchiLogs has grown with them, undergoing tweaks and customizations along the way.  

Getting Kontio log ends, notches and profiles and other machinings into the system, updating the product library to reflect Kontio’s catalog, creating the right sort of CNC output for Kontio machines: it’s all part of the journey of making software work efficiently. 

Creating standard and representative processes that can be easily replicated, even automated, not only saves time, but also saves the factory floor from costly errors. From design to assembly, every line of code must be anchored in the realities of timber engineering. 

Monio © Kontio

As Samuli Kokko, Project Manager at Kontio explains, “the production line and processes always lead the way when it comes to software development. The production line has a very complex and refined machinery system that needs to be reflected in the software that we use”.  

Read about our other ArchiLogs customisation project here.  

DIGITIZING LOG BUILDING PROCESSES

In an industry often associated with heritage, log building is also ripe for digital innovation. Kontio wants to lead the way and integrate BIM data across their entire workflow. Integrating BIM data into other parts of the business helps create crucial bridges between design, production, and assembly.  

Creating a bridge between operations and factory processes is key when it comes to streamlining operations. Software helps control production realities and optimize building materials. Digitization can help with documentation, compliance, and risk reduction. 

Hill House, Villa Myötätuuli, Naantali © Kontio

Log homes produced on an industrial scale need to keep up with the construction industry’s digitalization and BIM journey. Maybe the log industry can even lead it? Current requirements and building trends, including green requirements from clients and governmental agencies, coupled with LCA and ESG analysis and reporting, need to be factored into Kontio’s Design-Build-Manufacture process. Changes related to the BIM ISO standards are driving the evolution towards digital twins, which is a total gamechanger for the industry, and one at which Kontio wants to be leading the charge. 

All these new requirements can be achieved through an integrated ecosystem. 

MAKING GOING BEYOND ARCHICAD POSSIBLE

Integration is really helping push Kontio into the forefront of modern BIM. Integration means transporting data from the 3D models and accompanying 2D documentation into other software that runs the business such as PLM or ERP software. It means creating an all-informed system that starts with an Archicad model and ends with output, delivery, and assembly.  

Hirsihuvila Kontio Nalle © Kontio

Kristian Töyrä, CEO at Timehouse Oy who is developing the integration with Kontio, says that “this is the kind of project where you really see the potential of BIM being realized”. 

Technically complex yet with huge commercial potential, this is the sort of project that will help Kontio stay at the forefront of log home innovation. 

It also goes beyond to the log building industry as a whole – can standardization and BIM adoption help more people embrace these sustainable homes?  

Samuli Kokko reiterates how “Kontio wants to remain at the forefront of log engineering, championing the data model and extracting as much information and value as possible from it. Refining these digital processes is something we want to do in collaboration with the entire log building community”.