Aerobloggen

One of the many perks of working for a global company is the opportunities you get to travel to other sites where you can meet with colleagues which otherwise only exist on Skype. I spent last week in El Cajon, a short drive outside San Diego in California, USA. So what did I do over there? Well, I’m doing my third rotation at the IT department where I’m a part of a green field project where we’re building a new facility for engine repairs in Malaysia.

The project team consists of people from three different continents, which makes it very difficult to find a timeslot for meetings within reasonable business hours. This is a tricky challenge from a project management perspective. It therefore requires that we meet face to face every now and then to make sure that we are aligned within the different functions. Just this kind of face-to-face meeting was the reason for my trip to Cali last week, very intense but worthwhile days!

I love to travel which was one of the big reasons why I choose a Trainee Program instead of a “normal” position. So I made sure to squeeze in some sightseeing in San Diego during my short stay. Sometimes are my aspirations a bit too ambitious… On one of the days, we had 75 minutes before dinner with the team which I considered to be plenty of time so I decided to drive to the beach village La Jolla. I looked up the current time to get there which seemed just fine but on the road I realized that the cars coming in the opposite direction didn’t move at all and that was a high way with six lanes (panic started to grew on me). Once I reached La Jolla I miraculously found a parking just at the cove so I got out of the car to snap some picture and to enjoy the view. Just a couple of minutes later I jumped back into the car to enter the traffic jam back into San Diego. Believe it or not but I arrived at to hotel with two minutes to go to dinner. Perfect timing or just good luck – that’s the question!

Talk to you soon!

Welcome back!

Been away for a while but now I am back in the blog-game again. To start off, who doesn’t enjoy spring & May? I just love to surround myself with birdsongs and warmer degrees outside… Somehow it just puts a smile on everyone’s face.

Nonetheless, back to what we trainees have been up to the past week. To start off spring in the best kind of way, we set course toward Linköping to visit SAAB Technologies and their trainees. During this visit, we had discussed the possibility of having the Volvo trainees, whom visited us in January to join us on this trip and they gladly did! There we had the opportunity to get a thorough presentation of how SAABs market looks like, the strategy they use to seize the opportunities they encounter, how they work with material properties in regards to stress but most importantly we got to see the production line. The production line encompassed no less than the Gripen C/D & E/F fighter jet. It feels like I always retreat back to “I am a finance guy so I don’t know what this means…” but this time I actually knew what C/D & E/F stood for and perhaps a lot of you already do though. C/E is basically a single-pilot configuration on the fighter jet and D/F stands for dual-pilot, so now you know! Other than that, being an OEM as they are brings along a lot of perks and I have to say that their facility in Linköping was astonishing! If you have the possibility to go there and visit, you definitely should!

To make the most of our trip, we decided to use the next day to visit our dear GKN-colleagues from GKN Automotive in Köping to get a closer look on how we are differentiated from each other but also what aligns us. This visit was a bit shorter than the one at SAAB but it felt the schedule included more things to see in the different value streams. Once again, we all were amazed over how “good-looking” the manufacturing areas were. Well done GKN!

GKN Automotive can be divided into two product divisions. In one of the product divisions CVJs (constant velocity joints), prop shafts and drive shafts are being manufactured. But this is mostly done in other sites, one being in England. A CVJ enables the drive shaft to transmit power through a variable angle at a constant rotational speed without significant increases in friction.

In the second product division, AWD (all-wheel drive) is manufactured. This product is produced in Köping. The PTU (the rear power transfer unit) and FDU (final drive unit) is what makes up the all-wheel drive. The parts needed for the all-wheel drive system that are not machined or manufactured at GKN Automotive Köping will be purchased before assembly. In Köping, aluminum housings, pinions, crown wheels and shafts are machined. What makes the site in Köping unique is their expertise within the area of the hypoid gears, where they are helically shaped and can transfer power at almost any angle (very useful in torque-demanding applications).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Moreover, we would like to thank both SAAB Technologies and GKN Automotive for two really exciting days, it gave us a lot of interesting inputs.

Until next time!