Aerobloggen

Hi everybody!

As my colleagues mentioned in their posts, we are currently on our first rotations of the graduate program. My first rotation is at our Lean department. My main focus during this rotation is our deployment of our Lean Operating Model (LOM), which will enable us to deliver operational excellence throughout our organization.

In addition to our daily duties at our rotations, we have several other responsibilities as trainees. Among other things, we are responsible for administrating the master theses that we have at GAS, conducting events for our trainee alumni group, writing posts for our trainee blog, attending career fairs and other events.

This weekend, my trainee colleagues and I partook in an event named First Lego League. First Lego League is an event where children between the ages of 10-16 are introduced to science, technology, engineering, and math through a hands-on project.  The objective of this project was to program a robot to maneuver a course and perform tasks along the course to obtain points.

 In addition to this, they proposed a new innovative idea to solve pollution associated with cargo transportation. During the event, we acted as rules officials and judges. We made sure that all the participants conformed to the rules and scored them based on how well they had performed their project, their technological solution, and their core values. It showed a lot of promise to see how well they performed, especially considering their relatively young age! These types of events are crucial for us as an aerospace company. Encouraging children to pursue their interest in STEM fields lays the foundation to create the next generation of engineers! To emphasize how important we think this is, the winning team was awarded a scholarship of 12000 SEK. Now, I’ll keep my fingers crossed that they manage to win the regional finals in Norway against our Nordic neighbors!

As Alex mentioned in his post, our next event together will be the digital career fair Armada. Being an ambassador for GKN Aerospace, attending these type of fairs are an important marketing activity that we perform. I, for one, am excited to have conversations with students nearing the end of their studies and convey what GKN Aerospace can offer them as a future employer! If you are a student at KTH and are interested in the aerospace industry, make sure to check out our virtual booth at Armada!

Till next time,

Elias

Hello!

I am Darshana and I am very happy to be writing for this blog today. I am one of the three UK 2021 graduates, and you can see us in the photo below. We are all based at the Global Technology Centre in Bristol for our first placement.

On the left is Danielle. She is from Cameroon and studied an integrated Master’s Degree in Chemical Engineering at Aston University. She is currently working in the Horizon 3 Future Flight team on a project, which aims to develop a hydrogen-powered system for UAS (Unmanned Aircraft System). As part of her role, she has been designing 3D models of components that will be combined to form the overall UAS. Alongside her role, she is excited to work with young people as a STEM Ambassador as an advocate for pursuing careers in STEM, notably, engineering.

On the right is Zaryab. He is from Pakistan and grew up in Scotland. He studied an Integrated Master’s Degree in Aero-Mechanical Engineering at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow. Zaryab is currently working within the Future Flight team, and is focusing on a novel eVTOL (electric Vertical Take-Off and Landing) concept capable of transporting many passengers using electric power. So far, Zaryab’s favourite part of the programme has been the opportunity to explore a breadth of topics alongside his core project. This has included looking at hydrogen power, supporting with financial studies and working on creating a life-cycle assessment on GKN products as part of the sustainability work streams. He is also exploring the opportunity to carry out STEM outreach with the local community.

I am from Mauritius and I grew up in London. I studied Physics at King’s College London. During a summer internship, I had the opportunity to work on aircrafts and it helped me decide that I wanted to work in the aerospace field. I did my Master’s degree in Aerospace Engineering at Ecole Centrale de Lyon in France, specialising in composite materials. For my first placement at GKN, I am working in additive manufacturing, specifically on the Laser Metal Deposition by wire cell. It is very exciting to work on this innovative technology, researching new ideas that can be developed into practical applications at GKN. I am really enjoying my time at GKN. It is great to talk to colleagues who are passionate about their projects, and who are always willing to answer my questions. Like Danielle and Zaryab, I am also looking forward to joining the STEM outreach programme.

There are always opportunities to get involved in exciting projects at GKN. Last month, I was asked to take part in the GTC inauguration event. I met the UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, and it was a surreal experience! We talked about the graduate programme and I accompanied them to do lay-ups of carbon-fibre sheets for Resin Transfer Moulding. I was impressed to see how well informed Boris Johnson was on composite structures. He asked interesting questions about carbon fibres and their transformation into the strong and rigid structures that are used on aircrafts.

It has been an eventful couple of months and I am eager to see what comes next. I am especially looking forward to finally meeting the graduates from Sweden and the US in-person, after many virtual meetings!

Take care,

Darshana