Aerobloggen

Time flies by and this will be the last update from the life in sunny California. This is my and Mikaels last week in Santa Ana and we’re in the process of finalization, presentation and documentation of our projects over here. The last three months has been interesting and both me and Mikael has learned a lot and got to experience a lot during the weekends.

As we’re in the process of finalizing everything at work we’re also enjoying the beach as much as we can. This week there’s even more tourists and surfers than normally due to Vans US Open of Surfing. This weekend Mikael and I will move out of our apartment in Huntington Beach and it is our turn to go back to Sweden again.

Thank you GKN in Santa Ana and beautiful Huntington beach for three amazing months, maybe we’ll meet again..

We’ve reached June and week 6 of our assignment abroad. As been stated in previous blog posts me and my colleague Mikael are currently doing our abroad assignment in Santa Ana, California. GKN Aerospace acquired Astech, Santa Ana in 2002. It is a site specialized in welded honeycomb structures for both commercial and military applications. There are several reasons why to choose the Welded Honeycomb Sandwich material. It is light weight, noise suppression, durable and repairable. The products developed and manufactured here GKN Santa Ana can be found on several different aircrafts, examples are the engine exhaust on Boeing 747-8 and Thrust Reverser Inner Wall for 737 max. Me and Mikael are participating in several project here in Santa Ana, one of them is for the 737 program, where we’re a part of the Welding Developing Team. The project aims to develop a new method for weld preparing. The other big project we’re a part of is in collaboration with our colleagues at R&D in Trollhättan. This project aims to find new applications for the honeycomb manufactured here.

Together with Mikael, I have now arrived on the American west coast and we love the California weather! We’ve made our first adventure in the Los Angeles traffic, visiting Hollywood and Griffith Park.

We’ve also started working on our new assignment at the Santa Ana site. This will definitely be a great summer!

This Friday GKN Aerospace Engine Systems in Trollhättan participated in a project called IGEday, Introduce a Girl to Engineering-day. A day that has been planned by some of our female engineers for a couple of weeks.

This morning, Friday May 18^th, we welcomed around 60 girls from a local high school and told them about how it is to work as an engineer in a technology-intensive company in the aerospace industry. The girls were later divided into smaller groups and got to try different engineering tasks. One group had a tour of the production and was introduced to the work as Manufacturing Engineer. Group number two visited the Materials Lab and got to see the kind of work done by our materials and chemical engineers. The third group was introduced to the work done regarding design, both solid mechanics- and CFD calculations and CAD.

All engineers working with this project are very happy with the day and hope that all the girls are too!

I would like to thank everyone involved at GKN for the support and commitment. Above, you can see a picture of some of our girls here at the company that took part in the day.
Have a nice weekend everyone!

Every year GKN Aerospace Engine Systems offer more than 60 master theses which means that there are a lot of master thesis students at our site here in Trollhättan. If you’re searching for one, you can find our current openings at this webpage.

During 2015 two of our students, Amanda Nilsson Mäkikaltio och Lisa Ronstad, received an award for the best master thesis within Quality and Business development. Amanda and Lisa did their work at the department”Quality Management System & Support”.

We would like to congratulate Amanda, Lisa and their supervisors here at GKN for this great work.

During the trainee program here at GKN Aerospace Engine Systems there is training scheduled. These trainings include personal development and opportunities to improve leadership skills. Study visits at other GKN sites and other companies are also included in these trainings. This Monday the trainee group together with our supervisor at HR went to visit Fokker in at their site in Papendrecht, Netherlands. Fokker was acquired by GKN Aerospace in 2015. During the day we did a big shop tour and trainees from both GKN Aerospace Engine Systems and Fokker made presentations about each trainee program.

It was very interesting to visit the production at Fokker, it differs a lot from the production in Trollhättan. The GKN site in Trollhättan is a part of Engine Systems and fabricates parts for jet engines, in Papendrecht they perform mounting and manufacture big structures to airplanes. Fokker is a former OEM (Original Equipment Manufaturer). Fokker does not manufacture airplanes anymore but there are still some Fokker airplane flying which they perform service on.

A picture from the visit can be seen below.

After last week’s activities, first as representative of GKN Aerospace on the career fair THS Armada and then on a course together with my group, I am now back at the office. This week was my first week at the new department, I’ve moved in with my dear trainee colleague Daniel at Supply Chain. For about seven weeks I will follow the work at the department, mainly together with my supervisor who’s working as SQA (Supplier Quality Assurance). I am looking forward to this rotation and the new challenges. Parallel to that, I’ve also scheduled a study visit on site for Chalmers Aerospace Club, the visit took place Friday 27th of November, the effort to organize has been very educational and fun. I’ve been talking to many new colleagues here at GKN and learned a lot about our export control regulations.

This was a short update. Maybe you’ll get a new update from me this week since I’ll be out on a business trip.

/ Linn

Today and tomorrow, you can find me and my collegues at THS Armada in Stockholm. Come to the KTH library where we stand together with GKN Driveline and talk to us!

/Linn

I would like to inform you that I will represent GKN Aerospace at the carrer fair, THS Armada (17-18th of november) at KTH in Stockholm together with GKN Driveline.

I hope to see you there! Ask for Linn!

After this week I’ve done four weeks at my “home department” and I have the great honor of working with the process engineers that are working with the manufacturing processes at our suppliers. The engineers are responsible for different fields such as casting, forging, welding and unconventional methods. These weeks I’ve been given an assignment to perform which is mainly executed in the material laboratory, which is very good since I get to know that department too as well as I’m getting to learn about the materials used here at GKN. This also means that I’m spending a lot of time together with Mikael that is the graduate engineer at the Materials laboratory. Parallel to this assignment I get to accompany the process engineers to different meetings regarding their work. As a process engineers you work a lot with both product development and with the Supply Chain organization. I learn a lot of new things every day and I love it, even though I have to be honest with you and admit that I am so tired every night, it is tiring to learn new things. At this point I have two weeks left at my department before new adventures lies ahead and I already looking forward to get back here after next summer!

Next time you’ll hear from me will be in four weeks and I will have moved over to another department due to our rotation within the company.