Aerobloggen

Hello there blog lovers Now I’m back again from a week’s vacation in the United States where I went to New York and Connecticut. Since I was in the area I took the opportunity to visit GKN Aerospace’s site in Newington, where last year’s graduate, Niclas Persson, is doing his international rotation (I’ve heard rumors that he will make a blog post shortly).
At Newington I was warmly welcomed by Oscar Höglund who has been working as the Engineering Manager for over a year now. Beside general information about their site I got a tour in the production area, which was interesting and informative. I have really got another perspective on our own site in Trollhättan. We are big. We have more than 10 times more employees and we have a lot of additional processes besides manufacturing, something that I’ve previously taken a little bit for granted.

Besides Oscar and Niclas there are about 2-3 other Swedes working at the site, and Newington is generally used to hosting Swedes. Joakim Andersson, Engine Systems CEO, worked as the General Manager in Newington for some years. Fun fact: there is an engraved stone under a tree in the area which says something like: “Thank you Joakim Andersson for everything you have done for us”.
Due to photo restrictions you will have to settle for a photo of the sign outside the entrance but I’ll make it up with a photo of Niclas and I in Central Park instead 😀

On Wednesday GAS (GKN Aerospace Sweden) celebrated 5 years and everyone got treated to the Swedish desert semla. Semla is traditionally eaten on Fettisdagen (Fat Tuesday) which is celebrated in February/March. Eating semla in October is something new to me but considering the strong fika culture here at GKN I shouldn’t be surprised. It’s almost like Friday fika should get its own blog post someday. In our graduate group Lisa is the one that has, without a doubt, the department with the best Friday fika and every week they outperform us all.

Anyway, it was GAS celebrating five years that I was going to write about. It’s been 5 years since Volvo Aero was acquired by GKN. GKN doesn’t have as strong brand name in Sweden as Volvo has, for example, my mom explains to friends and family that I got a job at “old Volvo Aero”. However, GKN is a large global company with over 58 000 employees, where GAS is actually a very prominent business unit in GKN Engine Systems. We have gone from being a rather unknown part of Volvo to contribute with ‘best practice’ in GKN, something I find super cool! However, marketing GKN is important and it is something that we graduates get to be a part of through both our graduate project where we meet primary school students and through attending career fairs at universities.

Being a graduate at GKN is very varying, we get to experience many different things from rotations at different department and working abroad to different graduate assignments. A varied job with many possibilities was exactly what I was looking for when I was applying for jobs this spring, and I really feel like I’ve hit the jackpot. Besides the work and graduate assignments we graduates do a lot of social activities which really contribute to a great sense of belonging and commitment. On Tuesday we were eight graduates who spontaneously went into town after work to bowl and eat. Sarah, an American graduate within IGP, won this time 🙂

Right now I’m at my home department, Quality, where I manage a project in Requirement Management. I get to learn a lot, from EU environmental laws to IT security. It’s both challenging and exciting, a perfect mix! Check out my profile if you want to know more about me and my background.

In my next blog post I will hopefully tell you about my visit to Newington, one of our American Engine System sites, where I will be visiting in three weeks.

/Maria

Hello!

My namn is Josh and I am one of the graduates from America that is starting my international rotation here in Trollhättan. It has been 4 weeks now since Nick, the other American´, and I started here at GKN Sweden with this year’s new trainees. We started our first week learning about the company here in Trollhättan as well as a brief experience in the apprentice school they have here at GKN. This school is designed for high school students to get an opportunity to learn to manufacturing processes and machines using manual and CNC mills and lathes. It was a great few days of learning and hands on work. This is a great opportunity they have available to the high school students in the area that provides useful skills and even an opportunity to work on the shop floor. In America students do not have an opportunity to go do this type of school/training, yet there is a large demand for operators with these skills. If you have interest in the school, take advantage of this opportunity. There are graduates from that program that work on the shop floor and decide to go to university and come back in engineering or even into the Trainee program they have here at GKN.

While the new trainees have been learning about a variety of products out on the shop floor, I have started my position for the 6 months in Trollhättan. I am working in the shop on a new program for GE’s LM9000 in new product introduction (NPI) management. Bringing on a new product involves much development, testing, engineering, and collaboration. I am working with all the members of our LM9000 team to meet our schedule to deliver the part. It can be a challenge to manage the many facets to developing a new program and it also presents many obstacles that I have to adapt to overcome. For GE the LM, which stands for land and marine, products use the jet engine design for non-aviation products such as ships or power generation. The LM9000 is designed for power generation and will be designed to generate 65 Megawatts of energy or enough to power around 6,500 homes. This engine will be an aeroderivative of the GE90-115B, the world’s most powerful jet engine.

I will also be working on an Industry 4.0 initiative here at Trollhättan. Industry 4.0 is considered the next industrial revolution with the integration of modern technology such as computers and the internet to improve different areas of companies. One of the major issues in a manufacturing facility is machine breakdowns. If the machine is not functioning properly, GKN will not be able to produce parts. The concept I will be exploring will revolve around predictive maintenance in order to reduce the downtime of machines. With modern technology, data can be collected and analyzed to determine if a machine is about to fail.   This information allows GKN to be proactive and limit the downtime of the machines. Industry 4.0 opens the door for many improvements for companies like GKN and will open opportunities for those who are interested in studying the skills to implement these improvements.

Last week the trainees were traveling to Stockholm to visit companies in the aviation and space industries! We will be sharing our experiences on this blog so make sure you look out for the posts!

/Josh

Hi there, we are the new graduate engineers and we are the ones who will continue to brighten your day!

On Monday, the 4^th of September, we started our careers as graduate engineers here at GKN Aerospace. In this year’s edition we are five graduates in the local graduate program at GKN Aerospace Sweden and two graduates who have almost the whole world as their workplace through GKN PLC´s International Graduate Program (IGP). Now in the beginning of our program we have been strengthened in numbers by two American graduates who attend the equivalent graduate program with GKN Aerospace North America. They have just started their international placement here in Trollhättan where they will stay for the next six months.

Shortly we will upload our presentations where you will get an opportunity to get to know us better, but in brief we are:

Local graduates

Alexander Hall
Kasper Janehag
Lisa Markusson
Emma Winblad von Walter
Maria Östman

Global Graduates

Philip Simonsson
Signe Vallin

As many of you already know, the glorious graduate program here in Trollhättan has been around for over 30 years. Flying is an association for both new and old graduates which organizes exclusive events. A very fun part of being a graduate is the strong community that exists between new and old graduates, where many graduates (~ 75%) are still working within GKN. As new graduates we have already attended a Flying lunch and an interactive lecture held last Tuesday by our former graduate Torgny Stenholm, Head of Services and Special Products (SSP), and former graduate in 1988. SSP is one of the two business units in GKN Aerospace Sweden, which includes space and military operations. Among 20 engaged new and old graduates participated with engaged spirits with a lot of reflections and questions which created interesting discussions on the topic. It was a fun and educational event!

Right now we are doing workshop training in our facilities where we get to learn more about GKN’s products and processes, but more about that it in a later post!

Today’s Proverb
New brooms sweep best

See you later!
Trainees 17/18