We have since a few weeks back been working on our new rotations, this time I am working in a workshop called Rotatives where rotating components for jet engines are manufactured. Working within Aerospace you normally face really tough tolerances as it is very important to manufacture correct and safe products. When manufacturing rotating parts, it is even tougher. During my time at the department I’ve realized how incredibly cool it is to be able to manufacture something with such extreme precision.
This Tuesday (30th of April) we had a “Two thirds review” of a project we are having, it’s a Viritual Reality (VR) project where you can explore GKN Aerospace in a very modern way, we will tell you more about this when the project is finished. However, our supplier has been working with this project for a time now, reaching an approximate 66 % completion. We had previously decided that a review of the project would be needed as we reached this level so our supplier come to our site in order for us to give some feedback.
Further, they also brought some additional equipment to show how VR can be used in training and manufacturing. They also brought a Microsoft Hololens which is a Mixed Reality (MR) headset, also known as Augmented Reality (AR). We took the opportunity to invite some managers and people over within manufacturing and IT to try it out and to let them be inspired. We are convinced that this type of technology can be exploited to make our company even better in the future.
Everyone told me that means ”let’s eat milk and cookies at Hemsedal” every time they played that song this weekend…
Sitting in Newington a few months ago I was told about the legendary, annual, GKN trip to Hemsedal by a fellow Swedish coworker. I immediately contacted the trainees here to sign me up and began waiting patiently for this weekend to arrive. Norwegian skiing is something many Americans only get to dream about, but today I am fortunate enough to be one of the lucky few to have actually gone!
The trip started off with a 6 hour bus ride. Between the swedish sing alongs, and the emerging mountains as we pushed northwest into Norway, this (seemingly quick) bus ride was the perfect way to introduce a weekend ski trip in the Norwegian alps.
Skiing in Norway is very different than skiing in Connecticut. For starters, you’re on a mountain. Now, we call the places we go skiing in CT “mountains” but after this weekend, I think the term “hill” fits a little better.
Second, the lifts. I’ve never even seen an “anchor” or a “button” lift before and it definitely showed the first time I tried to use them. Good thing not too many people saw. I did eventually get the hang of it though.
Third, the saft and cookies. At around 11 AM every day a small hut on the mountain gives out warm saft and cookies to tired skiers. This FIKA-like tradition gave us the opportunity to warm up with a hot beverage as well as stop and appreciate the view from the top of the mountain. This was a small but unique touch that separates this ski experience from any other that I’ve had.
Last but certainly not least, there’s the after ski. A wonderful Scandinavian tradition where after a long day on the slopes everyone kicks back, relaxes, shares a quiet glass of wine (maybe two if you’re feeling rowdy), and definitely don’t dance on tables with a bunch of strangers, a pitcher in each hand, singing “Rock and Roll all Night” at the top of your lungs. You definitely don’t do that.
We finished the weekend with a 6hr nap on the bus ride back home followed by a week of sore legs. Totally worth it though.
We had barely landed in Sweden before the next interesting event started. People from the business sector, researchers, politicians och students gathered in Trollhättan to talk about a common interest – SPACE!
The days were packed with interesting lectures and panel discussions about today’s and future space activities. And inbetween the sessions, there was plenty of time to mingle and network among all space-intereseted people during common lunches, dinners and exhibitions.
SpaceX held an inspiring lecture about their spacecrafts and upcoming space travels. Trends in the space segment were discussed between GKN Aerospace, OHB, SpaceX, SSC, RUAG, and Christer Fuglesang from KTH. And networking is important, to the right we have our Filip standing next to Sweden’s one and only astronaut Christer Fuglesang!
My interest in space has increased since I started my employment here at GKN Aerospace, and after these days at Space Forum (Rymdforum 2019), I have gained a greater understanding of what the space industry contributes with to our everyday life. Not only is it impressive that we build spacecrafts together that can enable us to exit the atmosphere, we can also use these developed space technologies to make the world better. Satellites allows us to communicate with each other and navigate more easily, but they also create an opportunity for us to send more effective response forces to environmental disasters and the ability to monitor and analyze the climate change. Much of the research done in space has been applied here on earth, and that makes me optimistic about the future. The space industry is extremly impressive, I am hooked and looking forward to upcoming launches!
The week then went on with something that we have been really excited about: The assesment days for next year’s Graduates! It was fun to meet this year’s candidates and to be spectators instead of participants. The time flies by so fast, it was only a year ago since we were in their seat. 5 of you will be our new colleagues in September, we wish everyone who particpated good luck!
The week ended wit IGEday (Introduce a Girl to Engineering), where 28 happy, young girls spent the whole day together with us at GKN Aerospace. A great ending to this inspiring and eventful week.
During IGEday, the girls were challenged by Innovatum with a SpaceEscape, they got to meet F7 who came from Såtenäs to see them, and got a tour in our factory.
Yet another adventure is over and this time we ended up in England, UK. As you most problably know by now are you as a Global Graduate working in 10 weeks periods at one position which then is rounded off with an activity week. So this week in England was the third activity week since our rotation at Engines Digital where we had a project in the US ended last Friday. Nevertheless, we managed to visit a range of cool companies during our tour in the UK.
GKN Filton
GKN Western Approach
GKN Aerospace Top Management
Airbus
Reaction Engines
Harewell Space Cluster med besök hos RAL Space och ESA
Our trip started off with a weekend in London where we squeezed in some sightseeing and a thrilling game of fotboll. Once the rental car was picked up, we typed in Bristol in the GPS and our eminent driver Emelie drove us safely there. The first company visit was hosted by GKN Aerostructures in Filton and David, a Swedish Global plc Graduate. He showed us around in the diffrerent factories and gave us an insight of how it is to work in the UK. We got the great oppurtunity to see the assembly of the last wing to A380 and impressing wingstructres to A350.
Tuesday made us be early birds since we had an appointment in Abingdon and Reaction Engines. We meet with their Graduates who teached us all about the company, the engine SABRE and the future of supersonic flights. They gave us a tour in the faciltites and we got to se the development lab as well as the first test site for the heatexchanger, the core technology of SABRE, super cool! Keep an eye open for Reaction Engnies and read more about there disruptive technologies: https://www.reactionengines.co.uk/.
The Tueday continued back in Bristol where we visited GKN Western Approach, a site where wing spars i composite are manufactured. It was very easy to follow the value stream since the factory was built-to-purpose which is not often the case in many other sites where a larger range of products are manufacutured under the same roof.
We spent Wednesday at Airbus where we learned more about the final assembly of wings for the mility freight aircraft A400M, simulation of fuel test and mechanical testing of wings. We also got to meet with some Graduates at Airbus, and as you might figured out by now we’re growing a network of Gradutes within all over the world which is absolutely fantastic!
Thursday offered a unique chance to meet with the Top Management of GKN Aerospace. During the day at the office in London we had intreseting and personal chats about e.g. future business models and strategies with our CEO Hans Büthker, CFO Will Hoy and Director of Global Marketing & Communications Dan Kendrick. Thank you for sharing your personal stories and tips!
We ended our week of visits with another early morning and a drive to Harewell Space Cluster, a campus which houses for 89 companies all active within space. During our visit we met with RAL Space and ESA which gave us an insight to the UK space industrie. A very intresting day which was rounded off with a history lecture at Stonehenge. The question why it was built still remains without an answer…
Thank you England and my amazing Graduate colleagues for another great week abroad! I must pinch myself sometimes to realize that I actually have the best job in the world. Now we’re all looking forward to spend the spring months on Swedish soil and our new rotations which starts the 1st of April (not an April Fool!). But first, shall we network with the space industy since Space Forum is taking place in Trollhättan and we’ll also welcome a large group of young girls which shall be introdcuded to what an engineer can do at GKN Aerospace.
Now we have all soon landed safely on Swedish ground again since Wictor and Nina are landing later this evening! These two weeks on the other side of the big sea have gone faster than the wind, but we all feel satisfied about the job that we have done over there. Really fun that we got this opportunity to work with a project together with our site in Manchester, Connecticut. We have been meeting a lot of lovely colleagues who have been very helpful and advised on places we shouldn’t miss on our trip.
Exciting team outside the factory in Manchester.
We have of course also done a lot of touristy stuff and tried some of the American delicacies such as penaut butter cups (recommend!!!), weak coffee (do not recommend!!!), lobster rolls, deep-fried oysters and of course some burgers/pizzas.
Lobster rolls and deep-fried oysters.
We also visited a few bigger cities nearby such as Boston, New Haven and Providence where we pretended to be students at Harvard, MIT, Yale and Brown University. When the guys chose to spend a day in New York, we decided to go on a college game in basketball instead. Really exciting game where we ended up being some really dedicated fans to the home team UConn Huskies who finally won the match with only two points. The atmosphere felt exactly like the one seen on film!
Exciting basketball game.Really happy fans that got a photo with the mascot.
Now it is just to start washing clothes and repacking, because on Friday we are leaving Sweden once again. This time to England on a lot of company visits. To be continued…
Emelie and me arrived to the U.S late this Sunday. Now you might panic and think what on earth have I missed? Well, the rotation we all been working on for the last 8 weeks is a connectivity project where we are to launch a pilot in one of our factories on the American east coast. We are now facing two weeks of implementation which is going to be really exciting. The factory here in Manchester, CT, is very small compared to the one in Trollhättan but it is really fun to see the similarities that exists despite size and geographical location. The rest of the trainee team arrived on Wednesday so now we’re all together again, as it should be. Our colleagues here in the US have welcomed as in the best way possible by bring a whole box of dark roast coffee and fika. There have been many Swedes here during the years and have transferred important knowledge; that Swedes crave strong coffee and fika for working properly.
Besides working have we explored the surroundings of Manchester, which is a really small city, compared to American standard. It has been a colorful American experience so far, one that you don’t get in the bigger metropolitans. For example, Emelie and me set out to find an ATM and found a peculiar one – a Drive-In ATM. Very convenient when it snows and the wind is cold! Yesterday we took a drive to the nearest bigger city Hartford and went to a concert with Mumford & Sons in XL Arena, simply a great evening!
The Drive-in ATM experienceA great show with Mumford and Sons
The season of career fairs is over and we just arrived from visiting Linköping University and their career fair LARM. We handed over the very pleasent job to our GKN colleages for the last career fair for this spring HotSpot in Karlstad. Besides visiting Linköping and Karlstad we’ve been attending career fairs at KTH in Stockholm, Chalmers in Gothenburg, LARV in Luleå. It has been so much fun to interact with you, and especially for me as a recent graduate and to get the chance to stand on the other side of the table and represent a company. We want to send out a big thank you to all of you who have been visiting our showcase, and we’re looking forward to see you joining us in the future. Don’t forget to seize the chance of becoming our next Global Graduates, the application closes this Sunday 17/2! https://bit.ly/2SKStoR
This short trip became a girls trip since it was me and my two collegues Emelie and Nina who joined. Now you’re probably wondering how we managed to split our small but yet powerfull tribe. The simple answer is that Wictor and Filip had to take another visit outside Sweden. However, we had a great couple of days in Linköping where we had scheduled a visit at Siemens Turbomachinery hosted by their graduates. We got the oppurunity to see their ultra modern AM facility and we learned about the major differeces between landborne gas turbines and airborne gas turbines, i.e. aircraft enginees. What is the big difference then? Firstly, the size but above all the requirements on part weight. It was indeed very fascinating to walk among gas turbines as big as a townhouse.
A new week full of possibilities has just arrived and my trainee colleagues and I kicked-off this week with an exciting visit from Volvo Cars Global Graduates. It is always as much fun to meet with other trainees from interesting companies all around Sweden to exchange experiences and to learn more about the different businesses. We did not only lecture about our cool products but we also was fortunate enough to have Peter Stommendal with us who spoke about the differences in business models within aerospace and automotive. It was an interesting take, which raised many relevant topics for discussion afterwards. Many thanks to Volvo Cars for visiting us! And we’ll see you soon but this time in Linköping where we’ll visit SAAB and together with their Global Graduates will learn more about the fighter jet JAS Gripen.
Pssst. Volvo Cars was very amused by the signs in Malöga since they still are printed in the typical Volvo font.
This wednesday, our collegues Jesper, Celine, Pelle, and Samuel visited LARV 2019. They got in contact with a lot of interesting students at LTU, and were happy to see that there was a great interest in our company and our products! If you missed us, you are more then welcome to write to us Young Graduates and ask us about our business and possibilities within our company: aerotrainees@gknaerospace.com
LARV 2019
Are you also interested in the aviation and space industry? Are you up for exciting and challenging projects? Do you want to be a part of a team that makes things fly? Do you want to learn more about us?
Come to our exhibit:
CHARM in Gothenburg, 5th-6th of february
LARM in Linköping, 12th of february
HotSpot in Karlstad, 13th of february
See you there!
NOTE: Don’t forget to apply to the GKN Aerospace Global Graduate Programme 2019. Click here to send in your application!
Hey blog readers! It’s Zenas Del Rosario again—your friendly, neighborhood, American trainee. As you all know, on top of the challenges that everyone faces during the work-week, we trainees must undergo those same trials far from home for our international assignments. You may wonder what happens during the holidays while we’re abroad. Many of us test our products as we fly home to be with family; others wander into the great unknown and explore their host-countries. I’m happy to tell you that I chose the latter! So strap-in, sit tight, and allow me to regale you with my tale of adventure, intrigue, and what you could do off-the-clock as a trainee at GKN Aerospace!
And so began my adventure! Highly recommended by my Swedish friends and colleagues, I was headed into the Great Frozen North, the Arctic Circle of Grandeur, the Land of Snowy Wonders—the great city of Kiruna! I set out from Trollhättan on the Polar Express armed with nothing but my backpack of supplies and a phone filled with podcasts before enduring a 22 HOUR TRAIN RIDE. Yes, I was told to fly. No, I didn’t listen. Seat soreness aside, I was awe-struck by the snowy country sides, sleepy towns, and frozen forests that cover Sweden’s northern expanse. Like something out of a story book, I was once again amazed by Sweden’s beauty—second only to America’s! As the sun set at 2pm on Christmas Eve, the train pulled into Kiruna station; and so I gathered my things, stretched my legs, and bundled up before stepping out into the cold.
Well rested and raring to go, I awoke on Christmas morning with a sense of childish whimsy. Having never spent a winter further north than sunny San Diego, I threw open the curtains of my hotel room and basked in the sight of the white Christmas I had always dreamed of! With snow as far as the eye could see, I dressed quickly and set out to accomplish the first thing on my touristy to-do list. I hopped into a taxi thankful that the heater was on full-blast and watched the sites fly by as I rode to Santa’s unofficial, favorite vacation home—the world famous, original ICEHOTEL. I could tell you all about the amazing vaulted ceilings, one-of-a-kind sculptures, and intricate designs all carved out of ice, but a picture’s worth a thousand words so here you go…
Pics or it didn’t happen. No, the toilets were normal.
Unfortunately, I didn’t get to meet Santa on vacation. I hear he was still at work somewhere over Hawaii when I visited the ICEHOTEL. I wasn’t too sad about it though. With my epic day near completion, I headed back to Kiruna for dinner and indulged in one of Sweden’s lesser known delicacies…
Rudolph’s cousin was delicious (left). Jesus’s winter home (right).
Being the good Catholic dude that I am, I couldn’t end my Christmas break without checking in on the birthday boy—my homie and Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Before leaving on my journey back to Trollhättan, I made sure to stop by his gothic-style winter home to thank him for all the good that he allows me to do. He gave me a quick pep talk, made me promise to keep on keeping on, and sent me on my merry way.
As the saying goes, all work and no play makes Zenas a dull boy. The trainees and I work extremely hard to make things fly; but as you can see, even we find time to maintain a healthy work-life balance. If you’re reading this and want your chance to earn a spot on this amazing roster of professionals, take a swing and apply today! Until next time, gotta fly.
