Aerobloggen

Hi again,

I have just returned to the office after Christmas, which I spent in my dear Norrland together with family and friends. Especially the snow was something I had longed for, since Trollhättan is a bit short of that product. Now I am at home, rested and excited for a new trainee rotation! Before I get started though, I will update you about our last activity week, and more particularly, the visit to Safran.

Visit to Safran

This was our last study visit for the week. The previous study visits during the week had been good, but the visit to Safran still met my expectations with a great deal! We had a packed day with schedule from 9-16 plus transportation around. We visited Safran’s site in Villeroche, which was amazing. Villeroche is quite close to Paris and by car it takes no more than about an hour. We like to think that our site in Trollhättan is quite large with our more than 2,000 employees and 3 major workshops, but it was nothing compared to Safran. Safran had about 5000 employees working on everything from the assembly of jet engines to customer relations with among others, Airbus.

As if that was not enough, Safran also had a large museum where the day’s tour started. The museum was run by retired employees from Safran who worked as volunteers with renovating engines and taking care of guided tours. We also happened to be lucky that the one who guided us was none other than the former CEO of the CFM56 engine, who had many exciting stories to tell about both his own career and the aerospace industry overall.

As mentioned before, the museum was very large and featured elements from the history of the entire aerospace industry, since Wright brothers flew their aircraft in 1903, to 2000 where Safran is working with their successful LEAP and CFM56 engines.

After the museum visit, we met one of Safran’s commercial managers who had a full overview of Safran’s final assembly line, which we soon would get the opportunity to see in real life. He explained how they work with AR (Augmented reality) and effective assembly lines to cope with future production and high demands from customers. After the presentation and chat, we finally got to see the final assembly line where the big engines were assembled. There were different assembly processes for different engines which was exciting to see. What I was most impressed with was that it was so quiet, efficient and modern. I had expected a lot of noise and a bit of outdated industrial facilities, but Safran was quite the opposite, which was fun to see!

In the evening we all went out for a nice dinner together at Notre Dame. We tried escargots, foie gras and other French specialties which was delicious. After that, we went to the Eiffel Tower to do some nightly sightseeing. During the activity weeks, we work and learn more about the aerospace industry, so if you want to do some sightseeing in the cities you travel to, you sometimes get to do it at odd times. We entered the Eiffel Tower exactly two minutes before they closed the entrance and saw the whole tower lit in the dark night. It was a nice end to the day and our second activity week!

That was all for now!

/Emma

Now are all of us graduates back in Sweden again after one week’s business trip around Europe. As you may understand, will the upcoming blog post be characterized by various travel memories, pictures, name dropping and interesting stories about all companies and places we have visited.

The first visit we made was to ESTEC which is operated by the European Space Agency (ESA) and located about 1h southwest of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. ESA is responsible for the research and development of Europe’s space initiatives.

We started the day by meeting our guide Isabelle, a veteran at ESA, who showed us around all day. We also met on the ESA cat (yes they have a cat, something we should adapt at GKN). The day started with a guest lecture by Paul Spudis, an American lunar scientist, who lectured about his research on “the Value of the Moon” and talked about how we could use the moon as a resource. The subject was a little controversial and Spudis got many questions, but generally it was a very interesting lecture.

After the lecture, we met Joerg Wehner (Head of Institutional and Infrastructure Coordination Office at ESA) and Eike Kircher (Head of Basic Technology Research Program Section) who told us about ESA as an organization and how international cooperation works. We also got to visit ESA’s Material Lab where last year’s trainee Joel Larsson is doing his international rotation. We met Ana Brandão (Material Engineer) who showed us around ESA’s extremely impressive laboratory. I think many of us drooled when we got to see their equipment. We also got a visit to the Propulsion Lab by Jose Gonzalez del Amo (Head of the Electric Propulsion Section), who showed us the latest in ESA’s propulsion research.

The day ended with a 3D movie of the International Space Station and tour of ESA’s Space Exhibition Center. To sum up the visit, I have to say that we could notice that they receive over 8400 visitors a year because they were incredibly hospitable. We also met a lot of interesting people who gave us a good insight into the organization. And of course, the cat was a highlight! Certainly a very good visit!

 

Andreas,

Have you ever wondered who’s making cars drive? Apparently it’s GKN! Like Aerospace is saying “making things fly”, Driveline’s slogan is “we make cars drive”. Can you guess GKN’s hypothetical vacuum cleaner company slogan?

“We make things suck!”

We visited GKN Driveline outside of Paris to learn more about our sister company. It was a great visit. Among others we met the site manager, a program manager, a commercial manager and an engineering manager. They told us about their business and showed us some of their contant velocity joints and drive shafts while providing advanced technical explanations for how they work. It was really fun to meet these inspiring people. We are forever grateful for their hospitality. I can recommend you go there.

You would recognize the atmosphere of the company well. Like Aerospace, Driveline emphasizes high quality, innovation and advanced technology. The biggest difference between companies, except the fact they make gadgets for cars and we for aircrafts, is the coffee. We were offered great coffee which was served with heavy cream. Be sure to get a cup when you are there.

Dear readers,

Christmas is approaching, which also means that the time at our home departments starts to come to an end. Since this is the last week of our rotation, we have all got quite a lot to complete before we leave. In one way, it is nice to be able to finalize and tick off different projects but in other ways it is a bit sad to leave the department and all the colleagues I have come to know. “Time flies”, is a common saying, and so it has really been. Fortunately, this is not a “goodbye”, but rather an “until next time”, and I think I can speak for all of us when I say that we are very excited for our next trainee rotations.

Before we start our next rotations, it is time for our second activity week which we have planned for the last couple of weeks. For our previous activity week, as you loyal readers surely remember, we went to Stockholm where we among other things got to visit OHB and SSC, two exciting space companies. For this activity week we have chosen to put the bar higher and push our budget to max. We will therefore go on a road trip in Europe, including Amsterdam and Paris as stops, which will be really exciting. Exciting partly because of the companies we will visit and partly because we will spend time with each other 24/7 for over a week, which can be intensive. But hopefully everything will be fine and make us an even tighter group!

On Friday morning we will begin our journey and for the coming week we will visit ESA, Fokker, Safran and GKN Driveline. It will be a hectic schedule, but we will surely learn a lot. I am especially interested in visiting Safran and to meet my contact person there, sine I am the one who have been responsible for organizing this particular visit. Of course I am also looking forward to visiting two beautiful European capitals: Amsterdam and Paris, and hope that we will have time for some sightseeing between business visits. I think that it is fun with other languages so I have already begun to repeat useful French phrases, hoping to be able to show off with them during the trip. You will hear more about our activity week next week when Maria and Alexander are going to update you about our lives as aerotrainees, so keep an eye out

À plus tard!

Emma

Yesterday, Emma, Signe, Alexander and I participated in a networking event arranged by Aerospace Cluster Sweden. Potential suppliers were invited to learn more about how it is to work within the Aerospace industry. Two of our current suppliers told their story of how to become certified to AS9100 standard (the Aerospace industry’s answer to ISO 9001). To be able to be a player in the Aerospace industry you “have to” be certified to a specific standard due to strict requirements of quality and safety, for example traceability of documentation.

As a graduate, it’s really fun to learn more about the industry from different perspectives and to get the opportunity to network with other companies. This time it was by representing GKN as a customer, which was very educational. During lunch we talked to two men who are working at a processing company in Ulricehamn and they told us about their challenge of finding young people that want to work within the indsen ustry. We told them about our graduate project since one part of the project is to visit all the secondary schools in the area of Trollhättan and present how it is to work with technology and engineering. They invited us to their company in Ulricehman so hopefully we can learn more from each other.

This week we graduates are finishing our work at the home departments and looking forward to our trip to Europe that begins on Friday.

Jingle bells, jingle bells, Jingle all the way
/Maria

Beloved blog readers,

Here is another post about our international experiences. Last week, Philip and I were in Germany to visit GKN Driveline in Lohmar, which is a small town outside of Cologne. The aim of the trip was for me to meet my mentor face to face. As part of IGP, each participant get a mentor and from this year it’s a person placed abroad that will guide you through the program. However, the trip didn’t start as fortunate as we hoped since it was snow chaos in Gothenburg and the airport was closed the whole morning. We arrived three hours later than expected but in Germany the weather showed its best side and it was 13 degrees and sunshine.

During the day we spend at the site, we got to meet a couple of people who told us about their special areas and we got an overview of the work in Lohmar. They don’t have any production at their site and instead they are focusing on research and developing. It was very interesting to visit another GKN-site since there were a lot of differences compared to our site in Trollhättan. In the evening, we had dinner with my mentor and of course we ate schnitzel. It was very nice to get more time with my mentor, to get to know him better as well as discuss some ideas about my next placement.

On our way back to Sweden we were very unlucky since our flight in Copenhagen got cancelled due to technical problems and we got to spend one night there. The next day, the bad luck continued and there were more problems with the plane (important to point out that it was not a problem with our products) and in the end we had to change plane. 17 hours later than expected, we finally arrived in Sweden and even if we had a lot of flight related problems it was still a really nice trip.

Have a nice weekend!

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 😀

Hello again dear blog!

This is Emelie, from last year’s trainee group (what happened to time, feels like it was yesterday I started and now I am already “last year’s group”?!). I’m doing a little comeback in my blog career, even though the blog is handed over to the new stars of GKN. As you might suspect I am on my international assignment (second month) and I am therefore located in San Diego, California. To be precise I am actually in El Cajon when I write this, about 20 minutes east of San Diego, as this is where our site is (I live in San Diego however).

The site consists of a number of buildings and each has its own products. Ironically enough I am so far mostly involved in the only building where military parts are produced, and I am therefore not allowed to go around in the building however I want. Do I want to go out on the shop floor I have to have someone with me at all times, which becomes a bit frustrating after a while. Soon I will start a project regarding automation in another building – where I can go around on my own! I also spend a lot of time with the Lean team and I get to be a part of different events and classes. Just this Wednesday I was on the first of four days of a Lean course.

It is a different world over here, in so many ways. For starters they keep parts outside here! That is completely impossible at home (as metal, snow, rain and cold is not a very good combination). That works fine over here though (at least for some time) as it seldom rains, snows or is cold. The same goes for me now that I think of it: I spend a lot of my time outdoors here as it is sunny and warm most of the time.

I live in a studio by Mission Beach, approx. 100 meters from the beach. It is sooo nice to be able to just walk outside my door to run along the beach, get some sun at the beach and watch sunsets. I really enjoy it here! During the weekends I try to go to a new hiking spot each week (there are so many around here!) and also see a new part of the city each week. So far it has been amazing! Last weekend I went to LA, but I wasn’t that impressed. I think San Diego is a lot better in every way!

I wish you the best dear readers, and maybe you’ll hear from me again!

//Emelie

Hello again!

In my first blog post I wrote about my time so far at GKN, from thesis work to an employment at RnT and to my position as a graduate today. It has been a fun first time as a graduate where I continue to work on projects within RnT and additive manufacturing (AM). I would very much like to explain what kind of projects I am working on to you readers, but unfortunately it is difficult since I am working with development. GKN of course wants to keep all the good things to themselves! Generally we are constantly exploring which of GKN’s engine components additive manufacturing can be applied to. Many components are based on large and expensive forgings or castings which we then machine to final form. We sometimes machine off closer to 80 % of the raw material which turns in to waste, crazy huh? That makes additive manufacturing a useful method to instead build up material which leads to smaller and cheaper forgings or castings to purchase. We have airplanes that flies today around the world with additive manufacturing applied, which we are proud of. There is after all very high quality demands to meet in order for components to fly, both from us as a company and our costumers but also authorities.

What I can tell you is an especially fun opportunity that I got a few weeks ago. I received an inquiry to speak at an international seminar at Chalmers in Gothenburg. The seminar, Frontiers of Additive Manufacturing, gathered around 200 people from various companies and universities that in one way or another work with additive manufacturing. I shared what GKN Aerospace has developed throughout the years and the things we have flying that is manufactured with AM. It was a great and challenging experience to speak in front of so many, and far more experienced, people than myself! It was the first time on a big stage for me and I must admit that is was a bit thrilling. But it was a lot of fun!

/ Lisa

Words of wisdom for today:
Sometimes one have to do things one do not dare, otherwise one is not human but just some dirt
–          Astrid Lindgren

Good afternoon!

Last Friday, Emma, Lisa, Maria and I participated in a debate for girls at Högskolan Väst to discuss about why so few girls apply to educations within engineering. The last couple of years less and less girls have applied to technical educations. The question is why and what can we do to deal with this issue? The participants in the debate were students from secondary school, high school and university together with one headmaster and girls from different companies. This made the discussion very interesting since we had very different perspectives and we believed that the problem starts in early age. The participants had a theory that a lot of young girls have anxiety of performing poorly, which makes them think that they can’t manage an education within engineering since it’s too difficult. We told the other participants about our graduate project, that we will present to 9th grader what an engineer does and we got a lot of positive feedback for this initiative.

Since I am the only women at my department, I think it is important to highlight these kind of questions and engage in this issue. When I was young, I had no connection to engineering through family nor friends. Therefore, it took a long time for me to understand what an engineer actually does. I think it’s important for youngster, especially girls to meet female engineers to get some kind of role model. It is very exciting to be a graduate engineer since these type of tasks are part of my daily work. J

Next week, Philip and I are going to Germany for a study visit but I will tell you more about that in my next blog post!

/Signe