Aerobloggen

Hello everyone!

Last Saturday, the majority of this year’s trainees volunteered as judges at First Lego League in Trollhättan where GKN was the main sponsor. This was done as a part of the trainee project with the goal of inspiring youths to choose technology. The idea of ​​having to work on a Saturday might not be appealing to everyone, but in this case it was actually great fun!

First Lego League is a competition for elementary school classes where they design and program a lego robot, this is done either in the students’ own spare time or connected to the school’s technical education. They then compete by performing various assignments on a course and aim to get as many points as possible. The teams also conduct a project in connection with this where they come up with solutions to various current issues. For this year, the theme was “Hydro dynamics”, where the students were supposed to come up with solutions to water-related problems, for example today’s high water consumption in the western world or water shortage in developing countries. For example, suggestions were made for applications that log water usage or a water mixer that separates clean drinking water and dirty shower water and then use it for different purposes as a solution to the problems.

At the competition we were assigned different judge roles, ranging from robot judges to core value judges. I myself was a technology judge and got to judge the design and construction of the lego robots as well as the programming. A total of 15 teams participated in the competition, but as always, there could only be one winner: Team Dalenium, who received the honor, a lego trophy and 30,000 in travel allowances to participate in the Scandinavian competition in Oslo. Not bad for a high school class. All teams were extremely talented and had really thought through their projects and design of robots. It was fun to see the drive of the participants and I really think that an event like this is important to increase the technology interests among today’s youths.

At my home department, purchasing, all is going fine. I have control over my projects and I get to meet many new people at the company. Because the rotations of the trainee program are so short, it is not possible to get any responsibility for, for example, a supplier where it is important to have long term relationships. Instead, I am working on projects connected to purchasing, meaning that I get the opportunity to walk around the company and talk with people from the entire organization.

Since last time, Dropship Project has been put on hold since we realized that it partially coincided with Project Balken. In Project Balken we investigate the handling of spares to see if it could be done more efficiently anywhere else than in production. In this project, I have so far met operators in the various workshops as well as material managers and DQR to get an overview of the current situation. The next step is to consider how the control of this might look in the future and then evaluate whether this is possible to implement or not.

I have also recently started a new project that we can call Project Conflict Minerals. A background for this project is that warring groups in the Congo region break and sell minerals to finance their operations, such minerals include: gold, tin, tantalum and tungsten (3T+G). To solve this problem, we try to overcome the demand of minerals suppliers who support warring groups, so it is important to know about how our suppliers work with these minerals.

The idea of ​​my trainee position is that I have purchasing as my home department and that I most likely will get a permanent employment here after the trainee program. Since I do not work so much with my colleagues at my own department, I was a little curious about what one actually does in the daily work of the buyer. I have now been awarded a “fadder” at the purchasing department, namely Elin Elmdahl, a former trainee and now buyer of castings that I get shadow and help alongside my own projects. Elin invites me to supplier meetings and teaches me about the different computer programs you work in as a buyer, which is not the easiest at the beginning, but it’s fun and the days are going fast! Here’s a short interview with Elin:

Describe GKN in three words:
Multinational Aerospace company

What work do you do at the purchasing department?
You have the main commercial responsibility for the suppliers, evaluate new suppliers, purchase materials, negotiate contracts and handling conflicts that occur during current contracts. 

What is the best parts of your job?
It is a dynamic environment with many contact areas. External contacts and travel from time to time to suppliers provide extra spice in the everyday life.

What’s the worst parts of of your job?
It includes some administrative work e.g. to review blocked invoices due to an imbalance in the purchase order between goods receipt and received invoices.

Why should one become a buyer?
As a buyer you have a great opportunity to influence and improve cooperation with GKN’s supplier base. GKN is not better than its “Supply Chain”. Unless they deliver on time, the right quality and the right price, GKN will not succeed.

Do you have any other wisdom words you want to send to our readers? 
There are many old dragons on GKN. Do not be afraid to ask them for advice. They gladly share their wisdom.

And with that I finish this blog post!

Over and out

/ Emma

Hello to all our devoted readers!

Time passes by quickly and the fall is soon overtaken by the winter cold. Other than me freezing in the quiet mornings, also some things has happened at GKN Aerospace in Trollhättan; we have had not one, but two visits the past week!

I can start off by winding the clock back to the previous Monday; all of us graduate engineers are gathered in a cozy car early in the morning, with smiles on our faces despite no morning coffee. We were on our way to Siemens Industrial Turbomachinery in Trollhättan, where we met Kim Halvorsen who is the site manager and in charge of operations. In addition, four other graduate engineers from another Siemens site (Finspång) were also there! The visit started off with an intriguing presentation by Kim, who helped us understand their on-site operations, products as well as organization and their history. Moreover, Kim continued to show us the actual workshop along with their key processes and operations in producing their products, which is mainly stationary gas turbines.  There is a lot to mention here, but to say the least, many aspects of the site was impressive – spanning from huge machines to detailed work by hand.

After our visit during the morning, the graduates from Siemens continued to join us back to GKN site for some lunch, and due to them being able to carry themselves in lunch-conversation well enough, the Siemens graduates could remain within the premises. We held presentations about GKN and our organization and site, as well as a guided tour by us around the workshops – after which, we finished the visit the only way we know how to; with fika.

But the visits did not stop there. Later in the week we also got a visit by two classes from Strömstad High School. Wednesday afternoon, we graduates were met by 15 happy pupils and two enthusiastic teachers. The entire day was then onwards characterized by tricky questions and interesting thoughts by the visitors, as well as lively presentations and several workshop tours by us graduates, in which also finally resulted in a (very) raspy voiced Philip. But the visit was great, and we graduates also learnt a lot from the pupils and their teachers.

Well then, time to stop writing and start working 🙂 

Until next time!

/Philippo

Hi!

Half of the time at my home department Rotors have passed. At this department, GKN develops turbines for Europe’s rocket program Ariane. Apart from constantly delivering components for Europes current rocket program Ariane 5, my department develops and prepares components for the upcoming Ariane 6, with first launch planed 2020, and the project PROMETHEUS, as described below. Since I false started my time at GKN in June already, I had already been at this department for a few months when I started the graduate program.

Earlier this summer I was involved in a pre-study within the PROMETHEUS-project. This French owned and newly started project has the goal to develop a methane driven rocket. Like all other space related projects, the PROMETHEUS project has a forced abbreviation that sounds ”Precursor Reusable Oxygen METHan cost Effective engine”. You keep wonder, what happened to the ”U” and the ”S”? My part of the project involved investigating initial design concepts and estimate how reasonable our customers technical requirements are. Very exciting task!

After the initial training weeks of the graduate program, I returned to my home department and started working within the Vinci-project. Within the Vinci-project GKN is responsible for both design and production for both turbines in Ariane 6’s first and second stage engines called Vulcain 2.1 and Vinci. The turbines provides power to drive the engine’s two fuel pumps, used for devlivering high pressurized fuel to the engines combustion chamber. Unlike the PROMETHEUS-project, Vinci is in a qualification phase where we as turbine providers must show that our product fulfils the engines technical specification. The qualification phase involves tight collaboration between production, testing engineers and CAE-analysts. My role within the project deals with prediction of turbine performance as a function of production deviations. Interesting!

PS. How do you organize a space party? You planet!

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

I have spent the past 20 years of my life in school. I have learned a little bit about anything: everything between heaven and earth. “Knowledge is Bliss” as you know.

I completed my engineering studies a few months ago, marking the end of my formal education. However, it does not mean that I stopped developing. First of all, I’m still attending school of life, which I’ll never escape. Secondly, I learn new things every day here at GKN. Imagine the privilege of learning at work by working on fun and challenging projects. That possibility is one of the reasons I’m doing this trainee program. (As you know, the biggest reason is that I can kickstart my blog career through the program.)

This week I have been thinking very much about my personal development. This is partly due to the fact that over the past two weeks we have had Training Days here at the company. This means that we have attended a variety of courses and lectures. You can read more about that in Philippo’s blog posts a few days ago.

The second and more important reason why I was thinking about my development this week is that my dear fellow, Andreas Åhwall, left us yesterday. He has moved on to Fokker and will be gone for six months. It made me reflect on the wise advice Andreas has conveyed. He helped and supported me during my first time at GKN, and trained me to become a better runner (Andreas is professional runner. You can read more about Andreas here).

It’s always hard to say goodbye to a good friend.

Andreas, we miss you. Good luck in Holland!

Hello there blog readers,

My name is Philip and now I finally have the opportunity to put my enthusiastic thoughts on paper, or out across the internet rather, by writing my first blogpost about my initial weeks at GKN Aerospace Engine Systems here in Trollhättan, Sweden. If you would like to know more about who I am, and my background, please feel free to have a closer look here. Regardless, I can introduce myself as a global trainee in GKNs International Graduate Program (IGP) and thus far the possibilities as a trainee in a global company seems great.

As an International Graduate I have currently landed at the department of Hot Structures for civilian jet engines, which means that I will spend the following six months here participating in differing projects and learning about the organization. For those of you not sure of what the department entails; the department name is Hot Structures because we design, analyze and participate in the entire chain for the products related to the hottest parts of a jet engine – that can go upwards temperatures of 800 degrees Celsius. The entire business area and organization of civilian jet engines is fascinating, and also plays a huge role for the entirety of GKN Aerospace.

So, what have I been doing these past weeks? A lot! Mostly, I have been working on a project that I unfortunately cannot write about, but it is as interesting as it is secretive. However, I am also apart of other projects that involves the responsibility of analysis and verification of differing components in several civilian jet engines during redesign and testing. Thus far, it has been a very enriching experience. Besides my department work, I am also involved in a trainee project working with younger students – please read Signe’s post below for more information.

The past two weeks, there have also been something called “Training Days” here at the site, where anyone can sign up for different educational courses related to the organization, aerospace industry or processes and products. Personally, I have signed up for a lot of courses, and to this point it has been really interesting throughout the sessions; where an expert within their field can explain what they do and in which direction the company is moving towards. Anything from how people work in teams to how our products actually work. Both educational and fun!

I can actually also briefly mention the International Graduate Program and how it is different from others, in case some of you readers completely confused regarding the different graduate schemes. IGP is GKNs international program that includes the entire GKN plc, across all of the divisions globally where Aerospace is one of the divisions within GKN plc. The program consists of three six-month placements followed by two more extensive placements that are 22 months each. Here, the main selling-point for me, is that you get the opportunity to travel, work with very different projects and simultaneously meet engaging and interesting people from around the globe. Signe and I is then this year’s international graduates with our first placement here in Trollhättan. In case you have more questions, just add a comment below, or contact me and/or Signe and we will be glad to respond.

Finally, I am excited about continuing my current projects here in Trollhättan, as well as stepping into new ones and further explore the possibilities within IGP. I have started looking into my coming placements abroad, however, as I already feel at home here in my department – I am in no hurry to plan my departure.

Philip signing out!

Dear blog readers,

It’s time for my first blog post! My name is Signe and I’m one of the international graduate engineers which means that I will spend my first six months in Trollhättan before I leave for the next adventure within GKN. Please click here if you want to read more about me. I will spend these months at the same department, which is Military commercial. This department is very exciting since it is a lot of politics involved. At the moment, I’m involved in one project about the standard parts in RM12 and the work with the strategic plan. Unfortunately, I can’t reveal more but a lot of the information within the military is confidential. Instead, I will tell you more about this year’s graduate project.

Each year, the new graduates get a mission to conduct a social project. This year, the project is a development from last year’s project, which was to inspire youths in 7th-9th grade to science and engineering. One of the activities within the project is to visit the students in the 9th grade in Trollhättan and Vänersborg and talk about what an engineer works with.

Last week, two school classes from Norway came to visit Trollhättan and to spend their day at Innovatum. The aim with this trip was to collaborate between the two countries to secure the demand of engineers in the future. GKN was invited to talk about its business and therefore Philip and I went there. We presented about GKN, how it is working as an engineer, and how we were thinking when we were in the same age as the students. This visit resulted in a journal article in Ttela and Philip and I got a moment of fame. You can click here to read the article.

Das war alles, see you!

/Signe

 

Hello, dear blog readers!

My name is Emma Winblad von Walter and just like two of my trainee colleagues, I have my educational background from LTU (If you want to read more about us, check out our personal presentations HERE). I have studied M.Sc. Industrial and management engineering where I have been taught to view problems from a wider perspective and having a holistic view, this is probably the reason why a young graduate program felt appealing to me in the first place.

I had no relation at all to GKN or the aerospace industry before I started working here, so it is mainly my interest and passion for technology that led me to this position. During my first weeks, I have had a lot of new impressions, especially since my knowledge about the technical parts is limited. But at the same time I am learning a lot and having great fun while doing it!

I am selected for the local trainee program at GKN with Purchasing as my home department. Each one of us trainees are employed under different home departments, where we also have our home department manager. This is my second week at purchasing and so far I have gotten a good impression! I am now mainly working with two different projects, both of which are linked to the handling of spare parts at the company, we can call them: • Project Dropship • Project Balken

For my first project, I am investigating the possibility of taking spare parts from supplier to company and then to customer instead of sending them directly from supplier to customer (so-called dropship). In my second project, I am investigating so-called “unclean spare parts” (spare parts used partly in production and partly as pure spare parts) to see if the current logistics solution can be optimized. I will tell you more about this in my next blog post.

I will be at my home department now for 10 weeks, after that we will have an activity week and then start a second trainee rotation, and so on. The other rotations are done in consultation with the home department manager who can recommend people to talk to or which areas are beneficial for a future role at the home department, which, in my case, is as a buyer.

After a bit of struggling, we are now up and running with the blog. We are aiming to upload posts approximately twice a week in order for you to get to know us as trainees and hear what we actually do at GKN, so keep your eyes open!

Until next time!

Emma

My home department work with operational quality. We make sure we achieve and exceed our customers’ demands and expectations. It’s fun work! Therefore many of the employees at the department have been working at GKN for several decades.

There are many reasons why we stay that long at GKN. One major factor is the work itself. Everyone I talked to think their work is stimulating and varied; two days are never the same. In addition, the work is challenging, which means they continually develop and learning new things. This means the work is never boring.

An important aspect for a good workplace is the leadership. The leader supports and delegates us in our work. This is possible because we are competent; in most cases, a co-worker is better at his or her job than the boss. Instead, the role of the leader includes communicating vision and strategy, as well as coaching and motivating us.

Last but not least, we enjoy working together! Our corporate culture permeates all interaction between us. We share a strong trust that enables us to collaborate efficiently and deliver good results.

I am the newest addition to the department and have been welcomed with open arms. I really enjoy it and look forward to my coming decades here on quality!

Time to lose my virginity as a blog writer. As earlier years, the fourth week was an so called Activity Week. During the graduate program, we are suppose to visit different companies around Europe in order to strengthen our relations and get broader perspectives both inside and outside the aerospace industry. In the last couple of years, the graduates have visited everything from Airbus headquarters in Toulouse toTetra Pak (multinational food packaging company) in southern Sweden.

This years first trip was divided into two parts where Monday – Wednesday was spent on company visits in Stockholm and Thursday – Friday was spent on leadership training in the province of Bohuslän. Ouside all professional acitivies, the week offered a wide range of private activities such as a picknick at Ingarö in the Stockholm archipelago. Excellent week to get to know each other!

SSC Swedish Space Corporation
Our first visit of the week was the former “Rymdaktiebolaget” that fairly recently rebranded itself to SSC Swedish Space Corporation, in order to enhance their international relations. SSC is a government owned corporation, originally intended for space related research and maintenance of the Swedish space station on the outskirts of Kiruna, northern Sweden. The company mainly develops and produces different kind of space technology such as science experiment equipment for micro gravity. The research is carried out using sounding rockets, mainly due to the low price and high reliability they offer. Outside the science part of the space station Esrange, the station is one of the most active civil ground stations in the world. The reason is Esranges beneficial geographical position, above the arctic circle, which provides them with exceptional conditions for regular data transfer from both science equipped satellites as well as earth observation satellites.

SSC have recently extended their customer portfolio, outside Swedish National Space Board and ESA, to also include several international private actors. During the visit we met with Alf Vaerneus (Technical project manager, System Engineer) at SSC headquarters in Solna. Besides an splendid business presentation, Alf showed us parts of the company’s production and a case study of the Maxus 9 project. The first film below shows a shorter presentation of the project. The second video is a 360°-video of a Maxus 9 launch.

OBH Sweden AB
After the visit to SSC we continued towards OHB Sweden AB, which is another space oriented company, previously a part of SSC. The company produces satellite systems for various space craft with both governmental and private actors. Unlike SSC, OHB has a focus on space systems in orbit, both LEO (Low Earth Orbit) and GEO (Geostationary orbit). This includes satellites for data collection in everything from metrology to positioning systems such as GPS and Gelileo. During our stay we met Nils Pokrupa (Head of Spacecraft dept.), Desireé Brundin (Spacecraft Engineer) and Erik Clacey (Spacecraft Engineer) who gave a solid business presentation and showed us their production, clean rooms and mission control centers. Very exciting!

GKN Aerospace Governmental Relations Office
The last visit during our stay in Stockholm was spent at GKN’s office for Governmental relations, right next to the Swedish parliament. The small office, with only two employees, has the purpose of maintaining good political relations with the Swedish government and keep all affected politicians well informed. During the visit we met with Hannes Borg and Stefan Hjort that together deals with these kind of questions. For the moment they were working intensly on the smoking hot question of what country and company that will get the engine maintenance contract on the upcoming JAS 39E Gripen. It was very interesting to meet with people who work with these unusual questions.

Bohusgården
The last days of the trip was dedicated for leadership training at Bohusgården outside Uddevall on the west coast of Sweden. Besides various well beinig activities, all graduates had to take part of the traditional “Graduate- baptism” in a eleven degrees Celcius cold Kattegatt. At least the weather was with us!