Work Work Work Work Work Work

He said me haffi work, work, work, work, work, work

Before showing up in Cologne I had very little idea about my tasks at the company. On arrival, I got the idea that this is going to be some proper internship. 

While still in Finland we had a teams meeting with the people from Actemium. They company  finds it important for the whole team to meet possible additions before any decisions are made. Although I don't know what could I have done to mess it up. 

They didn't really ask much, mostly everybody introduced themselves and told what falls under their responsibilities at Actemium. We agreed to figure out all the details, like my tasks after I got to Cologne. 

Meeting up with the team was a good idea, I'd recommend doing it if you get a chance. It was nice to have some kind of idea of where I was going and who else might be there. 

Oh, let's set the mood for this post. Thank you Rihanna!

Jürgen from the German school arranging the internship was there in the introduction meeting. He has been really helpful since the beginning. I think this is the best part of these exchanges, you get to choose exactly how much you want to be involved in the process. 

Everything can be organized for you if that's what you want. I didn't need to apply for this job for example, the organizing school found the company and I just got to show up. 

Here's some idea of what I'm dealing with. The office is located in Ossendorf, and the whole area looks brand new and shiny. Looking at the buildings they seem to be waiting for someone to come and rip off that last protective layer of plastic you've got covering phones and such when they come out of the box. 

Actually it's not completely finished yet. We've got construction sites everywhere around us and the appropriate sounds can be heard in our office as well.

In reality, Actemium is a massive operation. It is part of Vinci Energies, one of the biggest corporations in the world. Still, my unit feels cozy. It's set up as comfy as an office can, and works much like any small company would. 

The people working in one specific function share a room, and normally there are just a few people in each room. We don't have massive departments full of folks you've never met or wanted to meet.

There's Brigitte in the reception, Heiko and a couple other guys are our programmers. So far I've worked most with Marc, Markus, and Timo who are project engineers. And of course the brains of the operation, the office dog Flin. He's Timo's and knows more words in English than I do in German. 

Clever Boi!

This is pretty much how we spend time. He doesn't come closer than that but stares at me all the time. This doggo clearly doesn't trust me. He wants the treats Timo gave me as leverage so some kind of truce can be reached. 

What am I supposed to be doing then?

My job is basically to learn as much as I can about electrical engineering and managing client projects in an industrial setup. The idea is to learn from the past and present systems built for the paper manufacturing industry and other fields. 

For managing stuff like this, about eighteen thousand different programs are needed. All these programs don't work together well so again different programs are used for bringing the functions together in a manageable way.

The functions include stuff like HMI programming, drive parameterization and configurations, visualization, power distribution, diagnostics, and many different control systems, for example. Of course, would be great to learn how to program a PLC (programmable logic controller). 

In the near future the plan is to join Rainer for a customer visit, when his project is at a proper stage. He is focused on paper production systems. The programmers are working on an important commissioning that should be going live while I'm still here, so I'm hoping to be able to join in on that one way or another. 

I'm sure a couple of months isn't very long time for all this but everybody has to start somewhere. 

Challenge accepted. Will report progress. Maybe. 

Getting to work has been a chore at times

On my first day, there was a strike in Cologne, so the public transportation wasn't working at all. I also had to switch from one hostel to another since there was no space in mine for the next night. I thought it would be best to take my stuff with me to work since I couldn't leave it at the hostel because of some unlucky circumstances. 

Starting the 1h hike with the backpack I realized I'm way too old for this s***. As a backup solution, I grabbed the first electric scooter I could find. Hell of a way to start practicing how to use this thing. 

Unfortunately, this brand of scooter wasn't meant to be used outside the city center. The thing didn't allow me to park close to the area where I was going. I drove maybe a kilometer or two past my office and walked back again.   

My first day was supposed to start at 8 am by visiting a possible client at their premises with Marc. Somehow I was only a couple of minutes late, and Marc actually got there maybe half an hour later. Apparently, the traffic had been horrible since everybody tried to get around by car that morning. 

Here's my stamp from the earthquake event that made me really happy during the day. It was a nice event full of talented people. It made some decent profit as well. The other one is a random shot from along the way to work. Taken around 6am when my treck started.

Client thingy

We started the drive towards the client's premises with Marc. We had a chance to get to know each other a bit since it's about an hour's drive. 

Marc lives close to the border with The Netherlands and has family connections on both sides. He told about the family's and Germany's relationship with the neighboring country. 

It's curious to notice again and again how connected the different countries in this area of Europe are. The distances aren't long and there's nothing stopping people from crossing from one side to another. At least if you happen to have the right passport. 

Coming from Finland which is basically like an island in this sense, I'm jealous of the ease of traveling around here. It's much easier for people to realize the importance of acceptance, learning languages and understanding different cultures when you're constantly interacting with them.

Anyhow, back to work

The CEO of the possible client company showed up, also with a Praktikant in tow, from Mannheim. They have somewhat recently acquired two machines that have been in use since the 80s. They're now one of the few companies that can produce the type of products these machines do. Also, something ridiculous like 35% of the company's turnover is dependent on them.

The problem is that any kind of documents for these machines don't exist and if there's a problem, it will be very difficult to fix. They prefer to create a scheduled plan for making the necessary changes and building an automated system before it's too late. 

Marc told that through his career working in different countries, he finds this as a very German way of thinking. 

These machines have been running flawlessly for over 40 years but they feel the need to take care of the issue of missing documentation, old electrics and operating system, and weaknesses in security. They want to prepare, minimize risks and take control of the situation before everything starts going downhill.  

Here's an example photo of a relay logic based operating system that I stole from the internet. It needs to be replaced with a more modern, automated system. 

After this my brain was toast. Anyways the rest of the day was mostly setting up computers and passwords, downloading programs etc. 

Here's some actual footage of how my head felt when I was walking to the hostel. By the way the hostel had a cancellation so I could go back to the same place after all. Just a new room and new roommates. Lucky. 

Well, I think that's enough for one day, Ciao!