IAESTE Internship review at Electrolux Global Engineer Program (GEP) in Porcia, Italy
About the company (Electrolux Group)
Electrolux is one of the main home appliances manufacturers in the World. Its main brands are Electrolux, AEG, Frigidaire and Zanussi, among others. It was founded in 1919 in Stockholm, Sweden, and nowadays has more than 40 factories all around the world, producing all kinds of home appliances, such as refrigerators, ovens, cooking hobs and hoods, washing machines, dishwashers, tumble dryers, air conditioners, water heaters, vacuum cleaners and more.
About the GEP (Global Engineer Program)
GEP is an Electrolux internship program, first founded in 2017 in collaboration with AIESEC, now open to candidates from other internship associations such as IAESTE. All the internships are in engineering, located in one of Electrolux Manufacturing plants, and becoming part of different departments such as Manufacturing Engineering, R&D, Quality,… It promotes the international experience so it is a requirement to locate the Engineers in a different country from where they are coming from.
GEP enhances the internship experience to facilitate networking between the apprentices located in different factories and teams, leveraging a better retention rate than standalone internships, and promoting cross-collaboration between engineering departments, including core tech research, product development, manufacturing engineering, purchasing and supply chain, promoting innovation, creativity and development within the company.
The main activities are two 3-day summits, one held during spring at Electrolux HQ in Stockholm, and the other in autumn at another factory located in Europe, that gather all the interns around the world (for now, Brazil, USA and Europe). During the event, several workshops and networking activities take place, coordinated by the HR managers in charge of the program. Additionally, peer-to-peer webinars are developed throughout the year.
About my factory (Porcia-PN, Italy)
Porcia Factory, located in the northeast part of Italy, is one of the main manufacturing facilities in Europe for washing machines, and also the location for the Global R&D centre for Fabric and Dish Care, the Global Connectivity and Technology Center and concentrates a big part of Global Manufacturing Engineering team.
Therefore, most of the teams have their managers located in this factory, from which all the Industrial Operations are coordinated. It is the location with most of the GEP offers available, so we have a big group of colleagues and friends to organize leisure activities and tourism trips!
Inside Porcia Campus, there is also Electrolux's first Innovation Factory. An innovation ecosystem, where innovation projects, collaboration with start-ups and universities, innovation events, workshops, conferences and many more inspirational activities are run, and we can, of course, be part of to have continuous development of hard and soft skills!
About my job (Global Ind. Ops. Manuf. Eng. Automation)
Thanks to GEP and IAESTE, I became part of the Global ME Automation team, integrated by 5 engineers, located in Porcia, but with a global responsibility to drive the Automation Strategy in all plants worldwide.
The main responsibilities of our team are:
1) Define and drive the Automation Strategy globally, defining priorities and targets and tracking progress
2) Standardization of processes, product design, components and programs for automated cells.
3) Assess potential automation projects, in coordination with manufacturing engineering leaders, giving guidance and recommendations for common problem avoidance and solutions
4) Research for innovative solutions in the market that can position Electrolux with a strategical advantage in terms of automation.
In my case, I am part of the Advanced Automation team, working at the Innovation Factory workshop area testing and develop the pilot projects with innovative solutions or applications.
If you would like to find out more about opportunities to take an internship at Electrolux through IAESTE, visit electrolux.iaeste.org
