Hej blog!

From my last post, I have shared with you that currently I am joning Swecon in Germany. For you who does not know, Swecon sells and rents out construction equipments/machines (one of the products is e.g. excavators -> you use this to dig holes) from Volvo and has shown a successful business within Lantmännen.

Since we are also offering service work for repair and maintenance of the machines, it is important for us that our customers are satisfied not only with our products but also with the result of our service work. Therefore, I have been working on customer satisfaction survey for the service department and also helping out leasing department in improving their survey. The project has been really fun and working out really well! I got to visit some local branches nearby and talked to people who are directly involved in the assessment loop, inside and outside Swecon. It has been a great experience and I think I have gathered useful information to be put into recommendations.

Being a woman within a male-dominated industry is also another thing. Recently, I participated in a small workshop about women at Swecon, where I met other female colleagues from other branches and shared stories about working with Swecon from women point of view. Together we discussed ideas and develop a strategy to embrace women’s role within the company. Can’t wait on how the outcome would look like! 🙂

Time ticks fast and in no time, all trainees will finish our very last assignments within the program. I will not spoil much about our permanent positions yet, you need to stay tune for our next posts 😉

Will you do anything fun this weekend? For me, I am heading to Gothenburg in Sweden with other trainess and spend our time together before we start our final positions. Very excited! 🙂

Take care!

/Vanessa

Hi everyone!

Vanessa is here and I will be taking over the blog for this week. As Sebastian indicated before, the trainees are now moving on to the fourth and last rotation of this program. Woopwoop. For me, I am heading to Swecon in Düsseldorf, Germany. I will be working on making improvements for customer satisfaction assessment on Swecon’s service work. Since I studied in Germany and already speak the language, it is easier for me to adapt to the new environment.

It has been almost two weeks since I moved in here and I can surely say that Düsseldorf is a lovely place. The city is bigger than I thought, very multicultural and lively as well. Most of people here are still in vacation/summer vibes since summer is still around the corner. Swecon office itself lies a bit outside the city and has nice colleagues. There is no common breakfast session like in Stockholm office, but lunch always works, which is my chance to get to know people (and remember their names as well).

Beside our main projects, we are also assigned to another side project called Strategic Group Assignment (read Anton’s story about his SGA here). For me, Lovisa, and Moa, we are looking at production of biochar at Lantmännen and its potential markets. Since mid-March, we have been reading a lot of information about what biochar is, how to produce them, interviewing people within and outside of Lantmännen, following up information to our stakeholders, attending a workshop on biochar, meeting experts, making different analysis of our findings, and the list goes on. At our surprise, many people put actual interests in this 🙂

Also, we got a chance to visit biochar production site located in Stockholm, which was our first time to see how biochar production plant looks like.

Now that we are approaching the end of SGA, we are really excited to see end results. Working on SGA has been a nice experience and I think my trainee colleagues would agree with me as well. Not only the networking part, but also working on a real business case that Lantmännen truly wants to develop, which is great!

I am now signing off for the weekend, hope you all have a great one!

/Vanessa

Hej blog readers, it’s Vanessa who will take over this week’s blog post! After spending previous period in Stockholm at Group Function (GF) R&D, I decided to extend my stay here in the capital and join another GF: Supply Chain.

The reason behind this is because I want to experience how it feels to work in a supply chain field since I only got a little glimpse of supply chain while pursuing my Bachelor degree. Initially, I would like to move to Malmö and be part of Lantmännen Agriculture business area, however there was no project within supply chain area available for me. But, lucky me, there is a joint project between GF Supply Chain in Stockholm and LM Agriculture in Malmö regarding supply chain, in which I immediately said yes to! 😉

At my current project, which has been running since late March, I was assigned to look at possible relocation of one of our biggest grain silos in the West region of Sweden. I learn (and am still learning) so much more than I expected! Starting from looking at one subject from different angles and interests, developing strategic thinking, incorporating external yet relevant insights into current data flow, and so on. Soooo many considerations need to be involved before we decide on one thing and so many information to be confirmed as well in order to guarantee its validity. In conclusion, I really like this project because it matches my interest and the outcome.

I haven’t really taken many pictures from this project (oops), so here is a picture of Stockholm in the spring and sunny weather.

See you around! /Vanessa

Last time I wrote a blogpost, I just started a few weeks at Lantmännen and now I am already on my second rotation! Where did the time go really? 🙂

After Norrköping, I am currently stationed at the head office in Stockholm. I have been to Stockholm only several times but have never really lived here so I am excited! I am working with Group Function R&D on the topic Sustainable Nutrition. The idea is to influence consumer to eat in a healthier and more sustainable manner (by considering possible emissions production and food waste) and how Lantmännen should position itself within this trend.

The project is personally interesting for me because I know that my work would more or less be able to contribute to the society and sustainable development in the long run (hopefully). This motivation gives me energy to wake up every morning in Stockholm dark sky. Little goes along the way 🙂

Being in Stockholm also gives me new experience about living in one of the biggest Scandinavian cities. Stockholm is huge! It is funny to remember how I struggled to commute with T-bana because there are lots of exits and entrances at each T-bana station, even though I only live couple of minutes away from the office. I am now also used to have my trainee friends and other colleagues to have fika with, which is a very nice opportunity to have especially now during winter gloomy days.

Now I also regularly have Swedish lessons and I can feel some improvements. I can understand conversations better and feel more confident to speak even though not entirely perfect, but I am glad I can try it out. I also have supporting group of friends and colleagues at the office who continuously encourage me to speak, listen and write in Swedish. If I am too tired from the day, I cheat and say “English please” :p Swedish, I am going to get you!

Time to head off for weekend!

Until next time,

Vanessa

Hi all,

Can’t believe it has been a month already since we started at Lantmännen. Where did the time go?

Sooo, since us trainees don’t see each other that often because of different geographical location (except the Stockholmers :)), few weeks ago we decided to meet up and visit some of Lantmännen’s factories in Skåne, southern Sweden

Initially, it was Moa, Johan, and Anton, who are placed in Copenhagen and Malmö respectively, who were invited to visit these facilities, but then they thought hmm the more would be the merrier, so they invited all of us to come and join the fun…and so we did!

First stop, we got the chance to look closer the grain handling process at Lantmännen Lantbruk in Helsingborg. We were accompanied by the operation manager who explains the flow of grain when they arrive from our owners, sorted, cleaned, then kept inside the silos, maintaining the grain quality, before being distributed to different Lantmännen’s businesses. There are 300 grain silos in total that are ranging from hundreds of tons only to thousands of tons. It is quite a busy activity but thanks to modern technology, almost all of them are operated automatically. Awesome!

The full squad at the grain silos by the harbor

On top of one of the grain silo, super windy btw

Second stop is pancake factory at Laholm. As heavenly as it sounds, we could look closer at the production of Lantmännen’s pancakes using only the best ingredients. Of course we had the chance to taste the products (so yummy!) and little tour inside the pancakes factory. The production line tour did not only show of how pancakes are made, but also how they are packed in boxes, down to the point where they are stored inside huge freezer, ready to be transported to customers. Since the area needs to be sterile, we had to wear protective caps, robes and shoes to avoid contamination with the products, but we could still took some pictures deliberately.

Freshly made pancakes yumm

With our protective suits

Stay tune for more posts from us and we hope you have a great week ahead!

A warm hello from sunny Norrköping,

Vanessa is here and on this post, I am really excited to share my experience as a trainee at Lantmännen!

For my first rotation, I get the privilege to do the assignment at Lantmännen Agroetanol, an energy division located at Norrköping, eastern Sweden. (Fun fact: Agroetanol is the largest bioerefinery in the Nordics with production of almost 25 tonnes of bioethanol (yes, that fuel that you add to your gasoline) per hour!). Apart from bioethanol, we are also producing feed products for livestocks and liquified CO2 known as carbonic acid that attracts customers from food industry.

For my assignment, I will investigate the traceability of protein content in our feed products, right from the delivery of the raw materials up to the loading of logistics to the customers. Sounds trivial, but I can assure you it is absolutely not :p

The perks of working on a production site: this is my everyday view at work. In front of distillation tanks.

This field is completely new for me, but this is when the fun parts come 🙂 My project instructor has given me a free space so I can decide how I would like to execute this project. Therefore, I could be creative, show some initiatives, and point out critical points since this project is basically my “playground”, but of course from time to time I still need his supervision. Also an important part in this project is networking. To be able to collect data, I need to talk to a lot of people from different professional areas. This is the part where I got to polish my communication skills and an opportunity to start building contacts. Some can be approached through lunch, mails, or as simple as coming by their offices. To have their various insights and linking them together on this project is interesting but also tricky 😉 All in all, so far I can say Agroetanol provides a friendly environment and a welcoming atmosphere for a new employee like me.

In front of fermentation tanks, where all the magic happens

For me, being a trainee (even though it has been 2 weeks only) is definitely pushing me out of my boundaries, in a good way of course 🙂 I don’t mind at all because I realize this is one of the ways to enhance self-development, so I am up for the challenges! Bring it on!

Time to wrap up my post and head straight to the weekend!

Until next time,

Vanessa