Today was our travel day home. We got up at 5:15, packed up and left. We got to the airport early and hopped on a short, smooth flight to Stockholm.
We landed, got on a bus, went through passport control and got on the next plane. There was no time in between. Once we got on and settled into our seats, the flight attendant came on the speaker and said doors closed, meaning that I could get a different seat if I would like as it was almost empty. I found a window seat with no one in the seat next, so I had an entire row to myself. This was a great feeling honestly. I loved having no one next to me as I was able to work on my laptop and have my phone on the tray table next to me. I had lunch on the plane. It was chicken with mixed veggies. We continued on and flew over greenland.
We continued on and landed in Chicago. The plane ride wasn’t too bad honestly. I had expected worse honestly, but got a ton of work done on the plane including the final paper for this class. We got through passport control very easy and then got on a bus to campus.
Some final thoughts. It was a great trip. I’m so happy to have gone. I’ve written something like 8 thousand words on my blogs since I’ve been here. I’ve learned a lot and seen some very cool stuff. I think my favorite was probably the Volvo crash test, but that’s not surprising considering my love of cars. I also really enjoyed meeting and talking to Morgan and Sylvia who were our hosts at Volvo and came with us to dinner before the hockey game and hockey game. They were great hosts. Also, I’ve taken around 600 pictures and have more to go through that other people took and posted on our shared google drive for us to have. I am so thankful that I was able to do this. I now know that I can sleep on flights, survive a 9 hour one, get around a foreign city where I don’t speak the language, and so many more things. Thank you to those who have made it possible. With that, I’m going to bed. I’ve been up for 24 hours now.
Daily Impressions
A 9 hour flight actually isn’t that bad
I think this is the longest amount of time that I have ever been up
I think I’ll have to fly SAS again. All 4 flights I have been on were great.
Today was our last day in Sweden. We leave early Wednesday morning. I’ll be back on campus by 4 pm. For tomorrows post, you’ll see a post summing up my thoughts and a few of the major lessons I learned.
Anyways, today we were going curling, had time allotted for shopping, and had a fancy dinner scheduled. We left the hostel at 10 and got on a short ferry (5 minutes) and reached the same area as where Hasselblad is.
We walked the opposite direction and into the facility. It was actually an entire sports complex with other facilities. We got these special shoes on which had these rubber covers (like that you might wear in a restaurant kitchen to prevent slipping) and the other had very grippy bottoms. Once you took the cover off the other shoe, it was incredibly slippery on the ice but also the side of the rink which was made of foam tiles.
There was this odd technique of leaning on the broom and not at all on the stone. We did this until 12:30 then jumped back onto the ferry. Alex and I walked to Nordstan, where he got a tie. We walked to John Scott’s pub, where we found out it was a set menu so we decided to go somewhere else. We found a burger place that looked really good and walked over. Yet again, it was a set menu but we decided to stick it out. I wonder if it is more common over here to have a set menu during the lunch hour on weekdays. I’m curious to know if going out for lunch is as common as it is stateside too. It seems like many of the companies that we visited either had cafeterias on the grounds or their employees brought lunch and ate together. Anyways, we got a nice burger with guacamole.
We headed back towards the hostel and I had a few stores I wanted to stop by. One was a bit odd. I use these haircare products called Ruzel, which is owned by a company called Schorems. So a few days ago, I noticed had there was a barbershop that is called Schorems. So today on the way back, I stopped in and noticed that he had an empty shop. I talked to him for a minute, and he mentioned that he had trained with Schorems for a few years. At this point, I asked if he accepted walk-ins and he said yes. So I had him cut my hair. I asked a few questions and it turns out, he is from Jerusalem, but had lived in italy for a long time and them moved to Gothenburg to be with his wife. There was a significant language barrier, but it seemed that he really wanted to give me a really good haircut and he really did. I was impressed. After this, we walked back to the hostel and got ready for dinner. We were going to Heaven 23, a restaurant on the 23rd floor of the Gothia Towers, a set of upscale towers near the Univeresum.
JJ had been telling us that we were going to have the King sandwich, which is an open faced shrimp dish. It consisted of shrimp, rye bread, eggs, mayo, and salad (lettuce). Since it was the last night, I decided to get a glass of Lagavulin 16, by far the best whisky that I’ve had on this trip. It tastes likes like campfire smoke. I actually thought of the last place we went camping when I first tasted it.
We then got back on the tram and stopped at Tin Tins one last time.
I certainly have thoughts on this trip but I’ll be saving those for tomorrow’s post.
Daily Impressions
The set menu for lunch is interesting from a business standpoint
Curling is actually really fun
I’m curious to know what changing back to Wisconsin time is going to be like
Today was our last day of company visits. We got up and left for BraunAbility (formerly AutoAdapt) at 8:45. Instead of taking public transit, we got on a bus as BraunAbility is a bit out of the city. It is about 36 km, or about 23 miles out and it appeared that it would take over an hour to get her by public transit or just 30 by bus or car so I was thankful to be in a bus.
Once we arrived, we walked into a conference room and were met by Rolf Ekblad, who is the VP of Operations for Europe. He layed out our agenda for the day and have us a brief history. AutoAdapt was founded in 1996 by Ralph Braun and was sold to BraunAbility and renamed so in 2019. Something interesting to note is that they run a “Dealer” out of the back of the facility that runs under the name “AutoAdapt” and is a full fledged BraunAbility dealer. Ralph, the founder, had muscular dystrophy and started this company after he created his own lift system and people began to ask for their own. He also talked about the company’s purpose. Their purpose is to “let as many people as possible live a more independent life by enabling them to drive or ride in a vehicle safely all around the world.” After this, we had a short production area tour.
There are a few things I took away from this. One was how clean the area was. The second is that they only run 1 shift day. The second is that all the employees seemed to know each other which is always nice to see.
They are also using a robotic welder from ABB, another company we visited this trip.
They are also the sister company of Bruno, the first company we visited all the way back in Wisconsin.
After this and a product development talk (more on this later) we saw some of their products in action. In the space where AutoAdapt fits cars with their products, we saw some in action. It was really interesting to see what they were capable of. These products really show their mission. They are truly trying to help people gain their independence.
The picture above shows my favorite thing that they showed me. This mercedes wagon is an employee’s car and he has a swiveling chair fitted (which BraunAbility makes) and this arm, which with the press of a button opens from the trunk to grab the wheelchair and place it in the trunk. I really liked this.
After this, we had lunch although I was a little distracted by this Ducati sitting in front of us. We ended sitting with the guy who gave us the product development talk and we chatted for a while. We were just talking about life in Sweden and cars when he asks if we had heard of the Swedish car company Koenigsegg. For those of you who do not know, Koenigsegg is the maker of probably the most insane cars on the planet earth. They have made a car with a 1:1 power to weight ratio so 1 horsepower per kilogram of weight. This is insane. They are multi-million dollar works of engineering art. They are preparing to release the Jesko, which some are saying could be the first 300 mph production car ever.
I said yes, and he causally mentioned that not only did he used to work there, but he is friends with the current chief engineer. So the guy who is responsible for making the Jesko make history from an engineering standpoint. I was kind of speechless. After this, we had another presentation from HR and then got on the bus to Remente.
We got to Remente and met David Brudö, the CEO and Co-Founder of Remente. He gave us a fantastic presentation on the company, the app itself, and had some really interesting thoughts on life. One of the things I immediately liked about David was his candor. We had known him for just a few minutes when he began to tell us about why he started the app in the first place. He began to tell us that he had bouts of depression when he was younger and when he finally went out and found counseling, he was told he was not a priority. He also mentioned that he had trained many high level athletes on their mental skills like concentration. One interesting note is that he had a hand in training Annika Sorenstam, a female golfer who is just a fantastic player (and is from Sweden). He jumped into some of the methods the app uses, and said that it is based on cognitive behavioral therapy. At his point, I found myself utterly engaged in everything he was saying. For some reason, I love listening to speakers who speak about how our brains are. He said that our brains are wired for survival, not happiness. Which evolutionarily speaking makes a ton of sense. We seek to protect ourselves. He also mentioned that the way we talk to ourselves makes a huge difference which I know from personal experience to be true. He also talked about goals. He likes the SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely). He then hit on how small, attainable steps are really important. He gave us an example that went like this. He said that say he wanted to get in shape and saw someone on instagram with a 6 pack who works out ten times a day. He said that he should get there by working out ten times a day right away. This is not a realistic. It’s too much. A more realistic goal would be to work out 3 times a week. He emphasised small goals. Like drive to the gym and get a membership as a start to a work out goal. David wrapped up the visit with 2 things I really liked. He said “Don’t believe everything you think” and “If you fall down 7 times, get up 8.” With that we left, went back to the hostel and went out for dinner.
Daily Impressions
Candor when it comes to mental health stuff is so nice
It really stays dark for a long time here
I think I’m going to have to find an authentic Swedish Cinnamon Bun Recipe
Today was almost entirely open, with an “Iron Chef” challenge later on for our dinner. As I had done a fair bit of shopping yesterday, I decided to sleep in. Alex and I got up and planned out day. We were going to go to a small cafe near us that JJ calls TinTins. I had some eggs, potatoes, bacon, and a small salad
After this we walked over to a park called Skansen Kronan. It was a full on fortress equipped with 23 cannons and was ready for battle but was never actually attacked. It was completed in 1700.
During the 19th century it was turned into a prison and later on was used as an emergency residency. As it was once a fortress, it has amazing views of the city on all sides.
It also has these little entrances which I imagine were the only way in or out when it was operating as a fort and prison.
Now it is used as a conference and wedding space with a small restaurant located on the premises. After this we walked down into Haga just to make sure we saw everything we wanted to before leaving. One thing that I’ve noticed is that businesses here had some more odd hours. For example it seems as most businesses are closed on sundays and close really early on saturday (like 6 pm). We had been through Haga a few different times so we didn’t stop at any stores, besides one candy store. After this, we walked down towards Iron Square and wandered in and out of a few stores. We walked down towards the water. We started to walk past a movie theater and saw a guy bouncing up and down on a trampoline in the middle of a park. I walked over to it and was confused. Why would there be a trampoline in the middle of a park?
After this we walked around a bit more then back to the hostel before dinner. I relaxed in my room and did some miscellaneous work that I needed to get done so I would be ready for my time back at school, and then walked over to dinner at the larger of the 2 kitchens that the hostel has. We were told that we would be split up into 2 groups, one doing starters and the other doing desserts. I was on the dessert team. At this point, we decided to see what the grocery store had for desserts and they actually had some really nice crepes. We brought those back and the first team, who were making the starters, got to work. They had made a spinach artichoke dip. They also had gotten prosciutto, bread, and cream cheese.
We ate dinner (JJ ordered Pizza) and had the starters they had made. After, we had our desserts and just sat in the kitchen and chatted with the other people there. After this, I called it a night. We have 2 companies tomorrow, then a fun day tuesday, then we leave wednesday.
Daily Reflections
Sleeping until 11 was needed
Shops have odd hours
Why is there a trampoline in the middle of this park
So today was an entirely free day except for a group dinner at 7ish. So I got up at around 9 and went across the street to get dinner. The hostel provides dinner every morning but I haven’t really gotten it as I don’t generally get breakfast at school. They have really solid breakfasts too. They always have really fresh bread from a bakery in town and some (apparently) very good coffee and tea although I don’t drink either. There Alex and I ran into JJ and his Wife Suzie and made some plans. We were going to go shopping, to a bike store, then to a museum called Universeum. We walked out of the hostel and down the street was a gorgeous Porsche Panamera wagon. This city really loves their wagons.
We jumped on a tram and rode it down to the Nordstan area and walked around a bit. I had made a list about 9 months ago of places that I had wanted to visit, and we stopped at one of them. It was Rum för Papper, which is a stationary store selling pens and paper.
For those of you who do not know, I prefer to write with fountain pens as my writing tends to be too light on the paper but this is not an issue with fountain pens. So once I found this store I decided that I would definitely be getting myself one. I settled on a small pen that fits nicely in my pocket called a Kaweco Sport. It’s blue with a gold nib. After this, we wandered in and out of a few other stores (including one really interesting tie store) and then headed to lunch.
JJ suggested that we get lunch with him at a place called Saluhallen Briggen, so we got back on the tram to get lunch with him and a classmate of our as well as another professor on the trip.
I had a really interesting dish, it was essentially hash browns cooked in eggs and with a side of bacon. The next couple of hours did not really go to plan. We got back on the tram and went to the Specialized Concept Store (another store I had really wanted to go to) and looked at some of the bikes inside. We then walked to Universeum, a museum in the city, and decided not to go because it was too busy. We walked back towards Nordstran and wandered into the Tesla store where they had the rolling chassis of a Model S.
We continued to walk around and eventually decided to head back. We decided to stop at Karlsson’s again on the way home and have a drink. I had a dram of Highland Park 12. We started talking to the bartender and I mentioned that I had never had Lagavulin 16, a popular smokey whiskey so he poured a very small sample of it for me. It was really good.
After our drinks we walked back to the hostel and relaxed before dinner. We went to Himalaya, an interesting restaurant near our hostel. Below is a plate of catfish. I had never had catfish but my roommate (back at school that is) loves catfish. I tried it and really liked it. We also had Pork, Chicken, Shrimp and a few kinds of fish. The restaurant also brought out a small thing of Ice Cream for his birthday.
I walked back to the hostel after dinner and called it a night.
Daily Reflections
I should eat more fish at home
There are wagons everywhere in this city
How come I like shopping here but not at home, this (shopping that is) is sort of fun
I’d like to become a regular at Karlssons. This place is nice and the staff are great.
Today was our second to last visit day. We started out morning and got on the tram. I am kind of curious to know exactly what portion of the city uses it and how often those who own a car find themselves using it. It’s much easier to get on a tram for short journeys than it is to get in your car, fight traffic, find a parking spot and walk in. I guess you could probably argue the same thing about many large stateside cites (like Chicago and NYC) but I haven’t spent this amount of time doing this much stuff in those cities. Anyways, we got out around Nordstan (a huge mall that has a ton of stores and where we briefly went shopping today and will undoubtedly spend time there this weekend) and walked through. We walked on a sky bridge across the highway and found our way into Valea.
We met Andrew Hammond, who is the CEO and Founding Partner of Valea. He has impressive qualifications. He has 36 years of experience as a European Patent Attorney and has been also working on Valea since its foundation in 2004. Despite being CEO, he still works with a few clients. He took us downstairs into a larger room and began the presentation, after Fika of course. He spoke about the company and gave us some information on patents and trademarks. He said that Valea has around 45-50 attorneys and they primarily help clients strengthen their competitive advantage by creating and protecting Intellectual Property (IP) rights. One interesting thing he touched on was that he only had one marketing associate. Before I could ask any questions about this, Andrew said that this is by design. He said that Valea is really good at what they do and they focus on this and outsource what they can. So they probably use a marketing firm to help them with their marketing efforts.
He also mentioned that they were employee owned which is always nice. Andrew then jumped into some information about patents. He felt the need to establish what an invention was. He said that an invention is a new idea that makes life easier or saves you money. After this, he said that a patent is a contract between the state and the inventor for 20 years. As a reward for sharing your process (assuming its valid), you get a 20 year monopoly from the date filed. The contract part grants you the ability to stop others from using your idea, but it does not grant you to fringe upon others patents. So if you had a new idea that would make McDonalds more money and you patent it, you don’t get to open a McDonalds. At this point I asked why might a company put “Patent Pending” on their goods that they are waiting on a patent for. Andrew said that some areas or states may require this if a company would want to pursue damages against any company or people infringing on the upcoming patent. After this we went to get lunch with Andrew and his colleague, Victor.
I had a nice burger with a small salad and potatoes. After dinner, JJ told us that we had over an hour until we needed to get on the tram for our next company, Xylem, so a few of the people on the trip and I walked to Zara, a nice store with a bunch of really well priced mens clothes. I ended up getting a overcoat that I wear over my suit, which I had needed but hadn’t bought for myself yet. I ended up finding one for 399 Krones which is like 40 dollars. After this, we got on a bus and headed over to Xylem.
Once we got there we were greeted by Christian Ringstorm, who is a Project Engineer. He started out by laying out some admittedly scary facts. He said that the demand for water will grow by 5 times by 2050. Because of this, Xylem’s mission is efficiency. Xylem, in one, form or another has been around since 1901. They have around 18,000 employees and are a fortune 1000 company. They have signs all around their facilities that say “Let’s solve water” which Christian says is a promise of action. Their name is actually really clever, it comes from the greek word that describes the part of the plant that draws water from the roots of the plant. What I found to be especially interesting is that they use Six Sigma, or constant improvement, at their manufacturing plant. After Christian finished, we left and went back to the city, but stopped back at Zara where I got another jacket. After this we went to dinner at Pasta Haus again, and I had the lasagna which was new for me, and a glass of The Macallan Fine Oak 12.
Today started a bit earlier than the others and the weather was less than fantastic. It was spitting rain. We got on a tram and then transferred to a ferry over to a new area of the city.
We got off and walked over to Hasselblad. It was an interesting area, with Chalmers University of Technology also in the area. It seems like this was a former industrial area.
Once we arrived we sat down and met Ove Bengtsson, a product manager for Hasselblad. We had Fika and he gave us a presentation on Hasselblad’s history. They were started in 1841 by Fritz Victor Hasselblad and it was called FW Hasselblad and Co. At the time, they were a trading company. In 1885, Fritz’s son Arvid met George Eastman, who was the founder of the Eastman Dry Plate and Film company (which later became Kodak). In 1907 Arvid’s grandson Victor was born and a year later, the part of the company that dealt with film separated from the rest of the company. Victor grew up with cameras and developed a love for cameras so much so he opened his own business developing photos and selling cameras in Gothenburg. In 1941 he produced his first camera for the Swedish Military. He went on to produce the 1600f, 1000c, 500c and 500EL before his passing in 1978.
After that, we got to handle some of their cameras which range from about 5 thousand to 40 thousand dollars without lenses. The one pictured below is at least 45 thousand dollars.
We left Hasselblad and jumped on a bus for ABB Robotics. We got there and were greeted by Bert Thorvaldsson, who is a Global Products Manager for ABB’s software products. We had lunch. I had pork with onions and cheesy potatoes.
After came Fika and then Bert gave us a presentation about the next wave of digital manufacturing. Bert touched on something called a digital twin. This is a digital replica of a physical entity. If you wanted to layout a kitchen using virtual reality, you would set up a digital twin. You are able to design the elements to exactly where you want them. So think of deciding where to put a dishwasher. It might be hard to see where it goes on paper, but you could use this twin to actually walk around the kitchen and see if you like the layout. It’s a very clever way of doing things. Burt talked on a few more topics and we said our goodbyes.
After this, we got on a series of busses and went back to the hostel. About 45 minutes later, we left for the hockey game and dinner with our hosts from Volvo. We met them at a Chinese resturant. I had beef with rice and bamboo shoots.
After this, we headed over to the stadium. The game we saw happened to be Joel Lundqvist thousandth game. So the stadium was pretty full. We found our seats and watched the intros. The team we were watching was the home team in Gothenburg, the Frolunda Indians.
They started shortly after. The game was honestly unlike anything I had seen previously. The rink is wider than an NHL rink so play is slower and more methodical. I really enjoyed this style. Early in the game Joel scored a goal and the crowd went crazy. The fans here are very well organized and have their own section and people who lead cheers as well as a huge drum. The game was really high scoring, with the final score being 8-4 Frolunda. Joel came out a few times after. After the game was over and the security team had gently told us that we needed to leave, we hopped on the tram and came back to the hostel.
Daily Reflections
Graffiti is much more common here
Taking public transit really makes you realize the value of a car
I think we’ve had Fika at every place we’ve been so far
When I signed up for this trip almost a year ago, I was told that our visit to Volvo was up in the air. I wanted to go anyways, but I really wanted to know. Then in october, JJ told us that he had confirmed out visit to Volvo. A few weeks later, he told me that our hosts had arranged for us to witness a crash test. This morning we met at 9:20 and jumped on the 6 tram and rode it across the city. We transferred to the 27 bus and rode it into the area. What was immediately apparent is just how large this facility is.
All of this is Volvo (Some may be Volvo Penta which is a different company, but it still bears the Volvo name)
We walked into a nice building with a few of their cars.
At this point one of our hosts walked in. His name is Morgan Ericsson, and he is a PSCE Project Pre-Trim & MP for Volvo. Morgan is a 20 year veteran of Volvo. He took us over to a different building and we met our second host, Sylvia Knutti (who happens to be engaged to Morgan). We had lunch in one of their cafeteria. It was very good. I had a pulled chicken sandwich with pineapple salsa and steak fries.
After this, we walked across some of their campus and got into a few different Volvos to drive to the crash test. I rode in a Volvo S60. An important note- We were not allowed to take pictures or videos in either the factory or crash test. It sounds like they don’t publish a lot of what we saw. We got into the crash test theater and listened to a brief presentation about Volvo’s commitment to safety. Volvo originally held the patent for seatbelts but decided to release it for the safety of the general, non-volvo driving public. Additionally, Volvo’s safety vision states “that nobody will be killed or seriously injured in a new Volvo cars by 2020”.
This image is straight from Volvo and is on their public website.
After this, we witnessed a 35 mile per hour, 30 degree offset crash of one of their new models. It was utterly brutal. I knew that it would be, but it was even more so than I expected. All of the airbags went off and smoke filtered out of the car. Moments later the team that we had seen prepping the area walked out of their room to take some data. They took some pictures and plugged a few sensors into their laptops. We watched them mill around for a while before leaving the room for the factory.
We were given some safety equipment, steel toed boots and a lab coat, and walked into the factory. As I mentioned before, we were not allowed to take pictures so I don’t have any of the really impressive things we saw. They really gave us a VIP tour. We saw some especially cool things, like a crane that takes the cars over the pathway and the device that collects energy during braking to charge the hybrid system. The factory is a classic production line and had some clever rotations of employees going on. We continued on and eventually walked out of the factory. We got on a bus, transferred to a tram and got back to the Hostel. We had about 2 hours before we left for the 2nd event of the day, a trip to a cooking school called Aveqia.
At this school we were going to was about a ten minute walk away from out hostel. We got there and were greeted by Sou Chef Michael who led us into the kitchen where we would be cooking. We were told that this was going to be a 4 course meal, with us being split into 4 teams each making a dish. I selected team 3 as we were dealing with the meat and not everyone was willing to do so. We were then introduced to Chef Daniel, the head chef of Aveqia. After this, Micheal and Daniel walked us through some of the kitchen and where to put things. They then jumped into our cooking. We were responsible for the 3rd (main) course.
The first course was salmon with a cold potato foam, potatoes, very small onion rings, halved potatoes, pickled onion, and swedish caviar.
The second dish was mayo, beets, fruit leather, and cheese.
The third dish was Reindeer with celery root puree, kale chips, and onions.
The dessert was focused on the sour cream ice cream, puffed rice and chocolate sprinkled on top. At the end of it all, JJ asked us what our favorite parts of the trip were so far. I brought up 2 things. First was the feeling that came over me when we were landing in Copenhagen. It totally surreal to be flying to europe for school. The second was today’s crash test at Volvo. I really enjoyed seeing the process that they go through After this, we thanked our hosts, and headed back to the hostel.
Daily Impressions
Reindeer tastes really unique
I knew that crash would be brutal and it still made me jump.
Morgan has a fantastic sense of humor
I love how logical everything is on the Volvo campus.
We got up this morning and got on the tram to Qualisys. We found our way there and were met by Magnus Sjolin, who is the Marketing Area Director. Magnus gave us a quick tour of their office, and then showed us the studio.
He then ran down the presentation (yet again with times that he expected to be done) and introduced Helen, who is the Global Marketing and Communications Director. He gave us an overview of Qualisys right after. Qualisys is “a leading provider of precision motion Capture and 3D positioning tracking systems for engineering, biomechanics, animation, virtual reality, robotics, and movement sciences.” They manufacturer the cameras, consult with potential clients, and create software for the cameras to generate. They are around 40 strong, and produce around 2,000 to 2,500 cameras a year. They have clients such as Harvard University, BMW, ABB, and the Department of Veterans Affairs in the US. They have 2 camera series, the Oqus and Miqus and different cameras within that line. the Miqus M3 is there best seller.
What was especially impressive was their satisfaction rate. Magnus said that 96% of their current clients would recommend them to another company. He also mentioned that they are the only provider of these cameras that has the ability to make their cameras work underwater which is a huge advantage for them.
After this, Helen came in to speak about some of the companies marketing efforts. She mentioned how she had to start from the ground up, establishing rules and templates for the team to use and follow. She gave us a brief description of some of the things that the company takes part in, like the 40- odd trade shows or events they attend every year.
After this, they gave us a demonstration of their cameras. They had Robby, a classmate of mine, get into a pair of running shorts and a shirt that would allow them to put reflective orbs on him so that the system would work. He then ran on the treadmill they had and we watched it transform his motion into data.
After this they had 3 more classmates suit up for an animation demo. They put on skin suits and we got a first hand experience to exactly how easy it is to animate with this technology. After this, we had a really great lunch. It was fish (Cod?) and a potato. They also had some vegan meals clearly labeled as so. On a side note, I really like how vegan and vegetarian friendly it is here. They then gave us a really nice goodie bag with a water bottle, shirt, some candy, a notepad, pen, and pamphlet on the company. We said our goodbyes and left for SKF.
We arrived at SKF around half an hour later. SKF stands for Svenska Kullagerfabriken which translates to the Swedish Ball Bearing Factory. We were greeted by Lars Werner. Lars showed us to a room and opened with a brief history of the company (and gave us all fidget spinners). SKF was founded in 1907 by Sven Wingqvist and now has around 44,000 employees. They are the world’s largest bearing manufacturer making around a billion bearings a year. Lars is a 30 year veteran of the company and gave us a very special tour. He had us put on steel toed boots and led us out the door. They have a very nice area showcasing some of their products but, he also let us see the production line which is nearly entirely automated. This, I should mention, is fairly uncommon. We were not allowed to take pictures, but it was so incredible that I am sort of happy that I didn’t even need to think about it. This entire facility is automated. Robots do everything. They drive the forklifts, pick up parts, package them, assemble them, and much more. It was extremely impressive. One of them had an issue while we were there (a cardboard box got folded over and got jammed in the machine) and instead of quickly walking away from it, he pointed it out and said that it will stop soon. He also talked about how maintenance is one of the things that robots cannot do, so most of the people on the production line were doing maintenance. This little thing is so important. Mistakes happen, even in machines and his acknowledgement that this is true made me more confident in the company.
We walked back to the main building and said our thank yous, and headed back to the hostel. For dinner, my roommate and I (Alex) found a local pizza place.
Daily Reflections
MoCap is just as cool as you might think
Bearing production is actually really interesting
Lars is a very captivating speaker
These robots are so interesting. I like how smooth and quick their movements are.
Today we started our day at Skapa, a content and business to business marketing firm just a few minutes outside Gothenburg’s central station. Before this, a car that I had never seen before rolled by. I managed to take a picture. It was a Chatenet, a microcar made in france.
On the way there I got a nice picture of the canal in the city.
There, we met Erik Ekholm the CEO Of Skapa. Erik is a very impressive figure, with an Masters of science and a career as a naval architect making up his background among other credentials including positions at Volvo Trucks and Stena AB. He had a nice breakfast laid out for us including coffee, tea, sparkling water and most importantly some of the cinnamon rolls that I mentioned a few days ago.
Erik jumped into some information about Skapa and told us about a few of their clients which included Volvo Penta (this is the industrial piece of volvo, and is not owned by the chinese company Geely unlike Volvo Car) and CAT. One of the big things I took away from his presentation is that content, like blog posts, needs to be customer focused and engaging. This is one of the things that hit me right away. While I don’t know if I will ever write blog posts again after this trip, I will certainly develop content that will need to follow those guidelines to be effective. He also answered some of our questions in a more causal setting after he had finished talking and he had some interesting things to say yet again. His wife also works at Skapa and someone asked him a question about how that was. He said that he had been told that it was a bad idea when he first started out but it had ended up working really well. Erik and his wife have 2 kids and he was speaking on how it was nice that one of them could take some time off if needed, knowing that the other would be there to support and help out the other.
Skapa’s entryway
We thanked Erik and walked back to central station where we hopped on public transit to Gothenburg University. We had lunch in their cafeteria (chili with rice) and met with 2 of their professors. The first, Claes Alvstam, taught us a bit about Sweden’s economics. He also gave us some background information about Sweden as a whole. Sweden has around 10 million inhabitants, in an area of 173,000 sq miles. He also told us, much to my suprise, that Gothenburg’s latitude is about the same as southern Alaska. He then dove into some information about some of the multinational corporations (MNCs) within Sweden. He said that about 22% of Swedes are employed by MNCs. This was really interesting. Just as I began to wonder if this was an issue, he began to say how this may be a problem if these companies get acquired, like several others had. When companies are acquired, they often move headquarters leaving employees the decision to move or find new employment. The next professor, Martin Oberg, spoke to us a bit more about the city and University.
The University of Gothenburg is much larger than I thought. The school has around 40,000 students and the business school has 3,900 alone. The school also has something called Triple Crown Accreditation, meaning that they have been accredited by the 3 largest and most influential accreditation organizations in the world. First, The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB, United States). Second, The Association of MBAs (AMBA, UK. And finally, EFMD Quality Improvement System (EQUIS, EU). This triple crown is held by less than 1% of all business schools in the world. There are only 90 schools worldwide holding this crown. There is only 1 in the US, the Hult International Business School and this is the only one in Sweden. After the presentations, we had an event where we talked to some Swedish students. They were very nice and we chatted about public transit. I asked them a bunch of questions about things to do around here and they asked about our semester. It turns out they take 4 classes a semester, but only one at a time (similar to our J Term, which is what I am in now). They seemed to be shocked at the idea of potentially having 4 finals. I really enjoyed my time with them. After this we left and walked to a few shops and back to the Hostel. On the way back, Alex (my roommate for the trip) and I stopped and had a Crepe from a street stand.
Daily Reflections
I like how both presentations had a “timeline” at the beginning where they told us exactly what they were going to talk about
They seem to want to talk about US politics but are aware that it is a touchy subject
