International Women in Engineering Day 2023

A day in the life of a HSE Specialist within the SHEQ team can be full on and no two days are ever the same…… but that’s not always a bad thing!

Within my role, I get to meet people who work within the Atlas Copco Group, across the UK and Ireland, and ensure people are able to carry out their day knowing that they are being looked after and being kept safe within their workplace.

It doesn’t matter what people do, or where people are working, my role is to ensure everyone gets the chance to go home every day without harm.

Health and safety are part of daily life even without thinking about it. For me, to know I can visit offices, warehouses, production lines, factories, or car plants and then guide, assist and implement a better, safer process is always a win.

After spending 17 years in the construction and engineering world, I have seen so many positive changes and improvements which makes life that little bit easier for everyone across the board.

Every day is a school day, and I am proud to say I am learning so much from the people around me and because of that, there are no limits to the variety of people we can support or the places we can work in.

My personal opinion is there should be no boundaries when it comes to improvements for people and their wellbeing, without the people at the bottom, there will be no people at the top. Everyone matters.

For me, I find that no two days are the same and I really enjoy the variety my role brings. Working in Operations enables me to speak with a range of stakeholders - from colleagues in various departments to application and distribution centres right through to our customers. My role gives me exposure of end to end processes including first interactions with customers and placing of orders or projects through to shipment, invoicing and delivery of our Service solutions. This allows me to gain valuable experience and knowledge along with involvement within different business areas and I’m grateful for the opportunities this brings.

Having agility along with the ability to think on my feet is required and this enables me to solve problems that may arise to ensure we continue to provide high levels of customer satisfaction. As an example, we were recently presented with a challenge which required involvement from many colleagues across our Customer Centre. Working collaboratively, we resolved the issue and subsequently took delivery of a crucial parcel for a key customer. Despite this delivery being late into the night, our team showed dedication and commitment to the customer throughout. At Desoutter, whilst challenging ourselves and the status quo we help our customers to understand ‘the why’ in what they do whilst being able to provide the solution and I’m proud to play a part in that.

Atlas Copco Power Technique was exhibited at the 2023 PlantworX Exhibition, one of the UK's largest live, working construction events. The show is a ‘one-stop shop’ for construction professionals.  I was lucky enough to take part in the show where we are promoting our products, compressors, breakers and generators and had the opportunity to speak directly to our visitors and dealers and answer their questions about technical specifications, the capacity of the machines and whether they would be suitable for their needs.  Being part of a team of 6 who were on the stand was a great opportunity to meet a lot of new people and make new contacts.

My day-to-day job role involves me providing our customers with quotes and prices for our machinery, as well as answering questions and providing them with the right solution.  It means I have direct contact with the factory to do this and also with the sales team to support them.  I enjoy finding an answer for them and getting the right technical information to solve a  problem. I really enjoy talking with people and my job enables me to do this on a daily basis as well as collaborating with teams in the UK and other counties.

As a service coordinator, my basic responsibilities are to schedule the engineers' days and book our customers' service visits as and when they are due. We usually will take the customer's original call and assist with getting an engineer over to their machine as soon as possible in case of a breakdown. This means having good organisational skills, being able to multitask as well as proving high levels of customer service.

The part of my role I most enjoy would be communicating with my colleagues. This is a large part of making the day run as smoothly and efficiently as possible. I would say this because I work with a really great group of people. It can still be really challenging as things are constantly changing throughout the day and we do tend to be extremely busy but there is always someone there if I’m ever in need of any help.

I have recently taken on the position of a Field Service Engineer, and this entails attending different customer sites on a daily basis to carry out tasks such as calibrations, the servicing of equipment and repairs of their onsite DC tooling.

The thing I enjoy most about the job so far is that every day is different.  I am always working at different customer sites, and this enables me to interact with all of the customers which allows me to see different working environments and how the Atlas Copco equipment is used on site. My biggest challenge at the moment is familiarising myself with all of the DC products as there is a vast amount to learn as it is a very busy role, but in a good way!