Job Rotation, Day 4

A morning at the Tornio Research Centre (TRC)… I got to see all the machines they use to test samples when they come in from the different areas of the plant. We started off in the “mini meltshop”, they have an oven (which is hot enough to melt the steel to liquid) - it is a shame it’s not a mini Electric Arc Furnace like we have in Sheffield, but that’s just me living in a mini dream world! They also have a mini caster (which I have a photo of below), they can then hot or cold roll the steel into coils, and then they can also do other stuff… It’s very cool; it allows them to test all sorts of different processes and things.

(Mini caster)

We then went around the other labs and machines they use to look at the composition of the steel, some of which we have in Sheffield, but a lot of stuff I had never seen before… They also had 2 robots doing all the testing of samples, it seemed to take a lot of computer processing power to work out what to do next, but I think it was worth it, because it does so many samples a day, it saves people waiting around, wasting time.

We then got to see some of the offices, then the library where they have a full set of steel related books. They also have the “Tornio end” of the video conference system, it was nice to see the actual office in real life; it looks a lot bigger than it does on the screen!

I spent some time with the guy who did and support the wireless network in the Kemi Mine. There was plenty of documentation and diagrams to go through which I was very happy to go through. I wanted to learn how they get all of the VoIP phones and computers working half a kilometre under the ground. I also saw the systems they have to alert the staff, track the staff and the monitoring tools they use… It was spectacular!

I also spent some time with the VMware guy; he showed how Tornio run their VMware infrastructure, which again was very good. He did some demos for me to show me how they can move servers around using VMotion and gave me a few good ideas to take back to Sheffield. This is the end of the geek talk… Sorry for that.

I also moved into my new apartment today. This was a bit of a worry because the place I saw before was not great, but it might have been because there was no furniture in it yet… However the place I am in now is really nice and I have already made it feel like home. The first thing I did was lift the toilet seat… That was all I had to do to make it into a man’s apartment. It is a lot bigger than I thought it would be, and it’s got a washing machine. Oh yeah, and it’s got a swimming pool in this apartment too… I don’t know how it works, but the IT Manager also has an apartment here, so he’ll show me around on Monday!

Here are some pictures of my new digs…

(Standing on the bed)

(The entry door in on the right, bathroom is oposite)

(The kitchen with a 50/50 fridge freezer and stuff)

(Bathroom standing at the door)