2014 Industrial placement - Equipment Engineer
2016 Graduate Engineer
During my chemical engineering degree at Queen’s University Belfast I spent a year as an industrial placement student at Air Products. My role was as an equipment engineer based in Basingstoke. Returning as a graduate engineer a year later I assumed I would have a basic knowledge for my new job. However, having my first EDP assignment as part of distribution was a completely different experience and enormously educational.
As a distribution programme lead I am responsible for leading and assisting optimisation projects across the three business areas, package gases (PG), liquid bulk (LB) and cryoease (CE). These data driven projects focused on distribution, from product filling at Air Products depots to delivering the required product on time to a customer site.
As a chemical engineer, I admit I had not previously given much thought to the complexities associated with distribution and the work that is involved after a product is produced. For this reason, my first assignment was so useful to me.
Changing assignments each year as part of the graduate scheme is a great way to learn new skills and see different parts of the company. One of the best aspects of my first assignment was being given the responsibility and independence to run my own projects. Having to ensure the project team worked together to achieve the targets developed my confidence and team management skills. It was also extremely reassuring to know that I was surrounded by supportive people who were always ready to help.
My future goal is to achieve chemical engineering chartership but before that, I am looking forward to rotating through different assignments while on the graduate scheme.