Aline Heres-Treurniet moved from her college town of Enschede to Eindhoven just over five years ago, because her husband had started his PhD research there. In doing so, she left her network behind, which made finding a suitable job a bit harder. She already knew about ENTER and contacted the company and now she has been working on an interesting project through ENTER for five years. Aline: "That's a long time on one project, but the chemistry is still there, both with the customer and with ENTER."
Aline studied Biomedical Engineering, something she found very interesting and where she learned a lot. "But what could I do with it?" she wonders, laughing out loud. "The study matched subjects I was very good at and it was a combination of things I found interesting; biology and technology. But I didn't have a dream job in mind at the time. Knocking on ENTER's door opened up a world of possibilities for me. There turned out to be many more options than I had thought!"
Production environment
She knew that she preferred to work in a practical production environment. And so she ended up at a company where they specialize in transmission technology. "And that still clicks five years later," says Aline. "The department where I work does process research. We develop processes that are needed to make a product, dealing with both its optimization and processes for a new product. This once started very specifically with 1 product; pushbelts for transmission. A technology you can find very little in cars in Europe, but you do in Asia and the US, for example."
Meanwhile, she no longer works on that. "I am working on new developments only, such as electric motors and hydrogen applications. This is partly why I've enjoyed doing my work so much for the past five years. Developments have gone very fast precisely in those years," Aline says. "Working on an existing product provides more certainty and frameworks than working on a new product, but I personally like the latter better. It is more challenging and you also get much more space to come up with solutions yourself."
Every day is different
Asked what her day usually looks like, she thinks for a moment. Then she enthusiastically explains that actually every day is different. "My days are full of fun combinations of doing tests with a machine or a test set-up, lots of sensible consultations with colleagues and sometimes something less sensible haha. I have very nice colleagues and there is a very good atmosphere. That makes it totally worth going to the office."
She herself is a Process Engineer and her specialism is in the field of vision: visualizing defects, imperfections, by taking pictures. "Together with my colleagues, I work out experiments to draw conclusions. It's really all sorts of things and sometimes it’s like running a sprint, then there's something that should have been finished yesterday. But sometimes there is also time to dwell on something a bit longer."
The ultimate goal is to deliver products completely within the set standard at the end of the process. Aline: "And besides that, it's nice if that happens without too much cost, waste and time. So optimization is also important. I am currently working on a project that is quite far along, even though it was started recently. Well, a few years ago, but that's recent in my field. And with that, we are now at the stage where we can start mass production. That's the first thing I've been through a project from zero to the end here and that's cool..."
Proud
Earlier, she did start up a sub-process, so it is not the first one she has worked on from the beginning, but it is the first one that actually goes into production. "That does make me feel proud! In the day-to-day, you work from milestone to milestone, but when I zoom out like this, it's only when I see how much my colleagues and I have actually done."
Would she recommend others to also get started through ENTER? After five years, she knows the answer to that: yes! "When you just start working, so much comes at you. It's so different from studying. At ENTER they help you with that very well. You get your own manager with whom you can share things and they also offer a lot of courses that help you develop all kinds of skills that are useful in business." Aline has therefore taken a number of courses. "Not at the moment though, I have a 1.5-year-old child, why I have less time available. But I still have very good personal discussions with my manager René, who also keeps helping me move forward. He is also Talent Manager and internal coach at ENTER and that really adds value.