Day 1

     We started off today with an amazing Finnish breakfast. I think it was more than any of us were expecting. This was not your traditional continental breakfast with bagels, cereal, a waffle maker, and some juice. We had eggs, porridge, doughnuts, multiple different types of bread, fruit salad, dried fruit, meatballs, coffee, tea, hot chocolate, 3 different juices, and an entire lunch meat station. It was unbelievable.

     Our first tour of the trip was to the Thermo Fisher facility in Vantaa which was one of the best office/research buildings I've ever been in. After we got our name tags we were brought into a conference room and were given a talk about the facility and what we were going to see today. We were also immediately offered more coffee, water, and these amazing apple pastries that, once we were told were straight out of the oven, we could not pass up. We learned that at this facility (that covered four blocks) is the major site for three Thermo Fisher divisions: clinical diagnostics, lab consumables, and microbiology. We were also told that they have refined their testing kits, as they called them, from these large, space consuming units to one that fit on a bench top. They had conveniently labeled the colors to these kits as blue for clinical and and green for industrial. The clinical kits are for things such as drug and protein assays where the industrial ones are for water/soil samples, the food and beverage industrial, and the pulp and paper industry. These kits take a sample of something and run them through a photometer and, by using lights at different wavelengths, tell you what is in that sample. They have also simplified them so that anyone can use it. We were then brought up to the lab to see these kits and to be given a better description of how they work. On our way there we saw an amazing break/lunch room at this facility that was complete with a person walking around giving people coffee. It was quite interesting. After another quick information session back in the conference hall, and after everyone learned the definition of a "bio break" (bathroom break), we were given a quick tour of how these kits are actually put together which was neat since the older versions of the kits are put together by one singular person where the newer kits are put together in an assembly line.

     We left the Thermo Fisher facility around 10 am and went to the Metso valve facility. This place was again one of the nicest places I've ever been to. It's amazing how much design goes into these buildings. Granted they are a lot newer than a lot of the facilities in the US but still. Here we were greeted by more coffee and tea and more coffee cake and fruit. We learned that more than 45% of Metso's valve business is actually in servicing the valves already in place. After learning quite a bit about all of the different valves that Metso produces for both the pulp, paper, and power industry and the oil and refining industry we were taken to a room that was set up as a display room for some of the valves that Metso makes at that facility. We were then taken for a trip around the actual manufacturing plant. This is where things got really interesting. At this point I , and at least half of our group, were only thinking that this place manufactured the small hand valves that we have all dealt with as co-op. We were wrong. This facility make not only those valves but valves that were up to 42 inches in diameter. This place was huge! There were so many people doing things from assembling putting together the actuators to control the valves, to grinding down the ball in a globe valve to make sure that it is perfect smooth, to dipping the valves in liquid nitrogen or lighting the valves on fire to make sure that they perform under the extreme conditions they could face on the job. There were even robots that moved pallets of parts around, and can sense when they are about to hit a human as we found out. After the tour we ate lunch at the factory's cafeteria. Again we were all amazed at the food selection. We told our guide Toni (male, not female) that we had never seen a cafeteria like this in one of our facilities back home. He seemed kind of surprised when Jon told him that he has bought lunch out of a vending machine before. It seems like the people of Finland may just not eat at home and come to work for the food since it only cost about 7 euros (9 US dollars) for a very large amount of food. We also talked to Toni about the difference in the schooling over here as compared to America and how the students over here pay (almost) nothing for school. Here is a picture of us outside of the valve facility:

 

 

      From here we went to the Metso pilot plant facility in Jarvenpaa. We weren't really sure what to expect when we came here. We were brought into a conference room, given more coffee and cake (don't worry we're being fed well), and were quickly given an overview of what Metso does as a company. It turns out that the two people who we met there both have worked in facilities around Maine such as Verso Androscoggin, New Page Rumford, and Verso Bucksport. This pilot plant facility has the ability to test for coating, calendering, web handling, reeling, and winding. This is the second largest location in Finland employing around 800 people. After our talk we were taken first to the paper testing lab, where they told us that this summer they are going to have a male "lab rat" in their for the first time in the 30 years of the facility, and then to the pilot plant. This machine is nothing like the pilot plant at UMaine. It is actually the same size if not bigger than the tissue machines at the mill I was in in North Carolina this past summer. It was really cool to see because what they make and test sometimes gets better results than what the real facility will produce. After our tour we went back to the conference room and talked a bit about our lives, what we want to do after college, and some more about the finish life. We learned that once a Finnish male turns 19 he enlists in the Finnish military for one year and then is a part of their national guard. It is a really interesting concept and our tour guides said that it forces kids to grow up a bit and start trying to figure out their lives. They said that about 6 months before a kid's 19th birthday you will start to see them running, and doing push-ups and trying to get in shape before they go off to training. This is a picture of us outside of the pilot plant:

 

     One thing that I have found so far is that everyone we have met has been quite funny. They are all very relaxed and not extremely formal but are also able to keep it very professional. It has really made these tours very enjoyable. The weather over here has been amazing so far and is looking like it is going to stay that way. We are still trying to get used to it being bright out at 10:30 but I think we'll get there.

--Nick Hart