Thomas Krause, Project Manager Logistics, Production
Sonja Spohr, Engineering Trainee, Production
My name is Sonja Spohr and I'm an engineering trainee at Boehringer Ingelheim, where I’m preparing for a role as a production engineer in the chemicals department. My main task is to take care of the maintenance of the facilities for chemical production. This means organising repairs and ordering parts, as well as replacing defective components. I also attend meetings about daily and weekly schedules, safety briefings and exchanges with other production teams.
I studied environmental and process engineering, so the pharmaceutical industry was an obvious choice for me.
My working day begins with two so-called “morning rounds” in chemical production: representatives of the departments concerned with chemicals and technology discuss how the night went, whether there were any problem and what is on the agenda for the day or the week ahead. That is the day-to-day business I am involved in: maintenance. This always comes with organisational tasks such as ordering and replacing defective parts. As a trainee, I also participate in various appointments such as safety briefings, meetings about setting up equipment, or exchanges between production teams. That is one part of my working day. The other part is working on “my” projects, where I develop concepts for optimising existing facilities, and finalise them and implement them with help from engineering assistants.
I want to work in chemical-technical process engineering and pharmaceutical companies are an obvious choice for that. Working with the facilities here is what I always wanted to do and I really like it. It is important to me to contribute to people's well-being with my work. What also impressed me about Boehringer Ingelheim was that they were among the top employers several times.
What I find more fascinating than anything else is bringing theory and practice together. I work very closely with the production engineer and the engineering assistants. They contribute their practical experience and we try to combine that with the theoretical knowledge that I have acquired in my studies. I love that! I am also fascinated by the facilities themselves: I am happy to get to work in the morning and see the machines and the pipework! It is exciting that the theory works in practice – and produces a result in the end.
Chemical production, where I work, is a great environment: every single person is important; nobody is better or worse. Everybody has their tasks and relies on each other. If one part of the production chain fails, everything comes to a halt! This means that we support each other and we get along really well. That matters a lot to me. Having a job I love and contributing to more well-being and quality of life at the same time is like a lottery win. I could not have wished for a better start to my career!