GOOD WATER COMPLETE NEIGHBORHOODS GOES DIGITAL

Issue 8
A massive challenge when
Forsmark nuclear plant
GOES DIGITAL
Clean water in Tanzania with the help of
GOOD WATER
MIDROC RECRUITS
FOR THE FUTURE
This target minded duo is building
COMPLETE
NEIGHBORHOODS
WE LOVE
challenges
Photo: Hans Berggren
At Midroc, we’re driven by challenges. We see every
project as a challenge which we have to take on together.
Editor
Anna Ullenvik
Editorial staff
Anna Ullenvik, Susanne Hamne,
Anders Frelin, Sofia Franzén
Production
Det, Box 15416, 104 65 Stockholm
08-556 091 90, www.detsthlm.se
Art Director
AnneSofie Andréasson
Cover Photo
Gunnar Nydrén
Writers
Sofia Franzén, Anders Frelin
Repro/printing
Bildrepro Stockholm AB
Contact
Midroc Europe
Box 3002, 169 03 Solna
Sweden
Phone: 010-470 70 00
[email protected]
www.midroc.se
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Twice a year, my editors and I take on the challenge of bringing
you an interesting issue of LINQ. In this issue, several of the
articles are about challenges.
We start with a more general article where we try to answer
the questions on how humans actually tackle challenges and
what are the challenges we face in Sweden. But there are other
challenges to read about: work and everyday challenges that we
take on and that need an extra push here and there, as an employee,
as a company and with our clients, always helping us to get better
at what we do. At Midroc we believe that our challenges are what
make us grow.
Previously, we wrote about the preparations for Preem’s major maintenance shutdown and the efforts required to carry out maintenance
work as effectively and smoothly as possible. In September, the refinery
at Lysekil was shut down for five weeks – talk about a challenge!
In this issue you can read about how it went and what challenges they
faced along the way.
At Forsmark, the challenge was to digitize all maintenance documentation that the plant was required to keep, a sizeable job for all concerned.
Sofia Nilsson at Forsmark tells us about the significant amounts of work
with thousands of binders and around 60,000 drawings.
Another kind of more personal challenge is being taken on right now
by our lovely skiing friends Anna and Emil. Keep your fingers crossed
for them at the Sochi Winter Olympics. Read about their tough training
to meet their challenges and achieve success.
Getting clean water is a big challenge for many people around the
world. The Swedish company SolarWave and its photovoltaic technology
have succeeded in the challenge of providing children in an area of
Tanzania with safe drinking water. A worthy, but also tough challenge,
to which Midroc has contributed with our CSR work.
As I mentioned before, there are different kinds of challenges. Some of
them we take on, some of them we don’t. Good luck with yours!
Anna Ullenvik
Editor and Publisher LINQ
Corporate Communications Midroc Europe
Contents:
GETTING IT RIGHT IN SOCHI
We talked challenges with the cross country couple Anna Haag and Emil
Jönsson who have had a tough season run-up to the Sochi Winter Olympics.
In just a few days we’ll see the result of all that training.
FORSMARK NUCLEAR PLANT GOES DIGITAL
At Forsmark, major time savings are expected now that several years have been
spent digitizing over 60,000 drawings and several thousand binders’ worth of
maintenance documentation.
PERGAMUM DISCOVERS LEG ULCER CURE
Despite the fact that chronic and slow-healing leg ulcers have been increasing
exponentially worldwide, there has been virtually no medical progress made on
this front for decades. Until now. Pergamum’s study on peptide LL-37 is showing some very good results.
PROFILE: INGRID BOGREN LIKES NEW CHALLENGES
The desire to constantly evolve is a strong motivator for Ingrid Bogren, project
manager at Midroc Project Management. The fascination for learning new
things has pushed her forward and out into the world.
MIDROCK BUILDS WHOLE NEIGHBORHOODS
At Råby junction next to the E22 highway, a new neighborhood is emerging.
In the new World Trade Center in Lund, places of work, corporate accommodation and a parking garage have to combine with a large hotel.
GOOD WATER MAKES A DIFFERENCE
Nearly 800 million people around the world don’t have access to clean water.
Thanks to Swedish water purification technology and Swedish Corporate Social
Responsibility, dirty water is now being cleaned so that thousands of people in
the Morogoro region of Tanzania can drink their water.
RODOVERKEN – THE BIGGEST CONTRACTOR ON THE PREEM
MAINTENANCE SHUTDOWN
During just over a month, Preemraff Lysekil performed its most comprehensive
maintenance shutdown. At the same time, sizeable investments were made in
over a hundred different projects. With around 2,300 contractors and 450 of
Preemraff’s own personnel on site, this was one of the biggest shutdowns in
Europe.
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Here at Midroc, we firmly believe in the importance of working on continuous improvement.
By taking on challenges, we learn and grow. But how do we as humans really tackle challenges?
And what challenges do we face in Sweden?
TAKING ON A CHALLENGE
– let the noradre naline flow!
According to various measurements, Sweden
is one of the ten richest countries and one of
the most competitive countries in the world.
Not only that, it has one of the best business
climates. Sweden’s competitiveness also
looks good in terms of innovative capability
and strength. But in this globalized world,
with fast technological development and
rapid economic changes we need to quickly
adapt to the new market conditions. Currently, individuals, companies and countries
are constantly faced with new challenges.
A world in flux increases the need for new
solutions, and makes huge demands on
innovation and further development. At the
end of 2011, the Swedish government set up
a Future Commission with a mandate to
point out the key challenges facing Sweden
in the next few years. In the final report, which
came out in the spring of 2013, it notes that
Sweden’s competitiveness will increasingly
depend on knowledge supply, sustainable
product innovation, and smart and efficient
production processes.
Things change quickly
In the summer of 2012, Chinese Huawei,
overtook Swedish Ericsson as the world’s
biggest telecom systems company. China,
who used to be a low-wage country, is shifting towards increasingly advanced production, requiring higher and higher levels of
expertise with increased salary costs as a
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result. Meanwhile, in line with the development of production digitization and automation, fewer employees are able to produce
even more. The salary cost share of production costs is decreasing and instead the
demand for employee expertise is increasing.
This means that the profitability of moving
production to low-salary
countries has decreased. The trend is
turning toward cheaper
and more efficient
production at home.
The Future Commission’s final report concluded that the trend
for increased automation, robotization and digitization of production
processes will continue, and that this will
bring new opportunities and challenges for
individuals.
business, academic research and the public
sector, Midroc is actively contributing towards
increasing Sweden’s competitiveness.
The project goal is for Sweden to be the
leading nation in 2022 within IT industrial
processes and automation, he says.
There is absolutely no doubt about the
fact that we are
facing many future
challenges. But
these days as individuals, we rarely
face the kind of
life-threatening
challenges that has
pushed evolution
forward.
Chemically speaking, however, there isn’t
such a big difference – stress hormones are
secreted even if the challenge consists of a
work situation which we do not recognize.
But different stress hormones are released
by various types of stress. When we react
positively to a challenge, the concentrations
of adrenaline and noradrenaline increase. We
become more agile in our responses and
commitment which strengthens our focus,
endurance and performance. Basically, we
get extra powers.
But only to a certain extent. Our stress
system is designed for short term activation,
and returning to standby mode for recovery
is crucial. Overloading the stress mechanism
“A key factor for
success is to expect
challenges and
resistance.”
Investing in research and innovation
In order to strengthen Sweden’s competitiveness over the next few years, the state is
investing massively in research and innovation. A number of strategic innovation areas
have been selected for long-term funding to
develop sustainable solutions for global
societal challenges. Midroc’s own Christer
Wikström is on the board for one of the programs, IT Industrial Process and Automation.
– By investing in the interaction between
over a longer period causes problems, even
if you experience stress positively. The cortisol stress hormone, which is activated in
cases of acute danger and threats, activates
our survival instinct and shuts us down physically and mentally.
Great results require hard training
Tina Löfström is a psychological coach and
lectures on how thoughts and attitudes affect
motivation and performance. She says that a
key factor for success is to expect challenges
and resistance and to consider it as something positive and the basis for growth.
In the workplace, we naturally focus more
on the result than on the means of achieving
it. We set clear goals and work hard. But if
the result is not what we imagined, then there
is a great risk of losing motivation.
Compare with doing strength training: you
don’t give up if you don’t manage to lift the
set weight straight away. It is quite clear that
you’ll have to face some stiff resistance to
reach the objective, it’s going to be sweaty
and you’re going to feel sore. But since we
know that the tougher workouts get better
results, we consider training challenges as
something positive and motivating.
– At work, we aren’t as accustomed to that
mindset, that achieving good results requires
hard training. If, instead of seeing mistakes
as failures, we saw them as part of the process and an opportunity to learn and im-
prove, we would have much better chances
of achieving success, says Tina Löfström.
Different mindsets work differently
Carol S Dweck, ph. D. at Stanford University,
is a leading researcher in motivational psychology. In her book Mindset – the new
psychology of success, she describes how
two different mindsets — fixed or growth –
affect us humans and our ability to take on
challenges.
The fixed mind set is based on static intelligence and not something you can change.
In this case you tend to avoid setbacks, give
up easily, consider effort futile, ignore constructive criticism and feel threatened by other
people’s success. With a mindset like this,
there is a risk that your growth will stagnate.
If, on the other hand, you have a growth
mindset, you assume that intelligence can be
developed, fostering a need to learn and a
tendency to seek out challenges, persevere
in spite of adversity, see effort as a way of
succeeding, learn from constructive criticism
and learn and be inspired by the success of
others.
– Research shows that we often use both
mindsets, but in different areas. For example,
I can have a growth mindset for my training,
but a fixed mindset at work. If you want to
grow as an individual, then you have to identify the areas where you use the fixed mindset, says Tina Löfström.
Dare to take on challenges
Roger Wade, one of the executives of the
Midroc Europe Group says that people at
Midroc are working actively to create a climate that allows individual employees to
dare to take on new challenges.
– You can’t just control how somebody
thinks, but you can make sure that the environment makes it more fun to take on challenges and loads the word with positive
meaning. You can work on turning tough
spots into positive challenges.
Other people’s successes can be a source
of inspiration and growing together instead of
feeling threatened by the success of others is
something that Roger Wikström thinks is a
great concept for success, not only for individuals but also for business and nations.
– I think it boils down to the idea that even
as part of the bigger picture, we need to take
on challenges. We need to make sure that
common objectives are greater than our
personal goals, not just within private companies, but also between companies. We all
have a great responsibility to make sure that
Sweden stands out from the competition
even in the future, but also to ensure that we
have the vision of how we can contribute to a
better future.
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Photo: Jonas Kullman
It’s all starting in just a few days, and they
have to get it right In Sochi and we’ll see the
result of all that training. Just as we’re talking
about challenges with the cross-country
skiing couple Anna Haag and Emil Jönsson,
they are right in the midst of the beginning of
the season’s tough training in their hometown of Östersund.
Breakfast, training, lunch, rest, snack,
training, dinner, answering emails and evening snack. Then it’s time to go to bed to cope
with the same schedule the very next day.
Later in the winter, they will move south to
their second home in Davos. Here at 1 500
meters above sea level in the Alps, the same
schedule applies for training, food and rest.
Everything just to be in the best shape for the
world cup and the tough high-altitude courses
at the Sochi Olympics.
– Our life is very structured, but also quite
free, says Anna Haag, she continues: we can
be outside a lot and training is just the best
thing ever. When the weather is good, it’s
amazing. When the weather is bad, it’s horrible in the beginning and then it becomes
fantastic, and you’re really happy when you
come inside.
What is your biggest challenge at the
Olympics?
EJ: In the last Olympics, I was shocked by
how huge everything around the competitions was. So much security, so many journalists, everything takes seven times longer
than in a normal World Cup competition.
– The challenge is to stay focused on the
competitions, to maintain peak performance
despite all the surrounding distractions. At
Sochi, we have to be in the best shape possible. Then there’s a chance of a medal.
Where are the biggest challenges in a race?
EJ: There aren’t various challenges in various parts of a race, it’s just hell all the way
through. No matter the distance, your body
is shouting at your head: “stop, lie down and
rest”. The challenge is to force yourself on, to
push beyond what you really think you can
do. And sometimes, the body surprises your
head by coping with more than what you
thought it could. The aim is to deceive your
own body.
It’s hard to imagine a greater challenge than succeeding in the Olympics. For the cross-country
skiing couple Anna Haag and Emil Jönsson, it will all become real in just a few days.
– At Sochi, they have to be in the best shape possible. Then there’s a chance of a medal, says Emil.
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Photo: Jonas Kullman
Getting it
right in Sochi
Do you see challenges everywhere?
AH: Yes, unfortunately, we find it difficult to
do anything second rate. Either what we do
is time-efficient, or very good. I wish I could
take some things lightly sometimes and not
always want to do things perfectly. Like when
I was studying, if only I could have been
happy with a pass grade, but I just couldn’t
do it.
Or when I cook, it’s rarely just some concoction, I have to experiment my way around
and try and make it perfect. Sometimes, it’s
not even edible. But at the same time, I want
to have challenges.
EJ: Yes, regardless of whether I’d be a bus
driver, or do anything else, I would like to be
as good as possible at it, I’d set a goal. With
all the competitions and results, it is easy to
create challenges in the sporting world.
We happily set goals for everything we do.
It shouldn’t be some kind of dream goal that’s
impossible to achieve, though it shouldn’t be
too easy either. You have to fight to reach it, it
should be some kind of challenge, that sets
us both off.
world right now. And after the Olympics,
there’s the World Cup at home in Falun, then
there are only two years to the World Cup in
Lahti and then just one year to the next
Olympics. So our focus will be on skiing for
at least another four years.
Seeing as both of you are competitive,
have you ever locked horns with each
other?
EJ: It’s a good thing that we have to compete
all through the winter. That means that we’re
not quite so competitive when we are by
ourselves. We don’t need to race each other
to the door.
AH: Though we do avoid board games like
Monopoly. And it’s a good thing that we don’t
have to compete against each other on the
tracks.
How does working together and being together all day round affect the relationship?
EJ: We do spend a lot of time with each
other if you compare with many others. We
travel together, run a business together, live
together, and train together. At the same
time, our training is our quality time. We have
time to talk and discuss anything that bothers
us or if something is wrong.
AH: We also try to separate our professional life from our everyday life. If we’re
sitting down for dinner or going out to eat,
then we never talk about training, there’s just
no way. It’s an unspoken rule. And if someone breaks it, they’ll get the stink eye.
Has creating your own team been a
challenge?
EJ: Yes and no. It’s a challenge to make the
team as good as possible. We do help sponsors, like Midroc, with talks on health and our
experience based on training and skiing. We
want to do that as well as possible.
– But above all, the team and sponsors
really help our effort to the top. Anna and I
both think that it’s more fun to do things
together. Both training together and having
the team together. It’s great to get endorsements from companies that help us to realize
our dream.
You’re building your own house now, in
what way is it a challenge?
EJ: Oh my God, yes, we’ve had house building-dreams for five years. We bought the
land on Frösön two years ago and construction began last fall. The architect promised
us that it would be our dream house. Control
freaks that we are, we had a hard time believing it, but he was actually right. We considered changing the sketches but always
come back to his plans.
We just have to realize that there are some
people who are actually better than us at
some things! When we move in this summer,
from the hillside in the woods, we’ll be able to
see over the whole lake and the mountain
tops that will soon be covered in snow.
››FOLLOW ANNA AND EMIL’S PROGRESS ON
THEIR BLOG: ANNAOEMIL.SE
Anna Haag
How do you handle challenges that you
weren’t able to meet?
AH: I try and use it as fuel for challenges
ahead. You learn from it, and try to do even
better next time.
Born: 1986
Anna, you had a long slump following
your success at the Vancouver Olympics
before getting back onto a podium in Val
di Fiemme. What did you learned from it?
AH: The fact that I ended up there and didn’t
succeed was because I made mistakes
along the way. I had to go back and try to find
out what it was. It can be anything from the
training set up to how you prepare mentally.
Have I been training too much or too little,
with too much or too little speed, etc.
There are a great many things, which I am
now trying to optimize in order to be prepared
for the season and for the Olympics.
Medals:
• Olympic silver in Vancouver in 2012, in
pursuit and team sprint
• Liberec World Cup 2009, bronze, relay
• Holmenkollen World Cup 2011, silver, relay
• Val di Fiemme World Cup, 2013, silver, relay
You have extensive advance planning –
do you see any challenges after your
skiing career?
EJ: I do sometimes long for a regular job,
but I’ll get to it, everything in its own time.
We won’t be able to compete at elite level in
skiing our whole lives. Right now, it’s 100
percent skiing – we want to be the best in the
Club: IFK Mora
Raised: In Orsa, Sweden
Lives: Since 2006 in Östersund and since
2011 also in Davos, Switzerland
Club: IFK Mora
Emil Jönsson
Born: 1985
Raised: In Årsunda, Sweden
Lives: Since 2006 in Östersund and since
2011 also in Davos, Switzerland
Medals:
• Holmenkollen World Cup, 2011, bronze,
sprint
•V
al di Fiemme World Cup, silver, team sprint
• He has 13 individual World Cup victories
running up to this season
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“We won’t see the full
effect until the next
maintenance stop
next summer.”
Forsmark nuclear plant
GOES DIGITAL
For a large business like Forsmark nuclear plant, required to save a lot of documentation, the
archives quickly become overcrowded. However, after several years of work, 60,000 drawings
and several thousand binders with maintenance documentation have now been digitized.
At Forsmark, major time savings are expected.
About twenty kilometers north of Öregrund
on the Uppland coast lies Forsmark, Sweden’s
newest nuclear power plant. Forsmark has
three reactors, all of which were commissioned
in the 1980s. Over 1,700 people work there.
Nuclear power plants are subject to high
safety and maintenance requirements. Maintenance stops are performed yearly and the
reactors are shut down for several weeks to
undergo maintenance, fuel-switching, modernizations and government-required safety
tests.
Nuclear power plants are also required to
save a lot of their documentation. Over the years,
the maintenance documentation has grown and
the archive contains many
thousands of binders and
about 60,000 drawings.
– Documentation is
completed after every
project and every maintenance stop. And we have regulatory requirements we have to fulfill.
All original documents have to be protected
and preserved, says Sofia Nilsson, Group
Manager for support and training in the document department at Forsmark.
Previously, the bulk of the documents was
only available in physical form. One of the
disadvantages of filing on paper is that the
paper gets worn when the document from
the original archive is used, and maintenance
documentation in the archive is subject to
heavy use.
It’s also very time consuming to look for
and fetch physical documents. Safety at a
nuclear plant is rigorous, which means that a
trip to the archive can take some time.
– The archive is located a short distance
away and you need to go through security
checks to get through.
That’s why a few years ago Forsmark
began a major digitization project in which
maintenance documentation and all the
plant’s drawings were digitized. Sebastian
Wedmalm from Midroc Project Management
was hired as project manager.
In practical terms, they were forced to hire
a company that scanned in all documents.
– After that, we used an import tool that
conjured up the files into our document management system, says Sofia Nilsson.
A lot of investigative work
The imported files are in Pdf-A1 format, which
is considered archiveproof by the National
Archives.
– We will consider the
digital pdf file as a conservation copy, which means
that we no longer need to
save the original.
Even from a security
view point, the digitization
will really make daily work easier.
– Things will be much easier for us now to
control who gets to see what. Going through
all the material has been an enormous
amount of work.
– There has been a lot of investigative
work, various departments have handled
their documents in different ways. Sometimes, for example, to be on the safe side a
little good-to-have piece of paper has been
stuffed into the binder that may not actually
belong there.
– This project has given us an opportunity
to sync operations between our various departments and get better organized.
But it hasn’t been completely pain-free.
Getting a whole organization used to new
processes is a challenge.
– People are used to their way of working
and it can feel safe to put your pieces of
paper in a binder just like you always have.
“Getting a whole
organization used
to new routines is
a challenge.”
Sofia Nilsson
Job: Acting Group Manager for FGCU,
Forsmark, joint service, Documentation,
training development and support
Lives: In Östhammar, Sweden
Leisure: Likes to work out a lot (crossfit,
bodypump, running) and cooking
Listens to: Adrenaline-fueled music
when I work out like Scooter and Dead by
April otherwise, I like the quiet
Drives: A Saab
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Photo: Kerstin Karussei
Family: Two sons
Before new processes are adopted, some
people will find that the new way of working is
time consuming.
However, at Forsmark the digitization is
expected to bring major time savings and
efficiency improvements.
For the maintenance department, this will
make work easier now that the system is
searchable right down to a detailed level like
individual pumps and valves. In terms of
drawing revisions, the time savings have been
calculated at two hours for each drawing.
– We won’t see the full effect until the next
maintenance stop this summer, but we know
that for example many plant projects are
usually down in the archive so we’ll be able to
retrieve the document before the maintenance
stop. This is going to be a huge help for them.
A lot of hours have been sunk into this
project, but in the long run, we expect to earn
back those hours, says Sofia Nilsson.
FACTS Forsmark
• Forsmark is Sweden’s newest nuclear
power plant and the three reactors were
commissioned in 1980, 1981 and 1985.
• The plant has about 1,150 employees.
• The maximum annual production is
close to 26 billion kilowatt hours, representing about 20% of Swedish electricity
production.
• 66% of Forsmark is owned by Vattenfall,
25.5% by Mellansvensk Kraftgrupp of
which Fortum is the biggest owner, and
by E.ON who owns 8.5%.
• The nuclear power plant is around 150
km northeast of Stockholm, on the
Uppland coast in northern Roslag.
• Production capacity: 20 – 25 TWh/year.
• Installed power: 3 140 MW.
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Asset Management Consultant at Midroc Project
Management, who works with maintenance issues at
Forsmark nuclear power plant and Boliden among others.
You managed the digitization project at
Forsmark nuclear power plant, why did you
invest in digitizing all the documentation?
– We are increasingly becoming a digital
world. In order to make full use of maintenance systems, digital documentation is
essential. Work becomes much easier when
you can send instructions and drawings
along with the job order.
How does it affect daily maintenance work?
– The access to documentation increases
and makes work simpler. If something breaks
down, you need to have the documentation
as soon as possible. It will also make it easier
for those who prepare maintenance jobs to
find the right document. If you have everything properly managed in a database, you
can sit anywhere and carry out preparatory
work and don’t need access to an archive.
Is it common to implement this type of
project in Sweden today?
– Many large industries probably have
digitized documentation, with access to both
paper files and their digital counterparts.
Many of them digitize in retrospect. If you
build a new plant, then it’s easier, you can set
completely different requirements on how to
get your new documentation. However, in
the case of a 20 year old plant, you don’t
have that luxury.
But isn’t it very costly to digitize all documentation?
– It is cost effective to hire a company that
digitizes a large amount of documents at a
time. When changes need to be made in the
drawing, there is already a digital, vectorized
file available instead of the employees themselves handling the process each time a
change has to be made.
Could you say that digitizing paper originals is a matter of course today?
– In my opinion, I believe that younger
employees will make it a requirement. A
digital copy is expected. That’s how they are
used to working and there are also significant
advantages to avoiding fetching the physical
drawings or other pieces of documentation
from a physical archive. There’s time, money
and access to save here!
››READ ABOUT THE CONSULTING TEAM’S
WORK ON THEIR BLOG: MIDROCBLOGG.SE/
ASSETMANAGEMENT/
Midroc Project Management delivers to one of
Sweden’s largest
wind power projects
Nordisk Vindkraft is now one of Sweden’s
largest wind farms. Midroc Project
Management have been awarded the turnkey contract to deliver the two wind power
stations that make up the farm’s hub.
Close to Sidensjö in Västernorrland, Nordisk
Vindkraft is building a 144 MW wind farm
with 48 wind turbines.
– Wind power and green energy is always
interesting, and we are incredibly proud to
have been entrusted with the delivery of a
turnkey contract to Nordisk Vindkraft, says
Magnus Rosén, unit manager and project
manager at Midroc Project Management.
Once the plant is ready, it should produce
10
400 gigawatt hours of electricity annually.
The end customer is the German Stadtwerke München and the plant is expected to
provide 160,000 households with electricity.
Midroc Project Management’s assignment
is to deliver the two 130/33 kV stations that
transform energy from the wind farm into
130 kV of electricity.
– It’s a very interesting project with high
standards of technical expertise and quality
and it’s also the first time we have taken on
such a big project. It means a lot to us, and it
will create many jobs.
Construction work started in 2013 and
Midroc Project Management’s part of the
project will be delivered in 2014.
Photo: Midroc
HELLO...
...Sebastian
Wedmalm
MIDROC PROPERTY DEVELOPMENT CREATES
Tomorrow’s office
Forget about open plan and closed cubicles stereotypes. In the office of the future, surroundings
will vary and look different depending on the different activities.
In Alléhuset in the World Trade Center in
Lund, the office of the future is being built.
Midroc is using a new way of thinking to build
a workplace for the 225 employees at Consafe
Logistics.
Gone is the open plan office. Long since
gone are the traditional cubicles where each
individual employee had a space of their own.
The new way of building offices is based
on ABW (Activity based
working). The ideas started
in the CoCon-offices in
Holland in the 1980s where
individual employees still
had their own place but
there were also other
environments created for
different activities.
With ABW, your own
place is gone; you have a base with a locker
and a laptop, but no desk. Instead, you move
around the different environments depending
on the work you have to do.
– When you come into the office, you arrive
in the lounge which is a public space with a
reception, a waiting area for visitors and
maybe a café, says Mikael Strand, business
manager at Midroc Property Development.
Then if you want to sit in a meeting, there
are several different types of rooms for that, if
you want to do more focused work, there are
workrooms, or you can be even more secluded in the library, and so on. The environment you choose and how often you change
that environment depends on the kind of
work you need to do. Some people might
swap their environment several times a day,
some might stay put because there is no
need to change. It’s all about finding the best
environment for the task you have at hand.
– More and more companies are looking
into ABW, also as a way to strengthen their
brand. Naturally, this goes hand in hand with
a digital workplace. It means that you no
longer need a permanent work station. Now,
where you work depends more on the situation, says Mickael Strand.
Nothing is mine” and “everything is ours”
Midroc has already started to apply the ideas
at their own offices
in Malmö.
In Lund it’s being
tested out for the
first time with another client. This
way of building
offices can also be
a way of creating a
culture change
within a company, says Peter Syrén,
executive vice President of Midroc Property
Development.
– We’re going to adopt the idea that
“nothing is mine” and “everything is ours”.
The idea of having a base and then moving
around in different environments is one that
people will recognize from high school, says
Peter Syrén.
– You had your locker with your books,
your gear and then you went to the gymnasium for PE, and to the lab for physics.
– At ABW offices, you have PE, physics
and chemistry all on the same premises, but
in different environments.
The paperless office was predicted long
ago, but it will probably remain a pipe dream.
On the other hand, the amount of paper has
decreased thanks to the digital changes.
Using an eReader or another type of screen,
you are always connected and more mobile.
“The environment
you choose
depends on the job
you need to do.”
Previously archived
information on paper
can now be saved digitally.
For Midroc, who
manages real estate
and build offices, it’s all
about a new way of
building offices, and
about a long-term and
sustainable approach. If you rent out a more
modular environment, then the need for the
company to change premises if the business
changes is not as great.
Previously, when a company wanted to
grow, they would rent larger premises. With
ABW you are no longer limited to “one person,
one work station”.
Currently, presence at their own desk
among employees in Swedish offices is
around 30 and 50 percent. If you build a work
station for each person present, you would
have half as many places as employees.
– But it’s not about that, it’s about the
flexibility. If you don’t build with “one person,
one work station” in mind but design an
environment that supports the business,
then the environment will work anyway, regardless of whether your numbers fluctuate.
That’s how to make it sustainable.
Previous ways of working, like for example
during the dot.com bubble or in telemarketing
companies, have created transient ideas on
how offices should be built. However, Peter
Syrén rejects the idea that activity based
working offices would have the same short
lifespan.
– This is not a trend, but the flexibility and
a long-term approach make it a wise and
sustainable approach to building offices.
11
Pergamum
discovers
leg ulcer cure
Chronic slow-healing leg ulcers are growing exponentially worldwide. Yet virtually no
medical progress has been made in the field for decades. Until now. Pergamum recently
completed a study on peptide LL-37 which shows very good results for slow-healing ulcers.
– Leg ulcers, previously deemed unable to heal at all, had healed completely in 10 weeks,
says Göran Linder, CEO of Midroc New Technology.
Photo: Pergamum
Pergamum develops medical products based on therapeutic peptides, endogenous substances in the skin
and tissues. Therapeutic peptides that are part of our natural immune system have several active properties – they heal ulcers, prevent scarring and are anti-inflammatory.
for LL-37 worldwide is over EUR 600 million
in annual sales.
– We only invest in world-enhancing technologies and pioneering ideas. We see enormous potential in Pergamum’s peptides,
both in the help they can give people and the
market, says Göran Linder, CEO at Midroc
New Technology.
Pergamum develops drugs based on
therapeutic peptides which are endogenous
substances found in skin
and tissues. Therapeutic
peptides are part of our
natural immune system
and have several active
properties – they are ulcer
healing, prevent scarring
and are anti-inflammatory.
They also have properties that allow them to
knock out bacteria so quickly that the microbes don’t have time to develop resistance. Pergamum’s drug candidate based on
peptide LL-37 has the potential to be the first
in a brand new class of drug for slow-healing
leg ulcers. In a phase 2 study, 34 patients
suffering from venous leg ulcers were treated
either with a placebo or with any of three
different doses of a LL-37 gel formulation.
“Six times the
healing speed
with LL-37.”
Big market potential
Pergamum believes that the market potential
12
The results showed that the ulcer healing
speed for patients who were given the optimal
LL-37 dose was approximately 6 times higher
compared with those who were given the
placebo.
The study also showed that LL-37 is safe,
tolerated and not associated with any serious
side effects.
Unusually successful results
For leg ulcer drugs, it can be difficult to
demonstrate the effects statistically because
you often see improvements even in patients
treated with placebo. This is due to the fact
that many leg ulcers are undertreated and
improve thanks to the extra care involved in
a clinical study. To get a sample where leg
ulcers are actually slow-healing, Pergamum
decided to first treat all patients with placebo.
Only those who didn’t show clear improvements despite this were selected for the study.
– In patients who were given the most
effective dose of LL-37, you could see signs
of healing after only a week, and some ulcers
that were deemed chronic had healed completely by the last follow-up visit. I have never
heard of such a small study producing such
unequivocal results. Now we’d like to find a
Photo: Pergamum
Slow-healing leg ulcers can be hugely debilitating for individual patients, and they are a
major problem for the health care system
today. This area of disease is in need of new
treatment methods, and there is major
worldwide interest in new drugs. There are
currently at least 15 million patients worldwide. The number of unreported cases is
believed to be very high and the number of
patients is expected to increase significantly.
In Latin America for example, leg ulcers caused by
diabetes are more and more
common. Diabetes is increasing dramatically worldwide and means that even
the complications that arise
after a prolonged illness like
diabetes are on the rise too, says Jonas
Ekblom. CEO of Pergamum, one of Midroc
New Technology’s portfolio companies. In a
WHO report, diabetes is set to increase, at
least until 2025. Slow-healing leg ulcers are
most common common in older people, and
the world’s population is increasingly aging.
Photo: Midroc
Jonas Ekblom, CEO of Pergamum AB.
Göran Linder, CEO of Midroc New Technology.
Of the patients who got the most effective LL-37 dose, you could see signs of ulcer healing after only a week.
big pharmaceutical company with muscles
to either sell them the company, or the drug
rights, says Göran Linder.
three different phase 2 studies, and all three
have showing positive results. In addition to
LL-37, the PXL01 peptide which prevents
scarring in hand surgery for example, and
DPK-060, used to treat auditory canal inflammation, also showed good results.
– We have now three studies and all of
them show that the endogenous peptides
have many excellent therapeutic properties,
which proves that it really works. None of the
others have, says Göran Linder.
– It is very unusual to have three such
successful phase 2 studies in the same
company and we are very excited about it.
Getting to this point was always our business
goal, says Jonas Ekblom.
The next phase, phase 3, will cost hundreds
Having positive results in phase 2 is a key
prerequisite
– Clinical phase 2 is in my view the part of the
work which is strategically the hardest. There
are plenty of things to take into consideration:
how long the study will be, what kind of
patients should be treated, how many many
to treat in relation to the budget. The fewer
the patients, the harder it is to get statistically
significant differences.
Phase 2 studies often don’t succeed the
first time, says Jonas Ekblom. At Pergamum
this year, there have been no fewer than
of millions of Swedish crowns.
– Generally speaking, it’s not possible to
perform phase 3 studies with venture capital
financing. The costs are simply too high. Here
you have to have a strong industrial partner,
and that is where we are now, looking for a
good partnership says Jonas Ekblom.
Ernst & Young have been hired as business consultants and the search has begun.
– We are in talks with several pharmaceutical companies. A number of international
companies, and we have intensified the
process and identified a few that we want to
look into further. Our objective is to identify
to find a small group of likely Pergamum
buyers in the first quarter of 2014, says
Göran Linder.
13
Ingrid Bogren
is always up for
new challenges
“ I’m a competitive
person and that’s
a trait I have on
the job.”
The desire to constantly evolve is a strong motivator for Ingrid Bogren,
project manager at Midroc Project Management. The fascination for
learning new things has pushed her forward and out into the world;
in her career and her private life. At work, she has recently completed
a prestigious assignment – and in her spare time, Ingrid is an
international table tennis umpire.
A year and a half ago, Ingrid Bogren started
her job at Midroc Project Management. She
describes starting at Midroc as a real kick
with plenty of opportunities to grow.
And it was precisely those growth opportunities that made her focus on energy technology early on in her career. She wanted to
work in a field where you could constantly
learn new things.
– I studied at Chalmers Lindholmen, and I
really found energy technology fun. That’s
where I really had my eyes opened to power
boilers. There are so many different areas
within this field – process, mechanical design, electricity and instrumentation and
construction. That’s the kind of thing I find
hugely exciting.
Ingrid enjoys the fact that it’s a complex
and broad field, a field you can’t get a handle
on straight away.
– You are constantly faced with new challenges and learn something new every day.
Ingrid Bogren
Job: Project Manager at Midroc Project
Management. Currently a consultant at
E.ON
Leisure interests: Table tennis, travel,
seeing friends
Listens to: Right now a lot of Amy McDonald and Michel Teló, otherwise it is
pretty varied; I listen to most stuff, especially Swedish pop
14
Photo: Niklas Olsson
Lives: In Mölndal, Sweden, together with
my husband
Swedish table tennis champion
Challenges also drive Ingrid in her private life.
She has played table tennis at elite level and
in 1991 she took national gold in the Junior
group, and as a senior she has played in the
top series. Now, she plays more sporadically
for BTK Linné; there are some occasional
appearances in division 1, and she tries to
take part in the Veteran Championship each
year. She gives free rein to her table tennis
interests as an umpire.
– I’ve been both a player and a coach. I
thought it was fun, but I wanted to try to be
an umpire too. I want to challenge myself and
go further the whole time. I like the feeling of
being on shaky ground and trying out new
things. I think the feeling you get when you’ve
nailed something that you first felt unsure
about is amazing.
Perserverance – a recipe for success
– You have to give it time, don’t give up if it
gets tough. I’m a competitive person and
that’s a trait I have on the job. But there are
probably pros and cons to that. The desire to
succeed is always there, but sometimes the
opportunity isn’t. Then it can be tough to
make high demands on yourself.
Ingrid began umpiring at district level in
1995, and she has been an international
table tennis umpire since 2001.
– It’s a real break from everything else you
do in everyday life. You get to travel around
the world and it’s really fun.
She recently umpired a World Tour competition in Las Vegas and was also one of the
umpires at the Guangzhou World Cup in
China, 2008. You don’t become an international table tennis umpire to get rich. She has
to pay for all her own travel costs, and it’s time
consuming, so it’s usually one or two international competitions a year. When there are
Swedish top series matches in Gothenburg,
she’s also involved with umpiring.
PROFILE
A professional challenge
Consultants from Midroc Project Management have been working since 2008 on a
project dealing with E.ON’s investment in
modernizing CHP plants. In the autumn of
2012, the Åby plant suffered a fire, and Ingrid
was charged with making a timetable to get
the plant going again. She stayed as a consultant in the reconstruction project, as a
subproject manager for mechanics and fire
restoration.
In August 2013, a parental leave substitution higher up in the organization made it
possible for the company to move their managers up a step. That’s when Ingrid was
given a unique opportunity and a professional challenge. She was entrusted by E.ON
to step in as a facility manager at the Åby
plant in Örebro for a time. The role means
that she has full responsibility for operation
and maintenance planning as well as investment and audit planning.
It’s not that usual for a consultant to get
that kind of responsibility, and it’s an assignment she’s proud of.
– I have a lot of experience in the work
itself, but it’s definitely a challenge to go from
a project you manage yourself to being inside
another company with everything that entails,
such as new processes and systems. At the
same time, it is very exciting and plenty of
fun, and I feel great here. It is a lovely place
with good atmosphere.
15
Midroc recruits for the
FUTURE
A large portion of Swedish industry is facing a major generation shift. Many companies have
trouble tempting young people with enough attractive jobs or, as in the case of Midroc Automation,
connecting with sufficiently experienced engineers. To meet the challenge, the company has started
a trainee program.
Great interest in the program
The average age at the company is around
42. Although it’s not an alarmingly high average, the company has still decided to get
ready for the next generation shift.
– We can handle the situation now, but we
need more people to deal with future challenges. We are in an industry that is growing
and we keep getting requests for new assignments, says Linda Mägi, HR Business
partner at Midroc Automation and in charge
of the program.
The trainee program, that started just over
two years ago, had just five trainees in the
first round. There was plenty of interest in
participating in the second round starting
last fall. Over 150 students applied, and
eleven of them were accepted.
The 18-month program is split into three
sections: electrical design, programming
and project management. Those who have
been admitted to the program have been
hired directly in Stockholm, Gothenburg,
Sandviken, Trollhättan, Kiruna, Gävle and
Karlstad.
Regardless of whether you later choose to
work as a design engineer, programmer or
project manager, you need to know a bit
about all three areas.
— For example, to become a talented
project manager, you have to understand
16
both how a design engineer and a programmer work, says Linda Mägi.
Beate Ukvitne is one of the participants on
the trainee program. She’s gone straight to
work in Trollhättan doing cable installation
drawings for new lines at Volvo. These are
drawings that will be used by the on-site assembly team to connect external equipment.
Beate agrees that you have to get an overall picture.
– The opportunity to try out different areas
of work is one of the reasons I applied to the
trainee program. If, for instance, I work in the
future with programming, then my work will
be so much easier if I also have construction
knowledge.
One of the ways of increasing experience
among employees in an industrial company
is to attract people from competitors or other
companies in the area. But that’s not what
Midroc Automation wants to do. Instead, the
company chooses to work on a long-term
recruiting approach.
– Attracting young people with higher
education is a better way to build long-term
experience than to buy or “steal” people from
other companies, says Linda Mägi.
– Work is going to become more and more
sophisticated and we need to get more people with higher education. Those who start
as trainees gain experience and become
really good after a while so It also makes sure
that we have a good range of ages.
Attracted by the scope
The projects on which Automation works can
be all over the world. Linda Mägi believes it’s
the scope that attracts young people to
apply to the company.
– We’ve just started a new project in
Indonesia that deals with remotely operating
an underground mine. This kind of project is
exciting and even if you’re in Sandviken, you
can be a part of something bigger, says
Linda Mägi.
Automation’s business strategy is to have
both small local projects and a number of
large customers who are on all the time. The
company aims to have the strength to be
able to take on a big customer like ABB for
instance.
– The scope we have generates cohesion
and there is also the opportunity to choose,
based on which stage of life you’re in, if you
want to work on small-scale local projects or
if you want to set out into the more global
picture, says Linda Mägi.
››NEXT APPLICATION PERIOD IS SPRING
2015, STARTING FALL 2015. MORE INFO ON:
MIDROCAUTOMATION.SE
FAKTA Midroc Automation
•Midroc Automation is a division of Midroc Electro.
•Automation is about letting machines or technology perform the work.
Typical Midroc Automation assignments include:
•Switching control system for traffic management in the Lundby tunnel in Gothenburg. This
involves design engineering, programming, switching the system, upgrading software and
advanced verification handling for individual shifts.
•Performing remote control, traffic management and production management systems for mining
production at the Freeport mine in Papua New Guinea. This involves systems analysis, programming, assembly management and hardware design.
•Making a process control system for Coca-Cola in Sweden. This involves design engineering,
programming and commissioning.
From top left: : Marco Valdivia, Joel Öhrling, Marcus Slogén, Jonas Enerbäck, Magnus Greppe,
Daniel Ristic, Elvedin Kovac, Beate Ukvitne, Marcus Jorholm, Kristina Silverbåge, Kalle Larsson
Photo: Midroc
Engineers are currently one of the most
sought after professional groups on the
Swedish job market. Many companies face
significant challenges connecting with engineers, and especially engineers with experience, now that the industry is both growing
and facing a major generation shift.
To deal with the issue, Midroc Automation
has launched a trainee program.
Around 170 engineers work at the company spread across the country from Malmö
in the south to Kiruna in the north. The assignments, mainly dealing with industrial
automation, can be anything from switching
the control system to how traffic is routed in
the Lund-by tunnel in Gothenburg or remote
controlling mining operations on Papua New
Guinea.
➊ Why did you apply to the trainee program?
➋ What are you working on as a trainee?
➌ What are you hoping the program will lead to?
Beate Ukvitne, Trollhättan
➊ – Because the program provides opportunity for training, to test different areas of
work and to get the support of a mentor. It
gives a great start into the world of work as
a graduate engineer!
➋ – Right now, we’re doing the design engineering section of the trainee program and
we’ve started familiarizing ourselves with the
program’s electrical plan (electrical design).
For example, I have done cable installation
drawings for the new lines at Volvo. I also got
to try out working in the workshop to see the
reality of what I designed.
➌ – In-depth knowledge in the fields of electrical design, programming and project management. To get an overview of the whole
“process” of working on automation projects, which I believe is important to have.
Marcus Slogén, Trollhättan
➊ – Because it gives you a good introduction to professional life as an automation
engineer, then you get the chance to get
involved in different work areas (design engineering, programming, and project management) before deciding to commit wholeheartedly to one area.
➋ – Right now we’re working on design
Jonas Enerbäck, Mölndal
➊ – As a recent graduate, it’s difficult to
know exactly what you want to work with.
Here I get to try different roles in the company
and find a spot where I feel comfortable. The
program’s emphasis is placed not only on
technical aspects but also on project accounting and project management which I
think sounds intriguing.
engineering. I get to try creating drawings
and other documentation required to ultimately produce a physical product. I also
interned in the workshop.
➋ – I’m currently working on a traffic control
➌ – To acquire a broad knowledge base for
an understanding of how all of Midroc
Automation works as a company.
my professional life as an engineer, and that I
already have the beginnings of a contact
network within the company.
system for the world’s largest copper and
gold mine in Indonesia.
➌ – I hope that during the program I get
17
Midroc builds
“Cooperation at all
levels, between all
parties involved.”
WHOLE NEIGHBORHOODS
Daring to build a new hotel right in the middle of the recession may seem like a challenge and
require plenty of courage. Not if you ask Anders Junger, CEO of Winn Hotel Group who took
over the newly built Park Inn by Radisson in Lund last March.
– It’s not brave, it’s smart and forward thinking.
18
Midroc invests long term
Midroc Property Development, which is
developing both areas, aims to build neighborhoods that are as complete as possible
or areas that in the long run complement
existing built-up areas.
The effort in Lund is the continuation of
what was already started at the World Trade
Center in Malmö. In Malmö, a couple of
hundred homes are combined with around
70,000 sqm of offices, around fifty stores
and restaurants and yet another hotel. It’s
this experience that is being used in Lund
now that it’s growing in the southeast. At the
new exit from the E22 highway at Råby junc-
Anders Junger, CEO of Winn Hotel Group, has his eye
on market share with these new hotels.
tion, Midroc aims to attract small and larger
companies as well as renting out corporate
apartments.
– We choose to build hotels in order to
make our sites even more complete, says
Peter Syrén, executive vice President of
Midroc Property Development.
– If we had planned only in the short term,
we would only have built an office block. But
we are also property managers, so we need
to invest in sustainability, make sure that the
companies who rent like it there and stay for
a long time. To do that, you need stores,
restaurants and hotels.
– It is absolutely essential to create a meeting place for people. This happens at the
World Trade Center and restaurants, conference facilities and a hotel, covering nearly
28,000 square meters of space in Lund.
A successful double act
In order to create a successful project, you
absolutely need cooperation at all levels and
between all operators. At Midroc, cooperation between the different departments at
Midroc Property Development, the property
developer, and Midroc Project Management,
the project manager, has been vital.
In this endeavor, the two managers,
Håkan Sörensen, project manager at Midroc
Property Development, and Jan Johansson,
construction manager at Midroc Property
Development, have become a tightly knit duo.
They began working together just over five
years ago with a hotel construction in Malmö,
and claim to have found a good way of working together.
– There isn’t any friction in our cooperation, and we work together as a team with
a common goal, says Jan Johansson.
– We’ve also been given enough time to
plan and we make sure that our schedules
are realistic. It’s a recipe for success, says
Håkan Sörensen.
FACTS
•Midroc Property Development develops
different neighborhoods in Skåne,
including WTC Malmö, WTC Lund and
Metropol in Helsingborg. They all have a
mix of housing, offices, stores and
hotels.
•Of the three Park Inn by Radisson
hotels, Winn will run those in Lund and
Helsingborg. The hotel in Malmö is run
by Ligula.
•Midroc has no intention of owning the
hotels in the long run. Lund is sold to
Fastighets AB Balder. The hotels in
Malmö and Helsingborg will also eventually be sold.
PHoto: Gunnar Nydrén
Expanding with a new production
The Winn Hotel Group is expanding at the
current rate of one hotel a year. When deciding where to invest, we prioritize good growth
both in terms of population and business.
Good transportation is also essential.
Larger regional cities like Helsingborg,
Uppsala or Lund are usually chosen. These
cities typically haven’t seen new hotels being
built for two to three decades.
– The hotel guests of today want new products. With our new hotels, I think we’re gaining
some market share, says Anders Junger.
– When we build new, maybe the other
start to renovate. If you compare it to a car,
then for the customer it’s roughly like choosing between a renovated Volvo 240 and a
new Volvo XC60.
One of the reasons Winn decided to invest
in Lund was because there is a stable reserve
of high-priced hotels. The university town will
continue to attract even more researchers
and technology companies with its new
research facilities, ACE and Max IV. This kind
of activity can render many hotel nights.
Just as the hotel in Lund will be inaugurated
in March, another Park Inn construction was
recently started in Helsingborg.
– In Helsingborg, there are fewer company
guests. Tourism and sporting events attract
more private guests. Here the prices are
lower but at the same there are more reservations, says Anders Junger.
Photo: Alex & Martin
At Råby junction next to the E22 highway, a
new neighborhood is emerging. In the new
World Trade Center in Lund, places of work,
corporate accommodation and a parking
garage are to combine with a large hotel. With
192 rooms, the Winn Park Inn hotel operator
will become Lund’s second largest hotel.
Investing in another hotel right in the middle
of a recession when the growth rate in travel
has dropped may seem like a big challenge
and require plenty of courage. But Winn’s
CEO Anders Junger has a different view.
– The industry has gone up and down just
like the rest of the economy since 2008, but it
is not the end of the world. There are better
days ahead and it’s smart and forward thinking, not brave, to invest now.
– All of our calculations are set to get
through even the tough years. We get through
the winter and maybe it turns out that we also
took the opportunity to build when the construction market wasn’t overheated.
•The hotels are built according to the
turnkey model with all FF&E (Furniture,
fittings and equipment), ready when the
hotels are rented out. All of the furnishings, down to the cutlery and linen, are
rented by the hotel operator.
The team: Håkan Sörensen, project manager at Midroc Property Development,
and Jan Johansson, construction manager at Midroc Property Development.
19
“Our vision in Midroc
is to contribute to a
better future.”
Good Water
makes a difference
Nearly 800 million people around the world don’t have access to clean water. Thanks to Swedish
water purification technology from SolarWave and Swedish Corporate Social Responsibility,
dirty water is now being cleaned so that thousands of people in the Morogoro region of Tanzania
can drink their water.
FACTS SolarWave
•SolarWave AB provides vital solarpowered solutions, such as water
purification and desalination facilities.
•Via Midroc New Technology, Midroc is
a shareholder in Solarwave.
•As part of our CSR efforts, Midroc is
paying SolarWave for water in Tanzania.
20
Photo: SolarWave
•As the first step in their strategy to
establish themselves, the company is
building up a presence in Africa.
Contributing to a better future
In the Morogoro region of Tanzania, Midroc
has invested in the operation and maintenance of three facilities in two years. Two of
the facilities are close to schools, the third
one is close to an infirmary. And it is thanks to
this that close to 10,000 people can have
access to clean drinking water.
– Our vision in Midroc is to contribute to a
better future. This really is a practical way of
doing it. We’ve talked at length about working with a suitable organization on a CSR
project. The fact that we chose to work with
SolarWave is partly due to us being shareholders in the company, but also that the
Good Water project really helps lots of people
thanks to smart and innovative technology,
says Midroc’s Head of Communications
Marina Vangstad.
– In this project, we’re not just one of many
companies contributing. This is our project
and we feel that we are the ones making the
difference. Our facilities produce up to four
million liters of clean water a year, which
means that thousands of people are spared
the daily struggle of getting hold of clean water.
We will finance the operation and maintenance
for another two years, says Marina Vangstad.
The importance of sustainability
Johan Wennerberg, CEO of SolarWave emphasized the importance of sustainability. He
highlighted the difference with
other water aid projects, like
drilling wells.
– If, as is the case there,
you just hand over the technology, then the project often
falls apart due to lack of spare
parts and technical expertise.
We avoid this by having personnel on site throughout the
entire project life cycle. Once the water is
clean, then people don’t get quite so sick.
This means that adults can work more and
that children don’t miss school, says Johan
Wennerberg.
– One person drinks around 1,000 liters of
water a year. By avoiding boiling which is the
traditional way of purifying water, you can
help save the environment. Carbon dioxide
emissions are reduced by 300 kg per person
per year. It also helps to reduce deforestation seeing as
you no longer need to collect
firewood.
One way to get facilities to
live on is to build a fund on the
spot. Currently, a Tanzanian in
Morogoro pays just over fifty
cents a year for 1,000 liters of
water – which is not clean.
SolarWave is now investigating how to
charge a school fee of around a dollar per
pupil per year to pay for the operation and
maintenance of the purification facility.
“We feel that
we are the
ones making
a difference.”
››MIDROC.SE/OM-MIDROC/CSR
Photo: SolarWave
– Now Tanzanians in Morogoro don’t need to
boil their water to make it clean. It saves firewood and coal and, by extension, both money
and the environment.
These words are spoken by Johan Wennerberg, CEO of SolarWave. The Swedish company has developed a technique where dirty
water can be purified and desalted using solar
cells.
In order to implement the initiatives, called
the Good Water project, SolarWave is trying
to get other companies to invest in the projects as part of their CRS work.
21
Photo: Åke E-son Lindman
Advanced systems help to
KEEP VASA
SHIPSHAPE
The ship Vasa was salvaged after 333 years on the bottom of the sea. The nearly 400-year-old ship
is supposed to survive for another 1,000 years. So she has to be well taken care of. One of the most
important preservation factors for archaeological wood materials is a stable climate. Via the former
subsidiary Browik Installation, Midroc Electro has delivered a new automation system to create
optimal air environment around the ship.
– The perfect climate for the ship has to be as constant as possible. Vasa is extremely sensitive to
differences in light, temperature and humidity, says Stefan Elfström, supervisor at Midroc Electro.
Vasa was salvaged in 1961 after several failed
attempts. During the later excavations, 28,000
objects were found, including 700 sculptures
and 64 cannons.
After 27 years in makeshift premises, the Vasa Museum
was opened in 1990. In the spring of 2013, a large extension was built and the climate system was reviewed.
In the 1620s, king Gustav Adolf II built the
biggest and most magnificent ship the
Swedes had ever seen. Yet the grandiose
plans for a fearsome war machine came to
nothing. As we know, she sank on her maiden
voyage in 1621, and there she lay until 1961
after several failed attempts to salvage her.
Optimal climate
conditions are vital for
this national treasure to
be preserved for future
generations. After the
unusually rainy summer
in 2000, it was discovered that the ship’s
surface was noticeably altered. Yellowish
white spots that had started to appear on the
hull a few years earlier were significantly
larger and higher in number. The wood had
become acidic, which can cause decomposition. Two research projects started to investigate the threats Vasa was facing, and
which measures might be applied.
One of the measures involved setting up a
new climate control system.
Board who owns and manages the Vasa
Museum property.
– The ship doesn’t like large fluctuations in
temperature and humidity. Curators at the
Vasa Museum are very demanding regarding
the indoor climate, which is why it’s important for us as landlords to hire a company
with experience in
advanced systems
for climate control,
he says.
– The old ship is
extremely sensitive
to external factors. If
the moisture concentration is too high, the wood can swell, bacteria and mold can grow, and low humidity can
cause the wood to tighten or crack. To counteract the varying outdoor humidity, the
system has both a fresh air humidifier and a
dehumidifier, says Stefan Elfström, supervisor
at Midroc Electro in Stockholm.
22
son
Photo: Karolina Kristens-
“The old ship is
extremely sensitive
to external factors.”
2,000 visitors a day
In the spring of 2013, a large extension was
built to handle the increase in public interest.
Including the extension, the number of concurrent visitors is expected to increase from
1,500 to 2,000 a day. The expansion and the
increase in the number of visitors meant that
the climate system had to be reviewed. This
time, it was a subsidiary of Midroc Electro,
Browik Installation, who was commissioned
to deliver a new climate system (an ongoing
merger means that the whole of Browik is part
of Midroc Electro starting from 1st January
2014.)
Magnus Kruså is an HVAC and indoor
climate specialist at the National Property
Climate requirements set an exciting
challenge
In the Vasa Museum, there are also plenty of
other factors to take into account. It’s not just
the weather conditions outside the Museum
you have to consider. Vasa Museum has a
large number of visitors each day giving off
both heat and moisture, but the number
varies greatly from day to day, and varies
from 0 at night to up to 2,000 in the daytime.
– This was a tremendously exciting challenge, we hadn’t come across this type of
climate requirements before. Normally, we
work a lot with comfort control and energy
saving in office environments. In that context,
occupational health and safety rules apply,
and several degrees of temperature difference is ok. In the Vasa Museum, the maximum shift is two degrees. It takes a lot of
calculations to regulate the climate.
Each individual unit has nine different
control sequences, including recycling, cold,
heat, three dehumidifiers, humidifier and the
CO2 flow in the exhibition halls.
Since they were dissatisfied with the programmable logic controller, previously installed by a competitor, the end client wanted
to switch to a system that had proved satisfactory during the refurbishment at the
Stockholm public library.
– We complied with the client’s wishes
and switched systems. We had previously
talked about learning a new PLC, so it was
both a challenge and a great opportunity for
us, says Stefan Elfström.
As an added challenge, the system was
running during basically the entire process.
– It only closed for six weeks for the refurbishment. The rest of the time, the museum
was operational with visitors as usual. So we
went into the ship exhibition hall and worked
while visitors looked at the ship.
To make sure that future visitors can enjoy
the grandeur of the ship, research is constantly being done to preserve Vasa.
FACTS Vasa
•Vasa sank on its maiden voyage in 1628.
•She was salvaged on April 24, 1961.
•Vasa is 69 meters long and 11.7 meters
wide.
•The height from the keel to the top of the
mainmast flagpole is 52.5 meters.
•30 of the 150 strong crew are believed to
have died when the ship sank.
23
Midroc Rodoverken – largest contractor at
A huge and important assignment
With 130,000 out of a total of 500,000 man
hours spent on inspection, maintenance and
investments in process facilities, Midroc
Rodoverken was the single biggest contractor.
428 employees have written 2,381 risk
analyses, reported 287 incidents and deviations, conducted 149 safety audits and handled 600 maintenance work orders.
– This has been an extremely big and
important job for us, we were on site from
January to October 2013, says Stefan
Lindholm, shutdown manager at Rodoverken.
Stefan Lindholm has extensive experience
in the maintenance industry, mainly on the
client’s side where he worked for 34 years.
– I have many years in this business and this
project has run practically flawlessly, he says.
The reason behind this is rigorous planning
combined with flexibility, and a huge effort on
behalf of everyone involved. It’s a pressurized
work situation when thousands of people
have to perform thousands of demanding
operations all within a short time frame. For
the client, each day of shutdown costs a lot
of money.
– Naturally, planning is important, but you
have to be responsive, ready to be flexible
and adapt to the situation.
There are always variations from the origi-
Preem’s major
maintenance
shutdown
During just over a month last fall, Preemraff Lysekil performed its most comprehensive
maintenance shutdown to date. At the same time, sizeable investments were made in over
a hundred different projects. With close to 2,300 entrepreneurs and 450 of Preemraff’s own
staff on site, this shutdown is one of the largest in Europe.
HELLO...
nal plan. For me, it is about being out there a
lot and listening to the people actually carrying out the work itself. Oftentimes, they are
the ones who have the most knowledge
about how to most effectively fix problems if
they arise.
100 percent focus
When it comes to safety and security, you
have to follow the plan very strictly.
– You have to have 100% focus on what
you are doing in this kind of project.
We’ve put a lot of effort into safety. Four
people have worked full time on security
issues, and it’s been money well spent.
All incidents or deviations are reported.
Incident reporting is a vital tool for both the
client and contractor to increase security
even more.
– People have to be brave enough to open
up. On this kind of job, there is occasionally a
culture of not reporting among those performing the work. Maybe they don’t want to
tell when something happens, or maybe they
simply think that it isn’t that important. We’ve
managed to reverse the trend, and have
been really good at reporting on this project.
– Cutting your finger may seem trivial, but
if we get good documentation showing that
the same thing happens often with a certain
tool, then we have to review how we might
use another tool instead in order to minimize
the risk of injury. We also made sure to report
cases where we’ve seen potential for improvement and which didn’t involve our own
staff, which is something that the client has
appreciated.
400 extra people needed
During the maintenance shutdown, Rodoverken was charged with reviewing the pipe
system. However, during the shutdown, they
were also asked if they could take on and
carry out assembly on the towers and tanks.
– We were able to do this by diverting a
staff of 10 to 20 men. We had plenty of time
and we were finished with some of the other
jobs. The job went really well.
Rodoverken also has a running maintenance agreement with Preem in which a
group of 25– 30 men are constantly on site
in Lysekil.
Recruiting all the staff required for the
shutdown was a major challenge.
– Around major shutdown time, there is
fierce competition for expertise. However, we
have a wide network and we started early to
recruit the 400 people required.
...Bernt
Henriksson
Photo: Midroc
24
Two years of preparations, and seven
weeks of intensive work during the maintenance shutdown and startup are now
over. How did it go?
– On the whole, it went well, and we were
more successful in many aspects than during
our last shutdown six years ago. We had set
a number of very ambitious goals and we
have reached most of them.
– Above all, I’m glad we didn’t have any
major accidents. When you pull together
2,300 contractors and have a total of 500,000
man hours at the same place over five weeks,
it would be weird if it had been completely
incident free – even if that was our goal of
course. Overall, we did have four incidents
that resulted in absence.
How did you manage that?
– We put a lot of focus on safety and a
good working relationship among all the
talented contractors, who’ve been really
careful with protection.
What’s needed to land this kind of project?
– Meticulous preparation is essential. A lot
depends on making the logistics work and
properly preparing all jobs. Everything has to
be in place. You can’t be in the middle of the
shutdown and say that we’ve forgotten to
order parts, or that some parts are delayed.
The fact that it all worked out was dependent
on our planning and choosing the right contractors. Not forgetting our project managers
and coordinators who did a fantastic job.
Photo: Niklas Olsson
Shutdown Manager at Preem Lysekil during
the maintenance shutdown of the refineray’s
production last fall.
I would like to thank everyone involved!
Did everything go as planned?
– A gas leak in the beginning lost us a few
days and made us a bit late. We also had
several additional measures which made it
drag on. We should be able to run for six
years until the next shutdown, and we need
to fix everything by then. We didn’t have
enough scheduled back up days. However,
this wasn’t something we could have anticipated or done any differently. 95 percent of
all the work that needed to be carried out
was done in time. It all worked very well and
everyone really did their best. Now we have a
more energy saving refinery with lower emissions and higher efficiency.
›› WATCH THE MOVIE ON: WWW.MIDROC.SE/PREEMFILM AND READ MORE IN ISSUE 7 OF LINQ: WWW.MIDROC.SE/OM-MIDROC/PUBLIKATIONER
25
Photo: Midroc
How you build
THE WORLD’S MOST
MODERN MINE
Midroc Automation has been commission
to deliver a fully automatic control system
for the world’s largest gold mine in Papua,
Indonesia. The assignment was part of an
overall order of just over SEK 800 million
from the American mining company Freeport-McMoran Copper & Gold Inc.
Recently Midroc company Metalock Engineering was given a challenging
assignment at a Chevron Power plant in Indonesia. But not much went
right to begin with. A broken turbine had been incorrectly fixed making it
more difficult to repair, and after just a few days the Metalock staff got sick.
But Metalock managed to turn the tricky project around.
– One job that had a lot of challenges generated a lot of positive spin-off
effects, said Martyn Green, Group MD of Metalock Engineering.
Metalock Engineering has turned cost cutting for their customers’ production losses
into a business concept by performing
machining on site rather than shipping equipment to a machine shop. The company provides on site maintenance and engineering
service solutions to a diverse range of industries. With companies present in Sweden,
UK, France, Germany, South Africa, India
and Saudi Arabia, Metalock has the ability
to respond to both planned and emergency
repairs 24/7 all over the world.
This time, it was a failing turbine in a
Chevron geothermal power plant on the
island of Java in Indonesia that needed on
site repairs. The local company first con26
tracted to do the job soon realized that they
did not have the resources to repair it, and
contacted Metalock Engineering.
– In less than a week we had mobilized
equipment and technicians and were on site
ready to start working, said Martyn Green.
But once on site, Metalock was faced
with huge problems. Chevron had been
misled by a consultant to perform welding
work on the turbine vanes without the proper
heat-treatment, causing the material to
become too hard.
– This resulted in us having to run our
machines slowly. Also, in this case, the
equipment supplier Mitsubishi was brought
in too late. Everything was done backwards.
Photo: Mats Bengtsson
POSITIVE SPIN-OFFS
On site machining requires customized
equipment. Work is often done under the
strictest of timelines under rough conditions
and Metalock Engineering has developed its
own techniques and equipment to meet
most challenges.
– If we had done the job in the way that we
normally do we would have managed to do it
in 14 days. Now it ended up taking 45 days.
But it was not only the complicated work
in itself that caused problems. The power
plant is located up in the mountains, a fivehour drive from Jakarta. Accommodation
was poor and within the first few days, people
started to get sick. Two people ended up in
hospital with dysentery.
– Working on site at the customer’s often
involves working under rough conditions,
and we often plan extra labor into the project, especially when working in places like
Asia, as you will get men going down sick.
But this was something out the ordinary.
Extra labor was brought in and they had
to move the staff to a hotel, adding a 1,5
hour drive in each direction to the already
long workday of 12 hours.
After 45 days, the job was finally finished
and the entire staff could fly home healthy.
– Diligence, and the fact that we have the
right equipment and experience, helped us
not only to finish the job, but also to get
positive spin-off effects.
An international service chain
Over the years Metalock has developed
services and co-operations with original
equipment manufacturers to form an international service chain. In this case, Mitsubishi
was very impressed with the way Metalock
handled the project and has invited them to
Japan for a meeting.
– Mitsubishi realized that we have the
equipment and the staff to handle this kind of
project. This is a perfect opportunity for us to
start negotiations on getting a frame agreement with Mitsubishi.
Metalock is also starting cooperation with
the local company that got the Chevron job
to begin with.
– They have the skills, the contacts and
the knowledge of the culture in Indonesia
and we have the competence, the techniques and the equipment. It is a good
opportunity for both our companies.
Photo: Midroc
Challenging project leads to
Metalock Engineering provides maintenance and
repair services for heavy industry worldwide
The mines, located at 4,100 meters above
sea level, in the Grasberg mountain on Papua,
Indonesia, are considered the world’s largest
gold deposit, and for decades it’s been an
open-pit mine. The American company
Freeport-McMoran has four operational
mines and employs a total of 30,000 people.
Starting in 2016, the mining will be underground and to handle the transition from
open-pit mining to underground mining, the
mining company has once again hired the
Swedish company Midroc Automation to
minimize production loss.
Previously, Midroc has delivered control
systems to one of the mines and now Freeport is ordering the control system for the
other mines. The total order is worth over
SEK 800 million.
– We are extremely proud to be entrusted
once more to deliver production critical systems to one of the world’s leading mining
companies, says Jonas Bergmark, Manager
of Midroc Automation.
The Midroc Automation system will make
the mine the world’s most high-tech underground mining operation.
Midroc Project Management’s
“Landmark of the year” building
The Rönnen housing association in Järfälla was awarded “Construction landmark of the year” by the Environmental
and Planning Permission Board in Järfälla.
Midroc Project Management has built
apartment houses for the HSB Housing
Association and Rits Arkitekter designed
the buildings. The Rönnen neighborhood is
in the already built up area of downtown
Viksjö and was praised for blending in with
the existing surroundings.
From the jury’s rationale:
“Consideration has been given to the natural
assets of the place and landscaping was
carefully performed. Hardwood trees were
protected and saved and contribute to the
overall feeling of well-being. The land forming
was successful and adds quality to the project, both in the execution and the design.
The execution is good on all detailed levels
and it is worth mentioning the care taken in
designing the front door in wood and tile
mosaic in the stairwell. A simple but often
forgotten design, a positive element which
many will appreciate on a daily basis”.
– It’s great that the neighborhood has received an award. We are delighted with the
cooperation with HSB Housing Association
and the whole project went well and smoothly, says Jakob Ljunggren, production manager at Midroc Project Management.
27
Photo: Nicklas Thegerström
MIDROC’S INNOVATIVE
Green electricity
generation system
Midroc Project Management, Midroc Electro and PowerCell are currently developing an environmentally friendly backup power station for electricity generation. Smart Energy Container
is a removable system adapted to meet temporary power needs where there is normally no access
to electricity. The low carbon emissions make this an environmentally-friendly alternative to
the conventional diesel generators or large battery energy storage systems.
Right in the middle of the port area in Värtan, Stockholm, is a small lonely sheet metal shed.
If you didn’t know better, you would think that it was just a storage room. But inside, the walls
conceal a pump, and under it a 35 meter deep work site.
– The concrete we were supposed to get
through was over two meters thick. The narrow shaft was really clogged and the usual
consaw blades couldn’t handle it. Instead we
had to drill two holes and feed a diamond
wire through. Then we fastened the wire onto
a driver and started sawing.
These words are spoken
by Erik Bäcklund. He is CEO
of Ekotec, a Midroc company
that decontaminates polluted
soil and water. Cleaning old
oil storage caverns is a regular assignment for the 18
employees. Normally, however, they just go
through a door and more or less just step in
straight into the cavern. Here in Värtan,
Stockholm, you have to go down in an elevator, 35 meters straight down into the dark.
Above ground, in what will be a major new
residential area, all you see is a small pumping shed. But appearances are deceiving.
Under the shed is a three times three meter
shaft that goes straight underground. This is
where Erik Bäcklund and his employees have
installed ventilation and safety equipment and
an elevator that takes the workers down to
the 20 meter wide and 110 meter long cavern
where diesel was stored for many years.
Hundreds of empty caverns
During the fifties and sixties, hundreds of
caverns for oil storage were built, particularly
for military and strategic reasons all over
Sweden. If war broke out, we would be oil
dependent.
– Now they aren’t considered necessary anymore. If
there is any unrest, we have
Norway and the oil very
close by, says Erik Bäcklund.
At the bottom of the cavern in Värtan, empty for over
twenty years, water has
seeped in and the surface is covered with bio
sludge. Before Värtan can become a residential area and is decontaminated, the
sludge must be removed. To do the work, the
energy company ST1 has hired Ekotec.
Erik Bäcklund rejects the idea that future
environmental problems could arise in caverns where oil has been stored. Once Ekotec
gets rid of all the diesel on the water surface,
then there shouldn’t be any diesel left in the
cavern or in the soil.
– No, there’s a lot of groundwater pressure
on the cavern and because water has a higher
density than diesel, the diesel was pushed
inward and hasn’t come out of the cavern.
“35 meters
straight down
into the dark.”
28
To get the diesel out, a small robot is sent in
to the back of the cavern. The robot then
pushes the oil towards the pump hoses. The
oil that settles on the surface is pumped up to
oil-settling tanks, high narrow tanks where the
oil sits and separates. Then it’s reused as fuel.
– It’s not sure how much it will be, but
perhaps a few hundred cubic meters.
Safety is vital
Right up until the summer, three people will
work full-time to decontaminate the cavern.
One person sits above ground and controls
all the equipment and makes sure everything
is secure when the other two decontaminate
down in the cavern.
– Safety really is important. After all, you
are working in a large diesel tank. Imagine a
gas station and you go into their tank, with the
difference being that the size there is 50 cubic
meters. Here the cavern is 45,000 cubic
meters. We perform a new risk analysis each
week, says Erik Bäcklund.
Once the work is completed, the hole will
be welded shut with a concrete lid as thick as
the previous one, the pumping shed will disappear and no one will ever see what lies
underneath.
The system is a combination of PowerPac
fuel cells, battery storage systems, solar
panels and wind turbines built together in a
removable container for easy transportation
between various building sites. PowerPac,
which is developed by PowerCell, one of
Midroc New Technology’s portfolio companies, is the most environmentally-friendly and
efficient energy generation system using
standard diesel. Carbon dioxide emissions
are reduced by more than 50 percent in
comparison with a conventional diesel generator. Furthermore, there are no particulate
emissions.
Environmentally friendly energy
Environmentally friendly energy Smart Energy
Container can be used instead of a diesel
generator to handle energy supply for remote
construction projects where there is no electricity, for instance if you build a wind farm on
top of a mountain, says Pehr Brunnegård,
Midroc Project Management. Power companies investing in wind turbines are typical
examples of potential customers. There are
companies that are interested in environmentally friendly energy and often based on
sites where there is no electricity available for
the building process. Another typical use
might be as a backup system for cell sites
experiencing disruptions on the regular
power grid.
The idea for Smart Energy System arose
in the context of an ongoing collaboration
between Midroc Project Management and
Nordisk Vindkraft who are currently building
one of Sweden’s largest wind park farm in
Västernorrland.
Pehr Brunnegård previously worked at
STRI, a technology consulting firm that researches Smart Grids. He saw the connection
between Nordisk Vindkraft’s needs and the
diesel fuel operated PowerPac cell system.
Another Midroc company was brought into
the process, Midroc Electro, which will ensure
the construction of Smart Energy Container.
Currently, Midroc Project Management,
Midroc Electro and PowerCell are working
together with Nordisk Vindkraft to customize
the very first Smart Energy Container.
Nordisk Vindkraft wants a container with
as much power as possible. There are several
PowerPacs in the Smart Energy Container
developed for the energy company.
– Fuel cells also generate heat making it
technically difficult to have too many in a
container. We’re looking right now at a way of
fixing this and at the same time making use of
the resulting heat.
– We hope to make our first delivery within
six months.
There are other interested parties, and
Pehr Brunnegård is hoping for a broad sales
area when PowerCell starts mass production.
››FOR MORE INTERESTING READING ABOUT
POWERCELL: POWERCELL.SE/JOIN-US/NEWS/
FACTS Powercell
•The energy technology company PowerCell is currently owned by Volvo Group Venture Capital,
Fourier Transform, Midroc New Technology and OCAS Ventures.
•PowerCell develops and distributes advanced fuel cell system.
•PowerPac was one of the new techniques presented to US President Barack Obama during his
visit to Sweden last fall.
•The PowerPac fuel cell system efficiently converts diesel into electricity and is based on a custom
developed and patented technology.
•At the core of the PowerPac system lies the reformer, which converts standard diesel into hydrogen using a controlled catalytic process, which means that no combustion occurs in the process,
producing no toxic emissions.
•PowerPac mass production is expected to start in 2015. Future development of the system
may include a broader power range and the use of different fuels (such as biodiesel, methanol,
ethanol, DME and biogas).
29
Towards the digital workplace
Alucrom delivers a large order for
Thermoplastic coating
In the Cloud
Alucrom is now coating 135 hot galvanized
pylons with thermoplastic for the Gothenburg
tram network at their plant in Gävle. Half of the
pylons were delivered last fall, and the remaining pylons will be delivered in early 2014.
Termoplastic coating is a method that
uses heat to melt a plastic powder on a metal
in order to obtain a long-lasting and environmentally friendly corrosion protection. The
method is solvent-free and contains no isocyanate (which can cause severe asthma), or
heavy metals and is therefore an environmentally friendly surface treatments method
in both production and use.
The method also provides a much better
protection compared to wet coating for instance weather and UV resistance, and has
high impact strength. It also has an electrical
insulating property.
The combination of hot-dip galvanizing
and thermoplastic provides superior longevity, which is why Göteborgs Spårvägar AB
With “My Meetings and Production”, everyone from client to supplier get a common digital room
to work in. On the new site, you have direct access to all documents related to an ongoing project.
“We’re doing what a
lot of other companies want to do,
simplify things for
employees.”
30 trained superusers
The first to step into the digital space now
last fall were companies from two of
Midroc’s business models: service and
construction. 30 superusers were trained,
primarily in the large construction companies like Midroc Electro and Midroc Rodoverken. Mikael Sjöström is a project engineer at Midroc Electro and has been part of
the “construction” reference group. He is
one of the superusers. Once new projects
are started gradually during the spring,
Mikael will help to train people on the new
features.
– It’s all about getting the message out:
the system will be updated as you go. And
that we teach the big differences there are
in working with our new Sharepoint environment. How files will be made accessible to
everyone and how to check in and out when
30
Midroc is one of the first in the world
At the beginning of 2014, Midroc’s three
other business models joined: investment,
permanent jobs and consulting.
Midroc was one of the first 15 companies
in the world to test Microsoft’s new platform
(the new version of Office 365). It is also the
first Swedish company to transfer a lot of its
data traffic to Microsoft’s version of “the
Cloud”. Thanks to this, we can now access
much more information than before.
Everything in the Microsoft realm can be
downloaded. The only files that will be kept
external are the CAD application ones.
Clients, however, won’t notice as these
files will be saved in another format.
In My Meetings and Production, there will
also be links to other systems, for instance
the business system so that project managers are constantly updated on the financial
status of a project.
To get started with a project first you have
to go to the website, choose the business
model, and then describe the project, for
instance “build a national arena”, so
that everyone invited knows what the
project is about.
– Then you have your common
space for the project. Then all you
need to do is start working, says
Mats Axelsson.
– It’s a better working environment for everyone. We can manage
our projects more efficiently by working
closer to both clients and suppliers.
– Another benefit is that you can work
with common projects between companies.
My Meetings and Productions is one of
the four elements in the new platform. The
others are “Community”, “Our Unit” and “My
Site”. All these elements form a whole for
the employee, from a single window, they
can access anything that has to do with the
company: projects, forums, calendars and
their own site.
– All four elements are important in this
construction, says Mia Wahlstein, Midroc’s
IT manager.
From a business point of view, My Meetings and Productions is going to be heavily
used. This is where most of our business is.
All of our employees work on a production
of some kind.
The new platform is already in full swing
since the end of the year. My Meetings and
Productions will however be used by the
different companies at different times. By
midyear, it should be in full use.
– We are real front runners here. We’re
doing what a lot of other companies want to
do, i.e. simplify things for employees, says
Mia Wahlstein.
Alucrom is now coating 135 hot-dip galvanized
pylons with thermoplastic for Göteborgs Spårvägar
tram network at their plant in Gävle.
A major push at
Photo: Emilia Göransson
you start and finish working on a file.
We also have to teach people how each
document is earmarked with metadata, for
instance which company it belongs to,
whether it is reporting or regulating, and so
on. All of the metadata is used to make the
documents searchable in Sharepoint.
– This will reduce the pressure on
the large amount of emails with
attachments that are sent. At the
same time.
It will
ensure that
version
management for all
documents will be
correct. From now
on, there will only be
one file that people
can access and
update. It is the biggest advantage. The second is that we can
share individual files or folders with external
parties such as clients and suppliers, says
Michael Sjöström and takes a project as an
example:
– Midroc’s newly acquired company
Browik still has its own IT sphere. Nevertheless, we can easily cooperate across borders to share documents in a structured way
in the “KV Skepsshandeln” project in which
Browik is delivering control systems for
commercial and hotel rooms in Hammarby
Sjöstad.
ELFACK
produced results
Midroc Electro’s big push at last year’s
Elfack conference at the Swedish Exhibiting & Congress Center in Gothenburg
really exceeded all expectations. Contact
with a Norwegian energy company is now
on track to being Midroc Electro’s first
substation deal in Norway.
Midroc Property Development given
Malmö’s City Planning Award
Photo: Upload / Nordicphotos
Midroc is now taking yet another big step
towards a common digital workplace. “The
Production Room” is a part of the Group’s
new IT platform (Microsoft’s new version of
Office 365), where you can set up all the
structures for working both within the companies in the group and with other companies. A new workspace replaces the old
email and file management system.
– But it will be smarter. You have access
to everything, from what
is directly connected to
project to more private
matters like email and
calendars.
The person saying this
is Mats Axelsson, the
northern divisional manager at Midroc Electro.
He is a project manager
and client for the Production Room. Together with
his colleague Petter Back and a
test group, with participants
from all companies within
Midroc who work with
our business model
construction, he has
been working actively
since November the
year before last to develop the project.
has specified thermoplastic coating as the
only alternative in its tender.
– Materials treated with thermoplastic
have an extremely long lifespan compared
with lacquered or painted surfaces. It is
around 20–25 percent more expensive, but
in return the lifespan is over 40 years, says
Brian Thomsen, departmental head of thermoplastic at Alucrom.
Another advantage is the smooth surface
with very little friction. It makes it easier to
clean graffiti, and suitable for water pipes for
instance when you want to achieve high
pressure with a small size, or other areas in
which low friction is suitable.
– We have coated snow ploughs here in
Gävle, and the client has experienced lower
diesel consumption thanks to the reduced
friction.
Thermoplastic coating is performed at
Alucrom’s plant in Gävle with orders of
around SEK five million a year.
Photo: Niklas Olsson
As Gothenburg extends its tram network, the Midroc company Alucrom is in charge of
coating the electricity pylons. The pylons are coated with thermoplastic using the Corropro
system which doesn’t affect the environment and gives the surface a very long lifespan.
The Strand and Park buildings along
Västra Varvsgatan in Malmö was given
the 2013 Malmö City Planning Award in
the housing category. This award is given
every year by the City of Malmö.
According to the prize rationale, the buildings
have given the area a “coherent light and
attractive residential feel and thereby given the
area a certain urban entity which it previously
lacked and is a valuable contribution to the
urban environment in Malmö.”
In a prime location on Riberstrand, the
architects Johan Celsing and Metro Arkitekter
have designed five buildings with large windows that open up the facade and give the
residents a beautiful view over the sea.
The buildings have pale stuccoed concrete
facades, while the large roof terraces and
entrances are covered with glazed bricks.
The developer behind the 108 apartments is
Midroc Property Development.
At Elfack in May 2013, Midroc Electro, one of
Sweden’s leading electricity and automation
businesses, presented their business on a
120 square meter large stand. The venture
has led to several quotes and booked appointments.
Midroc Electro is commissioned by Natus
to handle a substation, and presented the
German supplier’s substation at the exhibition. It’s got a lot of attention, including from
the Norwegian electricity company Hafslund.
– We got a good contact with Hafslund at
the exhibition, and one of their representatives has visited Natus in Germany. Norway is
an interesting market for us, and it’s very timely
because we have recently started up a company there, Midroc Electro AS, says Sven-Olof
Renström, marketing manager at Midroc
Automation, which is part of Midroc Electro.
31
DON’T MISS MIDROC AT
SUSTAINABLE
MAINTENANCE
MARCH 11–14, 2014 IN
GOTHENBURG, SWEDEN.
Midroc will be at Scandinavia’s largest meeting place for maintenance and
operational safety, with no fewer than 6 companies present on a joint stand.
You’ll find Midroc Electro, Midroc Project Management, Midroc Rodoverken,
Midroc Alucrom, Midroc Ställningar and Metalock Engineering. We are located
at stand CO3:02. There’ll be plenty happening there. We will show and tell you
about a variety of challenges and solutions, and you can also take a look and
feel a whole load of gadgets. We’ll also be offering some food and drink.
See you there!
N.B. At midroc.se, you can download your free entrance ticket to the show.