UAA 'On Tour' at ZF in Nottingham

On Thursday 23rd January 2014, 5 UNITECH students participated in a tour held at the ZF Services facility in Nottingham. This is part of their aftermarket organisation supporting ZF products and brands in the UK.

Our day started off at 10:00, where we started looking at their processes of ensuring they have a skilled workforce who can cover various aspects that ZF Services deal with. We looked at car gearboxes, military gearboxes, marine gearboxes and commercial gearboxes in one part of their facility. There are a lot of processes that need to happen to ensure there is accountability throughout, in case there is a failure or warranty claim. This helps the mechanic/technician who might be attempting to diagnose a fault half way across the world to go step and step to work out where the fault may lie.

Throughout the day, we had the opportunity to ask lots of questions in order to understand more about how everything works. The next part of their facility contained more stations to work on their car products and we then moved onto their dedicated rail facility. This has just been expanded with additional cranes so they can take on more work, with the ever increasing rail industry. The size and weight of these products are phenomenal! We then moved onto their third facility which works on an upcoming market, wind turbines. This section is quite special as it's logistical process works quite differently to the other sections.

Finally, we looked at the car steering wheel section, where the customer works in conjunction and has a dedicated area to meet their needs within the ZF facility. This was the final stage of the tour, which we completed with questions at 12:30.

Overall, this gave us an insight into a company which mainly deals with B2B (which most people overlook as they cannot find any way of associating with them) and has a lot to offer their employees and potential engineers who are interested in working for them.

Picture taken: ZF Facilities, Thursday 23rd January 2014
Rudy Birkner (ETH Zurich, Switzerland), Abdi Hussein (Loughborough University, UK), Huzaifa Essajee (UAA LCC) and Florian Scheidegger (ETH Zurich, Switzerland)

 

Picture taken: ZF Facilities, Thursday 23rd January 2014
Abdi Hussein (Loughborough University, UK), Huzaifa Essajee (UAA LCC), Florian Scheidegger (ETH Zurich, Switzerland), Stina Klingvall (Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden) and Rudy Birkner (ETH Zurich, Switzerland)

Picture taken: ZF Facilities, Thursday 23rd January 2014
John Bland (Head of Production, ZF Services UK Ltd), Huzaifa Essajee (UAA LCC), Florian Scheidegger (ETH Zurich, Switzerland), Stina Klingvall (Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden) and Rudy Birkner (ETH Zurich, Switzerland)

Vegan Flapjacks!

Happy New Year 2014!

On the last day of term, Friday 13 December 2013, I decided that I needed to do something out of the ordinary. So I started baking vegan flapjacks. The last time I had done this was about two years ago, when I was leaving my internship/placement at Jaguar Land Rover. I worked in the audio section of Infotainment, and our team had decided that we'd all try and bake something and bring it in to share with others. The first time I tried this was when I decided to try and be vegan for one week, which I successfully managed during my first year of university in 2008.

So, without further ado, here's the recipe:

Prep: 20 mins
Cook: 25 mins

Ingredients:

• 250g soya margarine
• 5 tbsp golden syrup
• 5 tbsp light brown sugar
• 250g oats
• 1 tbsp cranberries
• 4 apricots
• 1 tbsp sultanas
• 1 tbsp sesame seeds
• 1 tbsp pumpkin seeds
• 1 tbsp sunflower seeds

Preparations:

1. Melt soya margarine in a saucepan at low heat.
2. Mix in golden syrup and light brown sugar until melted.
3. Chop the apricots into small, fine chunks.
4. Preheat oven to Gas Mark 5/190ºC, preparing a baking tray with greaseproof paper.
5. Add in the oats, stirring occasionally.
6. Add in all fruits and seeds (cranberries, apricots, sultanas, sesame seeds, pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds) and mix thoroughly.
7. Spoon the mixture into the baking tray, spreading evenly.
8. Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes until golden brown.
9. Remove and cut the number of pieces according to your choice.
10. Once cooled down, they can be stored in an airtight container, ready to enjoy!

Baked on Friday 13 December 2013.

If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to share them below via the comments section. Enjoy!