Who am I?

An unlikely board maker – a cell biologist

Hello! My name is Sofie and I’m a Quality Analyst at Iggesund Mill. This week it’s my turn to tell you a bit about me and my role on Holmen’s employee blog.

I moved abroad straight after finishing upper secondary school in Sweden. I worked as an au pair for about two years and then I started studying biomedical sciences in London. One thing led to another and before I knew it, I had a PhD in cell biology and I’d been in London for more than ten years. I then spent a few years working in research and in the pharmaceutical industry, before the urge to get back to my roots got too loud to ignore. When I saw the ad for Quality Analysts, I jumped at it and I’ve been living and working in beautiful Hälsingland in Sweden since 2022.

Being a cell biologist makes me an unlikely board maker.

My workplace

I work in the Board department at Iggesund with production engineers, technicians and specialists. Our job is to support the operations teams who are manufacturing high-quality paperboard round the clock. In simple terms, we work on problem solving and improvements across short-term and long-term timeframes.

In this grouping, my specialist expertise is in data analysis. And it is actually fascinating how much information can be extracted from the data we get from process pumps, pressure sensors and quality outcomes. I think it’s amazing really, because, once put in the right format, all these numbers and trends give us the data on which decisions are made.

Making paperboard is a complex art of engineering. I can draw lots of parallels between my current role and my previous research. Evaluating the performance of a board machine isn’t that different from analysing molecular signalling pathways in a cell. Both demonstrate one outcome affected by another in a chain reaction that can be predicted from the laws of physics and biochemistry. When something in the chain isn’t working, though, it takes a bit of detective work to pinpoint the cause and that’s really exciting!

 

A typical day at work

My working days are very varied. But every day we’re working towards the same goal – being even better at producing paperboard.

If I have an improvement project in progress, I like to start the day by checking quality outcomes related to that. Combined with notes from the shift handovers, this gives me a good picture of what’s been going on in the hours when I wasn’t as work. I then try to understand how the outcomes relate to various process parameters, whether there is anything I need to include in the project, etc.

After this first check-in, I get started on my to-do list. I have quite a lot of routine reports to write, for example. I monitor the quality outcomes from our board machines, report microbiological checks and other bits and bobs. Here I try to keep things as simple as I can, which, in my book, means automating as much as possible. I write some Excel scripts and make use of Python to automatically analyse and write parts of my reports. So I’m getting a bit more efficient every time.

On other days I might be supporting the other parts of the factory with data analysis. There might be a complaint that needs following up or changes to be evaluated.

As well as data analysis, I also run various improvement projects. We get a great exchange of skills from the participants in these projects, and I get to learn a lot about paperboard manufacturing, which makes my job more fun every day.

 

Why Holmen?

Throughout my career I’ve chosen to do things I enjoy. So my road to Holmen may have been a winding one. But it also means I’ve amassed a range of different skills, and being different can add value in a collaborative environment where we value each other’s skills and embrace each other’s differences – it’s a strength.

Every day I’m fascinated by the incredible amount of detailed knowledge that my colleagues possess and their passion for making paperboard. I hadn’t appreciated or even thought about the complexity of the process until I started working here.

 

5 things that are always on my desk:

· 2 empty coffee cups

· 2 half-full cups of cold coffee

· 1 fresh cup of coffee

 

That’s all for now

It’s time for me to say thank you and goodbye. I understand that not all of you might share my enthusiasm for numbers, but I think you can all appreciate it’s important that someone, at least, is really into them. We might bump into each other in the future. Until next time!