I think I have Ensto in my blood and almost in my genes because almost my whole family has worked here. We have strong roots in the company, as my grandmother already worked at Puristustuote Oy, which was owned by the father of Ensio Miettinen, the founder of Ensto. Later on, also my father, sister and my sons have been employed by Ensto.
It was in 2001 as I started here as a helper in the Porvoo production plant, and the intention was that I would help with the surface treatment for a few months. My father did his life's work as a foreman in that department and asked me to work for a washing machine. My studies had just ended at the University of Applied Sciences, the Kuopio Design Academy, and I was returning to Porvoo. As a newly graduated product designer, I simply needed money. When I came here to work, I felt I had arrived home. The welcome was warm because I had previously worked in the factory as a summer worker.
In fact, I liked the atmosphere so much that I stayed in the surface treatment for about 10 years in various positions. After learning to know all the machinery, production lines, and chemicals I started to make instructions for the machines and surface treatment lines and acted as a tutor familiarizing new employees with their work. In addition, I gained experience in the 5S and Lean projects and the implementation of related tools. After those ten years, my superior asked if I wanted to do something else for a change. I joined the quality organization as a Quality Specialist, where we set up the Kaizen team of continuous improvement and the War Room for project management, among other things. Quality tools and education like Six Sigma green belt and later the Six Sigma black belt have been provided to me by Ensto.
Next, I worked as a Quality Engineer, which added to my duties the audits of subcontractors and taking care of quality, responding to claims, and investigating product failure mechanisms. At this point the plant’s environmental issues, chemicals and safety data sheets became my cup of tea, too. With our Quality team, we established the Quality module and gathered all the incoming, ongoing and final inspections to IFS which in practice meant thousands of documents such as control plans for every product. Since 2021, I have worked as the Quality Manager of the Porvoo factory and as a member of the plant’s management team. The desire of tackling environmental and sustainability issues has been growing since I started in the Quality team. There are many decisions to be made and I am getting used to the increased amount of reporting. As 10 million parts and products leave the factory every month, their quality control is quite a job in itself.
My work is challenging and interesting. At Ensto there is no unnecessary hierarchy, and you can go and ask questions from anybody. If they don’t know the answer, they guide you in the right direction. You feel like your issue is their issue, too. For me it is important to be part of the Ensto family. I also value that we are constantly educated, for instance related to quality tools, as the most important thing about quality are the preventive actions for claims. The customers need to know that their issue is taken care of and how we can prevent a defect from reappearing. One of the most rewarding cases happened in the past. A customer asked me to visit their factory to see how badly our products work in their process. He was quite angry. We went to the site just to find out that our products were fine and in accordance with specifications. The problem was in their machine, and I was able to help in solving the problem. The customer was super happy, and I drove home with a wide smile on my face. My motto is: A well-handled reclamation is the best advertisement for the whole company!
My beloved hobby is ice carving and it's a pretty funny story about how I got into it. Once I was a student, I came to school one Monday morning hungry and saw an advertisement on a bulletin board looking for new people to carve snow. In return, free food for the weekend was promised. I joined the event in the yard of a gas station and met people from the local snow sculpture team, with whom we made various snow carving works. It was so interesting that I also did my master's thesis on snow carving: I redesigned a snow carving tool in such a way that it was possible to change blades for it with mittens in hand.
Then I started getting invitations to the Finnish Championships. In the summer, the material was changed to sand, and eventually ice came along. At the moment I have the 2023 Finnish Championship in snow carving and ice carving and the 2022 European Championship in sand carving. The hobby eats up all my free time, but it is the perfect counterbalance to working life. I am a 51-year-young father of 15- and 19-year-old sons and live in Porvoo where I was born and raised.
Timo Koivisto
The writer of the blog works as the Quality Manager of the Porvoo production plant in Finland.