People On The Move - My Rotation In Changchun, China

July 20, 2016

Patricia started as a trainee at Kautex in October 2015. During her third rotation, she spent six months at the Kautex plant in Changchun, China (KCC). While in China, she assisted with a key product launch and the plant’s 0-0-0 efforts.

“The Changchun plant is a good place to learn about manufacturing.”

During her stay in Changchun, Patricia increased her technical acumen according to Kautex Manufacturing Standards. At the same time, she also experienced many challenges. At work, she needed to deal with the cross-functional projects, which required her to quickly learn new information outside her specialization. The time zone difference between China and Germany added a dimension of complexity for the trainee, not to mention the cultural and language barriers which are naturally present in an organization as large as Kautex.

As a foreigner in Changchun, Patricia was also surprised by many aspects. For example, the winter in Changchun was cold. But many colleagues were willing to go outside and help with cleaning snow.

At the Changchun plant, Patricia told us: “there is an unspoken rule of having dinner after every meeting and training/workshops. It was a good culture to spend time at the round table outside of work to enjoy good food and sign a good contract.”

Over the weekends, Patricia also "played tourist" around Changchun, visiting nearby cities—Harbin and Jilin – and popular sightseeing venues such as Moon Lake Park and Changbai Mountains.

Patricia says her experience at KCC has proven invaluable: "Not only did I learn a tremendous amount about the work, but I learned a lot about myself, my ability to adapt to new situations and to cope with ambiguity."

We want to provide employees with a variety of opportunities and growth - and encourage our employees to look at Kautex and at the Textron family of businesses to gain those experiences.