Almost 90% of senior human resources executives from 22 leading international oil and gas companies believe the looming retirement of these personnel to be a key issue for the industry.2 This reinforces the importance of putting the time, effort and resources into developing a new generation of skilled employees to meet the demands faced by the industry’s specialised domains.
KONGSBERG and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU)
KONGSBERG is not immune to the situation, which is why we have entered into a partnership with NTNU, Trondheim. Our goal together is to give students the opportunity to experience and increase their knowledge of the tools used daily in the industry. The collaboration with NTNU began many years ago with master thesis programmes and summer internships. It now appears to be becoming an integral part in the curriculum for some mandatory courses.
About the K-Spice project
This past summer, fourth grade NTNU student Anders Leipoll who specialises in modelling and control began an internship at Kongsberg Oil & Gas. Anders was given the opportunity to create a dynamic model of a methanol plant using KONGSBERG’s dynamic simulation tool, K-Spice®.
‘This was an exciting challenge for me, particularly as the methanol reaction is widely used as an example in our education. My learning curve using the new software was steep and my engineering courses proved more relevant than I could imagine.’
His model was also used in an exercise in a mandatory course for third year chemical engineering students. Over several workshops students were able to work with the model and experience how simulation applications are used professionally. This increased motivation and also demonstrated to students how relevant and important their education and ability is to engineering companies like KONGSBERG.
The summer project was a great success and more modelling projects and workshops are planned for NTNU students.
Future projects
Helping students make the transition from university life to work life as smoothly as possible is an exciting and important task. It’s also one KONGSBERG takes seriously. Our four divisions and the organisation as a whole have already implemented projects aimed at minimising the leap from lecture hall to work. These efforts will continue as part of our ongoing commitment to support the development of a new generation of skilled employees.
You can learn more about our initiatives through the following links:
Summer internships & master theses programmes
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