“It’s a beautiful opportunity to stay local but be global,” says Daniele Caltabiano, an automation engineer on the Tetra Pak future talent programme. He’s not just talking about the international work placements completed during his time on the graduate scheme; there’s also the networking and knowledge sharing that comes with working for a global company such as Tetra Pak.
Before he joined the programme, Caltabiano’s thirst for knowledge took him to the University of Bologna to study astrophysics, followed by aeronautical engineering at Politecnico di Milano, and a mechatronics master’s in Modena, Italy. He also did a work placement at Cern (the European Organisation for Nuclear Research), where he was offered a PhD scholarship, but he chose the Tetra Pak future talent programme to further his career instead. This was partly thanks to the encouragement of a guest lecturer from the company at his university, who took him to visit Tetra Pak’s base in Modena.
Caltabiano is close to the end of his two-year programme at Tetra Pak, which offers on-the-job training in a range of roles, from technical engineering to human resources.
“I’m working on the development of software for simulating and testing our machines,” he says, describing his work with Tetra Pak’s large filling equipment, used by various beverage and food brands.
His most challenging, but rewarding, project was born from a very simple task given to him when he first arrived. His manager asked him to create a piece of software that would automatically test a particular function inside the machine. “We have software controlling our machines – let’s say opening and closing a valve – and we needed the software to handle different failures and tell us if the valve is not deploying completely,” he says. “I did it, and then I said: ‘What if we write a much bigger piece of software, which, instead of testing one function, tests the whole machine at that same moment?’”
It was for Tetra Pak’s A3/Speed, one of the world’s fastest carton-filling machines, used for mini juice boxes. As Caltabiano says: “It’s like our Ferrari, producing 24,000 packages an hour” – so ensuring there are no errors is paramount. He has already left quite a legacy, because not only did he create fully autonomous software for this machine, but he made it adaptable for all of Tetra Pak’s other equipment, too.
His next rotation was to Sweden and the US. He spent some of the time with one of Tetra Pak’s major suppliers on a secret development project in the US, and also worked with Tetra Pak’s US customer support team, visiting clients who needed help with Tetra Pak machines. “Every week, early on a Monday morning, I had to take a plane, fly somewhere in the middle of the US,” he says. “Travelling around the US, I did around 21 flights, thousands of kilometers, and I lost count of the states [I’ve been to] – maybe 10 or 11.”
Occasionally, it involved tasks he was unfamiliar with, including optimising resources and coordinating specialists. But he learned a lot by doing something different, and advises new and potential future talent programme participants to do the same: “Get out of your comfort zone. Try to see different areas – especially for the technology employees – such as marketing or project management.”
Caltabiano also advises participants to keep talking to managers about what they want to do and the possibilities for career progression. “If you like what you do, you can really do something amazing,” he says. “Before going to sleep, I never think: ‘Oh no, I have to go to work.’ It’s more like, ‘What’s next?’ or ‘How can I solve this new project?’”
The sense of freedom Caltabiano feels in his day-to-day working life allows for greater creativity and, consequently, more innovation. “We are really free to operate. It’s not like we have one task and have to just do that,” he says. “Sometimes, we have free time, which we can use for new ideas and new projects, and this is one of the best things.”
He’s excited about the new chapter in his career at Tetra Pak, and about the future of automation and engineering. “Imagine when we had the first industrial revolution, when the first steam machine was introduced. A lot of people remained at home [and unemployed], but then we opened new possibilities and new jobs,” he says. “The world is changing, and automation can enable us to do something very special, beyond what we can do just with humans. I think that automation will help us a lot, not only to reduce the repetitive parts of jobs, but also to create many new possibilities for employment.”
