"I'm involved in early development work for the Underground division. We work with technical road maps, as we call them. We have to start with these ideas and projects now, but they will be realized as functions or products in perhaps three, ten, or even fifteen years. The big three areas are electrification, automation, and digitalization. We imagine what the potential is for the future. For example, on electrification, our focus is beyond our machines going electric; now, we are into the details of the battery technology, such as optimizing the performance and the battery charging. What is interesting and challenging is that electrification, automation, and digitalization are increasingly connected. There are a lot of systems within systems", Katarina says.
"What I enjoy most about my job is working with passionate people! I enjoy finding ways to get people to collaborate and constantly discover new resources we can tap into. And it's so much fun to work with the R&D engineers to figure out how we can develop things smart and fast," she adds.
"I manage a team of seven people. We have team meetings where we share and coordinate our daily effort. It usually means working on several projects and supporting activities in parallel. We started to build this global team in May 2020 when I started my position at Epiroc. We are now beginning to meet again in person, which is helpful. I believe we will be smarter now about which meetings will be digital and which ones will be physical. Both aspects – virtual and physical - are needed to create an ideal environment for successfully exchanging ideas, " Katarina concludes.
