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| EXPERIENCE: Thomas Tverberg (left) and Roar Jakobsen – joint age 79 years – have a total of 45 years’ of service behind them in Hydro’s power stations. (All photos: Kåre Foss) |
Both of them might be considered veterans: Thomas Tverberg has worked for Hydro for 24 years, Roar Jakobsen for 21 years.
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| Thomas Tverberg |
Roar has just returned after a lengthy assignment at Nesflaten. His field is primarily mechanical maintenance.
“The work is never boring or routine, and the fact that we from time to time get assignments at other power stations in southern Norway adds to the variation. That’s the way we need to work – across organizational lines – if we are to utilize our resources in the best way possible,” explains Roar Jakobsen.
Freedom and responsibility
”The day-to-day work requires planning, but it also gives us a lot of freedom. The team spirit here is great and a big factor explaining why many of us aren’t on the lookout for new jobs," says Tverberg.
As experienced specialists, the two of them are also put in charge of the external staff occasionally taken on to carry out certain tasks.
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| Roar Jakobsen |
The current Vemork power station is located – quite typically – 250 meters inside the mountain, a stone’s throw from the Rjukan Falls and the site of the first Vemork power station, built between 1909-11, which now houses the industrial museum.
Jakobsen and Tverberg have worked together on many projects, both major and minor ones. One of the bigger, and really interesting projects, was the construction of Frøystul, a new, larger power station in the mountain that replaced a smaller power station dating from 1926.
Prevention and correction
The whole point of inspection and maintenance is prevention, fault-finding, correction and repairs. But unforeseen incidents can still occur. Their many years’ experience on the job have made them familiar with all sorts of occurrences, from short circuits to machinery breakdowns.
Routines and know-how aimed at maintaining safety are always important, and are no less important when something unforeseen happens. Jakobsen and Tverberg say that they frequently attend courses so that they can brush up on their HSE skills. They are familiar with both risk analyses and behavior-based safety.
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| MAINTENANCE: Torleif Gunleiksrud’s area of work is mechanical maintenance. He is pictured here in the workshop at Såheim power station. |
”One of the tools we use is called 5S,” says Jakobsen.
“This relates to the actual management of all the equipment we use. The 5Ss are translated into English – from the original Japanese – as sort, set in order, systematic clean-up, standardize and sustain... the last of these means having sufficient self-discipline to maintain a good standard, once it has been established. If we do this, we can make our working day both safer and more satisfying. We know from experience that this is so.”
”HSE has become more and more important. I'm reminded of someone who was so surprised to learn of the time and resources we spend on it that he wondered when we had time to do any work! Joking apart, though, we can now see – after many years of solid HSE efforts – that we have become much better at planning and implementation,” explains Tverberg.
