Homologation and Regulations Industrial Placement Review

I enjoyed having the opportunity to work for Nissan in the Homologation and Regulations department. Learning about all the regulations and compliance for a vehicle in development to ensure that for production the vehicle is fully certified to be sold to customers. The work provided me real insight across all departments involved with the vehicle development as they all play a role in confirming the car (and its associated parts i.e. glass, tyres or lights) met the required standards of safety.

Within PMZ the requirement of team work is less so required as each individual has a role to play; however collectively when working closely with my engineer to support day to day activities, I was very well supported. Also throughout Nissan when working across different departments; I developed strong relations between the Homologation department and other engineers within various departments based on the compliance required whether in meetings or emails; the support I received was generally very good.

Support and guidance were given greatly during the first few weeks/month of training and getting settled into my Homologation role. This involved weekly meetings with my supporting engineer to review tasks that were set and completed during the previous week to ensure any blockings points were raised and to review completed work. Further into placement; when support was required from my senior/manager level, this was less supported as complications and blockings points were slower to be acknowledged. This led onto delayed solutions, however this was not a deterrent to completing work as I continued other tasks until further action was taken in the department before resuming and completing these tasks.

As the placement continued at 6+ months; by this point I had fully grasped the Homologation role I was in within my department and working with my supporting Engineer at which point I was able to become more involved in other tasks involving Homologation Vehicles, supporting events, Homologation Parts shipping, Vehicle Shipping at which point I became consistently busy throughout the remainder of my time at Nissan.

As an Industrial Placement student; I found that it was much more difficult to be given full responsibility of tasks as my lack of experience always involved asking further questions to better understand the role I was given. Where my tasks required a 'first-time' learning experience, I was able to take much more responsibility of the role as I would be feeding this information back to my department. Where I had more of a supporting role, my responsibility was less so, but I put this down to high importance and therefore special management was required of which my supporting Engineer would take the lead.

My Degree study is in Automotive Technology with Management. I believe the skills I developed in Homologation was more management then automotive; however without the automotive knowledge is very welcome and required in this department. To manage the Homologation of regulation and compliance throughout the development of the vehicle is more involved then the knowledge behind the automotive technology itself to ensure parts on the vehicle comply to regulation. For myself; it was a great combined way to expose myself to both sides of my course but less so involved because of the lack of CAD Design and Engineering requirements as in my course studies.

The atmosphere in the office was always required to be very work related and quiet; with communications being kept to a minimum. However I took it upon myself to whenever convenient to start debates/discussions of mostly work related but occasional socialising activities to have the team more involved with working/communicating with each other. I found this kept the department happy but also in remain in the working environment.

Overall; a very good set-up and placement year.

Personal Training and development was always available in selected courses at Nissan; unfortunately due to the increasing work-load I was unable to fully utilised these courses. However the increased work-load did lead onto many hours of over-time which Nissan did pay at +1.5 times the hourly rate.

Nissan do operate a 2-Year Graduate Scheme for Students who have completed their degree studies; this does make it more attractive to students who completed a placement year at Nissan who will have a stronger opportunity to return.

Yes; events between placement students were taking place between a monthly basis and all have been keen and involved in staying in touch.

Affordable in most cases.

Many Leisure Activities both day and night are available in Milton Keynes.

Yes; including a ski-trip and also other events such as Go-Karting and Wave-boarding organised by the Sports and Social Events Club.