Jan wants to cut straight to the chase. “Right now, every software platform promises you the earth,” he says. “They all say you’ll look 20 years younger and lose four stone by tomorrow. But the real world just isn’t like that.”
As a Data Scientist at Siemens Lincoln, in the UK, Jan doesn’t want to jump on the latest online bandwagon for the sake of it. He knows that it takes more than any old data to change a business. “It’s all about data quality,” he says. “If you don’t get it right, you’ll topple over and a start-up will just come and take your place.”
As a result, Jan is in the middle of a data overhaul, breaking down the flows and building them back up again from a bedrock of reliable information points that will deliver actual insights on how the plant operates. It’s a process that is opening up thousands of potential avenues, and these are already changing the face of employment at the Lincoln plant.
The factory in Lincoln makes gas turbines — complex machines that are called in when businesses need mobile energy fast. “We have them in deserts, oil rigs, anywhere really. They can start up within a few minutes and give you immediate electricity,” says Jan.
Keeping the turbines running at optimum capacity means identifying issues before they arise. “We’re using data to understand our products,” Jan explains. “At the moment we’re developing artificial intelligence (AI) to carry out proactive maintenance — to be able to spot problems before they even happen.” Fed by a constant stream of data that is collected, shared, and used to create new iterations, the AI takes in thousands of inputs and data sources, and is always on the lookout for potential issues.
Seeing an opportunity and owning it
Jan believes that his childhood, growing up with lots of brothers and sisters in a three-bedroom house while looking after their ill mother and elderly father, helped him develop a strong understanding of those around him. “I like the way people tick, and being aware of that helps you drive things forward. My parents have always taught me to be understanding. Understanding of others and of what went before us,” says Jan.
His ability to take stock of his surroundings is what motivated Jan to take his career progression into his own hands. After being named the Siemens UK top engineering student in 2014, he was offered an internship at their industrial turbomachinery plant in Lincoln. Never one to miss out on an opportunity, he saw a chance to better himself and widen his skill set. “In my first two weeks I was already attending lunchtime classes on machine learning,” he says.
Despite many people saying data wasn’t the way forward in his industry, Jan refused to be deterred. He started to implement his ideas — on a small scale at first — because he knew he had to prove to those around him just what he was capable of. Then, at a work dinner one night, he saw an opportunity he couldn’t pass up.
“I went to a graduate meal and I noticed an empty seat near all the senior managers,” he recalls. “I’m not one to keep my mouth shut, so when the managing director asked me if I had any recommendations for the plant, I just started telling him my plan.”
Jan wants to introduce a formula that will set the traditional engineering workplace on a realistic and achievable path towards becoming a digital-first environment.
Rather than focusing on problems, Jan proposed a solution that he believed could solve all of their headaches. The managing director was impressed, and phoned him the next day asking if he could put all of his ideas together and present them. From there, Jan created the Digital Intelligence Group, a diverse team — from management to on-the-ground engineers — all looking for ways to put data at the heart of how they operate. At the moment, it’s a four-strong team, but Jan’s already working with colleagues from different areas to try and build momentum across departments.
Rewarding talent and tenacity
Jan has always had a unique approach to putting himself forward, and it’s clearly paid off. When he was an engineering student at the University of Lincoln he was nominated for the Sir William Siemens Medal — cherry-picked from a selection of top undergraduates from Siemens partnership universities, including Cambridge and Loughborough.
Following a 45-minute interview and a set of written questions, Jan won the award thanks to his ability to communicate his ideas with the utmost clarity. “They asked me how I would explain what a career at Siemens was to a friend,” he says, “So I decided to do something different. My approach was to put someone in a familiar situation.”
Jan played out a fictional scenario where he would ask his friend to imagine themselves sitting on a sofa on a Sunday afternoon, watching Formula 1 on the television. “Everything from the Coca-Cola they’re drinking, to the power station running the television, and the design of the racing cars — they all rely on Siemens technology. In that one instance, you have so many unknown Siemens interactions.”
He had doubted he would win, as the competition was fierce. “The person placed third had an average exam grade of 90%, so I didn’t think I stood a chance,” he says, but it was his ability to think differently that earned him recognition.
Knowing that people want to hear his ideas and value his opinion is helping Jan go from strength-to-strength in terms of career progression. “I want to be the youngest person on the Siemens management board,” he says.
Recruiting like a start-up
With so much hype surrounding the impact of start-up culture, Jan aims to bring some of the scene’s vibrant thinking to the Lincoln plant. Noticing a general problem with hiring the right people and skill sets in northern jobs, Jan wants the plant to focus on recruiting people with the passion and drive to move the whole business forward. “If someone doesn’t have a passion for your company, you wouldn’t hire them at a start-up because survival is your main goal,” he says. “So why would we do the same?”
Jan’s philosophy is that if you recruit right, and compensate people well, you’ll start to assemble all the components for an explosive team: “Instead of having 10 people doing an okay job, we could have five people excelling at it, and increase their salaries. Once we have that we’ll really be able to change things.”
Now Jan is helping shake up the plant to make it a truly pioneering workplace, but he couldn’t have done it without the support and encouragement of his managing director. “I was like a little bird on his shoulder,’ Jan describes. “I was whispering all sorts of things about different perspectives and business methods in his ears and it has paid off. Fair play to him, he really enabled my vision because he really listened to what I’ve got to say.”
Jan Van Der Lubbe is a Data Scientist in Lincoln. Outside of work, he likes to embrace adventure. In 2016, he and two friends drove from the UK to Mongolia as part of the Mongol Rally — traveling across 22 countries in 57 days. Find out more about working at Siemens.
Illustration: Jordan Andrew Carter
