Emil’s journey through DS began with a broom in the carpentry workshop

A couple of afternoons a week after school, 13-year-old Emil Trend would head to DS Elcobyg’s carpentry workshop. His task was quite straightforward: sweep the workshop and tidy up.

Text: Signe Rafael Jensen

Since then, the broom has been replaced by precast concrete elements, EPDs, ERP systems and environmental data. Today, Emil works as a student assistant at DS Elcobyg, combining his student job with an internship at DS Gruppen.

Emil’s connection with DS Elcobyg actually began before he became an employee. His father, Bjarne Andersen, has worked at the company for many years, and Emil has accompanied his father to work since he was a child.

“When my father was on lock-up duty and had to go around locking all the doors, I often went with him as a child,” Emil explains.

At the age of 13, Emil got his first job at DS Elcobyg as a workshop sweeper.

From concrete to data

After upper secondary school, Emil became a concrete caster in production. There, he reinforced precast concrete elements and gradually also learnt how to smooth and finish them. When he returned after his military service, he became what DS Elcobyg calls a ‘finisher’, responsible for smoothing and finishing the elements in the production hall.

After working in production, Emil spent five months backpacking around South America before beginning his studies at Aalborg University. There, he completed a bachelor’s degree in Global Business Systems and is now studying for a master’s degree in Management Engineering, specialising in Operations and Innovation Management.

However, he did not leave DS Elcobyg behind. He continued working in production during the summer holidays and later became a student assistant in the office. One of his first major tasks was developing DS Elcobyg’s EPDs – both product and project EPDs.

Since then, he has taken on several more tasks. Today, Emil works on ERP implementation, focusing on inventory management and enabling costs to be tracked in greater detail.

“My work therefore largely involves systems and managing data, as well as translating what happens in practice into something our ERP system can work with,” Emil explains.

When the answer is not readily available

For Emil, it is particularly interesting when tasks require him to find a solution himself.

“As much as I love data, my greatest challenge is when the data I need does not exist. Then I have to devise new ways or methods of finding the data I am missing.”

As a student assistant, Emil also finds that colleagues across DS Elcobyg are easily accessible.

This is an advantage in a job where tasks often span several departments. At the same time, Emil is given responsibility for his own tasks and the freedom to find solutions.

“My managers give me a great deal of responsibility and allow me to manage my own tasks. They do not constantly tell me what to do, but trust that I will come to them if I need advice,” Emil explains, continuing:

“I have discovered that I thrive on tasks that I can grow into and take responsibility for. Although a task may seem daunting on paper, it can be manageable if I divide it into smaller stages.”

A cross-company assignment opened up a new opportunity

One of Emil’s tasks as a student assistant has been sustainability reporting for DS Gruppen. This brought him into contact with DS Gruppen’s Head of ESG, Svanborg Guðjónsdóttir.

Svanborg asked Emil whether he had considered where he would like to do an internship during the third semester of his master’s degree. She also presented the opportunity to undertake an internship at DS Gruppen.

“It sounded really exciting and like something I could see myself doing, so I said yes,” Emil explains.

New tasks across DS

As an intern at DS Gruppen, Emil will work with environmental data across the companies and build on the experience he has gained at DS Elcobyg.

Here, he will help to identify where data is lacking and explore how it can be collected more efficiently. The work will support, among other things, the environmental data that DS Gruppen supplies to GOLDBECK.

At the same time, he will continue working as a student assistant at DS Elcobyg during his internship.

Since sweeping the floor of the carpentry workshop at the age of 13, he has worked both in production and in the office at DS Elcobyg, gaining experience in areas including EPDs, ERP and environmental data.

The internship at DS Gruppen will therefore be an opportunity to apply that experience in a new context – while remaining part of DS Elcobyg.