STAY IN THE GAME. PLAY IT WITH PASSION!

Buongiorno, Ni Hao, Bună ziua, Bonjour, Hi, Hallo und Gude!

Hi my name is Lucas Santin,

I am a passionate Development Engineer for Methods & Quality but adding up my profession with further interesting tasks. Therefore, I would like to give you some insights about my daily work, my additional role as L.E.A.N. coach and how I enjoy doing sports with kids from my hometown community to maintain a work-life balance.

Growing passion for data, statistics and methods

I have an academic background in Mechanical and Process Engineering. For me it feels like destiny that my studies matched perfectly with the position I applied for at Vitesco Technologies in 2016*.

Being a Methods Engineer, in Schwalbach (Germany), feels absolutely natural to me. The overall task is to help my colleagues to refine their already good work and to add another layer of methods, structuring and statistics, in order to come to even better decisions.

To name few concrete tasks, I support my team to carry out Failure Mode and Effect Analysis of our products, to raise the maturity up front and to reduce the probability of expensive recall actions. I participate in creating test plans (e.g., with Design of Experiment) and apply statistical methods and data visualization, in order to transform data into knowledge and decision basis. Acting as a moderator, I also facilitate teams to work more efficiently and interactively, while conducting workshops on topics such as innovation, cost reduction or general improvement projects.

L.E.A.N. - My work philosophy of continuous improvement!

Supporting colleagues in their work is somehow in my DNA. Therefore, I decided to join the L.E.A.N. network as a coach. L.E.A.N. is a crucial part of our company’s philosophy, that fosters continuous improvement and helps our colleagues and business to eliminate work related waste. L.E.A.N. stands for Lean. Excellence. Agile. Network., and is supported by our strong coach network. 

As a L.E.A.N. coach, I am on the lookout for problems that slow down my colleagues and eliminate them. In order to do that, I apply classical methods such as waste and process flow analysis, to identify and question the status quo. Since L.E.A.N. is all about continuous improvement, I try to make work processes easier and more beneficial. A key ingredient is to carefully listen, to frame my colleagues’ struggles and to find its root cause. The challenge is to stay vigilant, in order to figure out our next target and yet to act with empathy. My personal mission is to encourage our colleagues to engage with the core problem and search for solutions. Overall, our intention is to make our lives easier; yet keeping the quality up and increasing our pace!

I believe that we should concentrate on shifting back the responsibility and freedom to the employees’ level, to allow them to do whatever is necessary to get the tasks done. For this reason, my main challenge as a L.E.A.N. coach is to raise the courage in our managers to trust their employees and support them in tearing down the old walls. 

Being a part of this organization for 6 years now, I am convinced this is possible!

Honestly - I totally appreciate being part of team Vitesco! I experience it as a huge package of privileges. But you know, there is more in life than just work. For me it is also family, sports, and community! 😊

Balancing Family, Work and Sports

I am a father of a 4-year-old girl and a loving husband. To keep my family safe and sound is my top priority. Seeing them being happy and having time to spend together with them rewards me with joy and motivates me working hard and contributing to the society. 

It’s odd but Covid-19 pandemic taught us how to work effectively from home and still stay connected. Balancing work and family now works even better! The flexibility of my job perfectly fits with my workload - there are times in which my work needs higher attention and times when my family needs me more.

To me #partnering is something we are truly living at our workplace!

Balancing Family, Work and Sports

I am a father of a 4-year-old girl and a loving husband. To keep my family safe and sound is my top priority. Seeing them being happy and having time to spend together with them rewards me with joy and motivates me working hard and contributing to the society. 

It’s odd but Covid-19 pandemic taught us how to work effectively from home and still stay connected. Balancing work and family now works even better! The flexibility of my job perfectly fits with my workload - there are times in which my work needs higher attention and times when my family needs me more.

To me #partnering is something we are truly living at our workplace!

And finally, sports – that is one of my “top stress killers”.
Video conferencing is not only useful at work – it also allows me to work out together online with friends and colleagues. 

This year I initiated a sports group for children called "Powerhour Kids" in my hometown’s club "TGS Langenhain". About 25 primary school children regularly take the chance to become stronger, faster and self-confident. Freeing up some of my working time to inspire them even for non-classical sports (Parkour, Ultimate Frisbee, Break Dance) is super uplifting to me. It also means that I get to return something back to my local community!

 

And finally, sports – that is one of my “top stress killers”.
Video conferencing is not only useful at work – it also allows me to work out together online with friends and colleagues. 

This year I initiated a sports group for children called "Powerhour Kids" in my hometown’s club "TGS Langenhain". About 25 primary school children regularly take the chance to become stronger, faster and self-confident. Freeing up some of my working time to inspire them even for non-classical sports (Parkour, Ultimate Frisbee, Break Dance) is super uplifting to me. It also means that I get to return something back to my local community!

Lessons learned: We must allow chaos! It yields creativity, ingenuity, and joy.

My latest lesson learned from the kid’s training sessions is: We must allow chaos!
I know this sounds frightening, especially to us German believing in order and control. But let us be honest to ourselves – chaos also yields creativity, ingenuity, and joy.
We must make use of it!

*Vitesco Technologies was a division of Continental, before its spin-off in April 2021

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