Jukka Orava, Design Engineer

”RAILWAY TECHNOLOGY IS NOT ROCKET SCIENCE, ALTHOUGH IT IS BOUND TO STRICT SAFETY REGULATIONS.”

Jukka works as a design engineer for Mipro’s rail traffic business and designs logic programs for the interlocking system. These programs are used to control, for example, railway signals or operation of points on the track. Jukka describes his job as coding in which ready programmable components are re-collected to serve a certain station. ”The challenge is to make as few mistakes as possible,” he says. ”You can do this by avoiding manual work as much as possible and letting the computer take care of routine tasks. Then you can concentrate on the actual application target and its special requirements.”

Jukka joined Mipro in autumn 2009, when he moved back to his home city after eight years in southern Finland. Jukka had made a career in an IT company and joining Mipro was a sort of jump over the fence. ”I changed from traditional programming to the world of automation design. An interest in automation had remained from my study time but my main subject was information technology.”

There were challenges, but Jukka tackled them by investigating, wondering, and actively asking questions. ”Railway technology is accurately defined and bound to strict safety regulations. However, it is not rocket science; you only need to have an open mind and a willingness to learn new things,” he says.

Jukka applauds Mipro for succeeding so well in Mikkeli. In his opinion this success is based on Mipro’s skills at taking good care of customers. The company has offered flexible system solutions which genuinely take customers’ needs into account. The Finnish railway market seems to be filling up so Jukka hopes that Mipro will start international business activities. He is ready to participate in projects abroad on the basis of his earlier experience. His motto is “I’m ready for diverse tasks when needed”.