Today we visited two companies, Titan Cement and Athens Airport. Both companies shared different ideas compared to the previous companies we visited. However, both look to engineer for the betterment of society.

Titan Cement provides cement to not only Greece, but to the UK and USA. Their mission is to provide the best quality cement, for the cheapest emission cost. They, along with many other cement companies, really only have one machine that produces CO2/e emissions, and they look to reduce those emissions. they are going to build a emission roof to reduce the harmful CO2 spread into the environment. On top of that they have a in house research and development (R&D) team to research different alternatives to create better cement for certain conditions. An example of this is the cement they developed to make the foundations for the Riviera in the Ellinikon.

Athens Airport takes a different approach to satisfying their customers. When talking with the terminal manager, he highlighted the fact that their job is to make passengers feel as safe and move as fast as possible. This is done through their new and innovative security checking technology to keep free flowing traffic through TSA possible. The only bottleneck that could happen is people not being cooperative with the employees, something they can’t really control.

Through both of these visits, I have learned that engineers must adapt and satisfy customer needs to the best of their abilities and not worry about the variables that we can’t control. If we follow this, not only will our production towards a goal would increase in speed and quality, but we will understand that somethings will not work out because of things we can not control.

SOTD: Hotel Room by Ax and the Hatchetmen