These women engineers at Alstom are breaking stereotypes, one shop floor at a time

When it comes to the workplace, women have been breaking barriers for a very long time. There may be fields where the number of women is less, but they are there, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with men in every conceivable domain you can think of.

In India, the manufacturing sector employs 20 percent of the total workforce, much lesser than a number of Asian countries.

In this scenario, it’s heartening to note that many organisations are giving women the place they truly deserve. Alstom, a global transportation solutions provider, employs around 18 percent women on its shop floors across its four manufacturing facilities located in Sri City in Andhra Pradesh, Coimbatore, Madhepura in Bihar, and Kolkata.

The factory in Sri City builds rolling stock for Urban Metros, both for domestic as well as international (Sydney Metro, REM Montreal Metro) projects. The company has also set up its largest Global Engineering Centre outside of France, in Bengaluru.

HerStory spoke to five women on its shop floors across India, being empowered to be the people they want to be, the challenges and work in the face of the COVID-19 situation.

Meera Sinha, Serial Test Engineer, Madhepura

Twenty-five-year-old Meera Sinha joined Alstom in July 2018 as a graduate engineer trainee after completing her bachelor’s in electrical engineering from National Institute of Technology, Patna. She works at Alstom’s electric locomotive manufacturing unit in Madhepura.

“Right from the beginning, I got a chance to work with different departments like Production and Sourcing, which helped me learn new things. I currently work as a Serial Test Engineer in Testing and Commissioning Department,” she says.

Working with a team of 40 people, Meera’s responsibility is to encourage the team to ideate on improvements and track its implementation while documenting the product tests. She was the first woman to join the testing department, and her classmates would point out the IT sector would have been a better career choice.

“It feels good to work on the shop floor and serve as an inspiration to other women engineers. What we do is rare, and I hope to encourage more women to explore such opportunities. I have always been passionate about engineering, so I don’t see any specific challenges on this job. In fact, this job is helping me learn a lot of new things that not many of my age get exposure to,” she adds.

Currently working in shifts, Meera says, COVID-19 has surely slowed down the momentum that had been prior to the lockdown.

“We have been back to work for over a month now and caught up speed. Alstom has started delivering electric locomotives to Indian Railways that are being deployed for commercial operations. The only thing that has changed is that now we are taking more precautions like wearing face mask, social distancing, sanitiser use, etc," she says.

"Yes, I still go to work on the shop floor, but the company has ensured all the precautions are taken for our safety and well-being. Since I stay alone here, the only thing that has changed since the pandemic is the fact that I cannot visit home as frequently as I used to earlier,” she adds.

Vishakha Choudhary, NCR Co-ordinator and SAP Quality Key User, Kolkata

Vishakha Choudhary is a 23-year-old electrical engineer who joined Alstom last year after completing her studies from MNIT, Allahabad.

“This is my first job and I am proud to be a part of Alstom. After my general induction training, for three months, I joined the industrial quality team. My first role was of a Site Quality GSI (Global Single Instance) Key user. I then moved on to becoming an NCR Coordinator and SAP Quality Key User in Alstom Kolkata. Being the first female employee at the Kolkata site, I am very proud of working on the shop floor. I respect my workspace and the work I do,” she says.

One of her biggest successes, she says, is the current project that she is working on. She also played a key role in driving successful GSI implementation and driving self-inspection and Auto Quality matrix initiative at the Kolkata plant.

“I would like to continuously learn and upskill myself and grow within the organisation,” she adds.

Aishwarya Pratap Simha, Testing and Commissioning Engineer, Sri City

A BTech in Electronics and Communication, Aishwarya joined Alstom straight after college. She has been part of the Testing and Commissioning Department for three years now, and calls it a great learning opportunity. So far, she has worked on three projects. Apart from getting used to night shifts, she has not faced any major challenge.

“The highlight of my career was when I took my grandparents for a ride in the Chennai metro and told them that I had a part in the manufacturing of this train. They had never seen a metro before this, and they had never imagined that their granddaughter would be part of such a prestigious project. The happiness on their face was priceless. I made my family proud and that is success for me,” she says.

“We work in groups and it has helped us as a team. It offers us a chance to collaborate with different people, work on different ideas, and learn a different way of working. It is a good learning experience as we all strive to be the best and have a lot of fun while working together,” she adds.

Ramya Pechimuthu, Industrial Quality Engineer, Coimbatore

After completing her bachelor’s in electronics and communication engineering in 2013, Ramya joined Alstom in 2014 as a short-term trainee in the manufacturing department. She worked on the CMRL and KMRL projects, then moved to the quality department in 2016 as an Industrial Quality Engineer, taking care of all looming and cabinets quality inspection, quality animations in production line, customer handling, quality gate review, and continuous improvements.

“As an industrial quality engineer, I work with cross functional teams that are responsible for product inspections, internal audits, and customer handling. It has been four years since I began working on the Tram Train New Generation project. As it is a key customer support, I have also handled Sydney customer from the front line. At the moment, I am solely responsible for looming and cabinets for cross functional metier,” she explains.

As a woman on the shop floor, Ramya believes it’s a responsibility in itself to work shoulder-to-shoulder with all members of the team.

“I never faced discrimination, rather I have received respect and compassion from my teammates. With the support of my team, all challenges seem small, just like any other day-to-day activity,” she adds.

When they resumed work from office after the lockdown, she was happy at the extensive measures taken by the company to ensure safety and health. In the future, she would like to work with the projects team, she says.

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Srishti Gupta, Fleet Performance Engineer, Saharanpur

Srishti Gupta was selected in the Young Engineering Graduate Programme by Alstom during campus placements while she was studying electrical engineering at NIT Kurukshetra in 2018.

The 24-year-old is a Fleet Performance Engineer. “I joined the Saharanpur Maintenance Depot towards the end of its final set-up. At the time, there were only 40-45 employees, so it was a new experience for all of us. Eventually, we became a tight knit group. Even though we were only five women at that time, to be honest I never felt “different” as the organisation never made me feel that. For me, this has been rewarding and encouraging, that I was treated just like everyone else. Being straight out of college, the ever-encouraging environment to learn was a blessing. I learnt a lot from the amazingly talented managers, fellow engineers, and associates,” she recalls.

Shristi’s role includes analysing the performance of the running fleet in mainline, which helps to drive insights about the ground situation and proactively resolve the issues. It also helps us better align our operational activities to improve our efficiency and enhance customer satisfaction.

“Coordinating and communicating with all the stakeholders is surely not an easy task. As people come with different experiences and have different perspectives, it takes time to unlearn and relearn. I look forward to learning and delivering to the organisation to the best of my abilities,” she adds.