NEVER IN THE DARK · MARTE

Workshop technician · IJmuiden · 4 years at Zwart

For Marte even the smallest defect must never reach the customer

A large steel coupling. A fit that comes down to thousandths of a millimetre. Marte van Dijk heats the coupling so the steel expands and can slide onto the shaft. As it cools, it shrinks into place. “If even a single thread, speck of dust or tiny bit of something gets in between, it jams. Then that is it.”

From the workshop to where it matters most.

Marte specialised in this work during a large project for AdNord. He is now one of the few people at Zwart who can fit these couplings. In the IJmuiden workshop, he assembles engines and generators for projects around the world. Installing an engine, connecting switches, fitting a coupling. “There is actually more variety to the work here than you might expect.”

One final check. A big difference.

Before a generator leaves the workshop, it goes through a final check. Does everything work? Is the wiring connected correctly? Are the pumps doing what they should? Any problems are resolved here, before they reach the customer. Faults discovered on site can be expensive. “When it is completely finished and ready to go on the truck, I do get that feeling: ticked off, we have done it.”

Marte knows what will depend on that generator once it is installed. Zwart supplies hospitals and data centres, among other sites. He puts it like this: “You might not see it, but when the lights go out and come back on ten seconds later, that is us.” The work those places depend on starts here. With a coupling, a connection and a final check.

What Marte keeps running: the power supply in places where everything has to keep working.

Unseen. Essential.