Riina Raitila, Interior Designer: A ship is built with people

“I originally graduated as a Master of Science in Material Technology, but since then I have also studied ship design transformation studies. I started at Rauma Marine Constructions as a trainee in January 2018, and I’m still here.

I design ship interiors. The design team’s job is basically everything inside of the ship’s steel cover. I’m in charge of designing windows and signs. In addition to that, I participate in designing the crew areas. Even though my job title is interior designer, in practice I’m an engineer. I don’t work with colour schemes or material selections. I mainly do office-work, though it is important that when needed I get to visit the ship while it is a work in progress. This is necessary, for example, when inspecting a ship’s signs with the officials. This is easy as the ships are being built right next to our offices.

Because there’s an entire ship being built to surround our windows, I must have a good knowledge of the whole ship, as well as more specialised knowledge of things like insulation, for example. It is definitely one of my strengths and it makes my job interesting. I am curious and interested in how and why things are done. That’s also one of the reasons I like improving the work processes. I think I’ve been successful in standardising our methods, for example.

With RMC, I have learned a lot about ships, of course. I’ve also learned universal skills. Even though we build ships the work is ultimately done with people. My team skills have improved significantly during these last few years.

We have a really good team spirit. It’s great that you can always ask if you don’t know something. Our work community is not very big yet so there’s not a lot of bureaucracy. There are also good opportunities at RMC to widen your competences horizontally. You can improve yourself, and different training opportunities are actively offered to you. I haven’t yet had time to attend any trainings myself, but I’m sure I will make use of them in the future.”