Lotte Jacobsen is the Statistical Manager at Coloplast, a leading company internationally in the field of specialized medical equipment and service, which aims to improve the lives of its users. Initially, Lotte Jacobsen studied chemistry at DTU. She completed her midway project in biochemistry and nutrition before realizing that she was more interested in results analysis than in laboratory work, which made her switch to Informatics and Mathematical Modelling.
Controversial change of discipline
- Wasn't it difficult to change direction when you did not have the basic mathematic courses?
"Yes, some courses were difficult to get through, particularly programming. As a chemist, you only have one introductory Pascal course, but when you go onto the advanced courses at IMM, you are expected to be familiar with Java and many other advanced programming techniques, but I did not think it was insurmountable. It was a challenge for me to figure out how to best prepare myself academically. I needed to apply a lot of statistics for data processing and had to develop a new professional background profile in applied mathematics."
- How about your Master project?
"My Master project was done in collaboration with the Danish Veterinary Institute, which is where I did a preliminary project as well as my Master project. Professor Helle Rotzén knew someone at the institute, and they gave me the opportunity to do some biochemistry work and subsequently run statistics on the results, and that was a lot of fun, actually."
A large area of responsibility for one person
"After I graduated, I started working here at Coloplast, and since then I have actually changed jobs twice in-house. Now I have found my niche as a Statistical Manager. The fancy title means that I am in charge of supporting the entire organization with statistical work."
- How large is the statistical department at Coloplast?
"I am it."
- You are in charge of everything?
"Yes, fortunately, in connection with a fairly comprehensive restructuring at Christmas time, a new function was created called global operations, which is to help people with the statistical issues that people have forgotten how to do since they learned it at school."
- Does that mean that people come to you with statistical problems?
"Yes, but I also do statistical work relating to purchasing of machines, start-up and production. You need to complete different stages, and for each of the stages you use different statistical tools. I am part of the process from the time of development where I assist with data analysis of trials, and when the machines are purchased. I do run-ins of parameters, process optimization and validation of machines, i.e. quality approvals for production. My work is done when the machines and production go into standard operations."
Personality and attitude
- And you are particularly interested in the combination of responsibility and professional expertise?
"Yes, I use myself just as much professionally as I use my expertise. Expertise is the epitome of applied statistics, and at the same time, I am in contact with more or less everyone at all educational levels. I work with smiths, electricians and operators in production but I also present analyses to management on a regular basis. In my position, you need to be versatile. Aside from being professionally competent, you also need to be a skilled communicator and teacher. If you do not teach, the people, who you are trying to help, will never be able to stand on their own."
- So you are supposed to only assist in the start-up phase?
"In time, I am only supposed to do the complex tasks. The aim is for people to be able to do things without my help. The attitude at Coloplast is that the staff should be able to master the most basic statistical tools. There is no plan to set up a central statistics department, which is often done in large medico companies, where everything is sent to a central department where all the data processing and analysis is done, and only the result is sent back to the employee."