Co-Op Year 2 @ Autocam Medical
Brady
Experience Information
Employer: Autocam Medical
Job Title: Engineering Co-op
Major: Mechanical Engineering
Received Credit: Yes
Paid: Yes
Abroad: No
Description of the Organization
Autocam Medical is a global 3rd party Manuacturing organization that specializes in the manufacturing of medical equipment such as surgical drills, reamers, implants etc. They have bases around the globe, and are headquartered in Kentwood Mi.
Description of the Tasks/Projects Completed
On a day to day basis I work on doing Non-Conformance Reports to investigate why certain parts in the manufacturing process fail to meet expectations. I was also responsible for making sure the automatic straightening robots stayed running throughout the day. Larger scale projects I worked on was generating an automatic weekend scheduling assistant in excel. The excel file would use each employees availability on weekends (that they get to choose, weekends are not required so it was all bonus time for the machinist) as well as inputted weekend job data such as duration, quantity, machine ID and Job #. A table would then generate assigning available employees to time slots to reload the machines based on their personal schedules to keep them running as frequently as possible on the weekends. The table helped to allow the flow of communication as a simple image could be emailed out and every employee would know what times to come in at. Another large scale project I worked on was designing a custom fixture plate for one of our grind machines at the plant. A new and faster method of swapping jobs was going to be implemented on the machine, but there was no appropriate way to mount the system to do it. I got to design a fixture plate from the ground up to adapt this system onto our machine.
Skills/Knowledge Gained Through The Experience
The two major skills I gained through the experience was Excel and Solidworks. I did a lot more work in excel than I anticipated, but really enjoyed it. I found there is a lot to learn in excel than what students typically use it for in classes. I also found that learning solidworks in class and applying it to real design projects are very different because the design is constantly changing as new ideas are being generated all the time during the design process.
Favorite Part of the Experience
The independence was the best part. I never had anyone breathing down my neck and monitoring me. I was given a list of projects to do by my mentor, we would go over what each project was, and then that was the extent of given help. I certainly could ask for help, and it was always given, but nobody was telling me what to do. I got to make my schedule and take my own approach to the projects, working on what was the highest priority at the time.
How the Experience Influenced Future Career Goals
It has motivated me to work hard in industry to move up in my career. I found a large part of the job to be enjoyable was because of the large responsibility and trust I was given. You feel respected and a part of the team, even though you are only there for a few short months, because of how much work and trust they are willing to give you.
Internship Format
In Person