First co-op rotation at Autocam Medical
Zachry
Experience Information
Employer: Autocam Medical
Job Title: Machinist
Major: Product Design and Manufacturing Engineering
Received Credit: Yes
Paid: Yes
Abroad: No
Description of the Organization
Autocam Medical is a good sized company with over 400 employees worldwide and three US locations and two overseas locations in China and Brazil. They manufacture a wide range of medical devices such as ankle and knee implants, bone screws, and orthoscopic handpieces used in cataract surgery.
Description of the Tasks/Projects Completed
I came into this co-op with four years of previous machining experience. My role this semester was somewhere between a skilled machinist and an engineer. I worked on a team to help design a process for a new product. This included writing CNC code, testing process capabilities, programming CMMs and other gauging devices and many more things. I worked closely with my team to get the process stable and repeatable on one machine with only one machinist (myself) and then was able to expand our process to four machines and train six machinists on it by the end of the semester.
Skills/Knowledge Gained Through The Experience
I gained a much greater understanding of how a process is designed. The amount of people, paperwork, and steps that go into a well designed and well documented engineering process such as that were somewhat surprising and impressive to me. Along with this I learned many useful technical skills such as a better understanding of ladder logic, gauging, capability testing, and identification of sources of error.
Favorite Part of the Experience
My favorite part of this co-op was getting to be an active member of a team of extremely skilled people. Working with people who had designed processes for dozens product lines and having them value my input and ideas as an equal was really cool.
How the Experience Influenced Future Career Goals
This experience has reinforced my choice in major and career. I really enjoyed the type of work and problem solving situations that were thrown at me. I also like that there were always goals that were attainable and yet felt extremely rewarding to complete.