Engineering co-op
Erik
Experience Information
Employer: Tetra Pak (Sweden)
Job Title: Engineering Co-op
Major: Mechanical Engineering
Received Credit: Yes
Paid: Yes
Abroad: No
Description of the Organization
Tetra Pak is a Swedish world leading engineering company that produces food containers made of paper that have been printed and laminated. The company develops and build all machines needed to manufacture the final product in very big scales. That involves printing machines, laminating machines, creasing machines, cutting machines, and lastly filling machines. The company also is responsible for the manufacturing aspects as well. It was founded in the early 1950's by Ruben Rausing and is still one of the most successful privately owned companies in the world, which can be seen through their huge revenue aprox. 15 billion dollars. The company has evolved from being just a small Swedish company to a global company with offices and factories all over the world including the US.
Description of the Tasks/Projects Completed
Since being new at the company I received a full walk through of the manufacturing process at the company. That took a few weeks to understand and learn the complexity of manufacturing in that high scale that they do. My assignment was to spend a few days each at the different machines to learn to understand how they work and then to analyze them and look for possible improvements. The machines that I got to analyze was the printing machine, the creasing tool, the laminating machine and the cutting machines. If an improvement was made the solution was drawn up on CAD and sent to the developers and improvement engineers so they can go through with the improvement.
Skills/Knowledge Gained Through The Experience
I have especially gained communication skill. Being able to tell in a technical matter of possible machine improvements both in writing as reports and verbally. This has been vital skills since being at meetings with fellow engineers have made it easy to communicate with them. Also, the verification of the mechanical theories that has been learned throughout the years with real life situations. I definitely feel more confident with my engineering skills which I think is the main goal with the co-op experiences.
Favorite Part of the Experience
My favorite part of this experience was to work with senior engineers that over the years have gained so much experience and therefore have so much to tell. Listening to their experiences and try to gain and learn from them as well, like they have. Also, being a part of this huge corporations made it possible for me to move around within it. That enabled me to see so many different engineering areas and I can very much see myself at a company of that size since it can provide such great work variety for an engineer.
How the Experience Influenced Future Career Goals
Throughout this summer I have come to see the complexity involved in manufacturing of something as simple as a milk or juice box. It has made me realize how important an engineers job is to keep track on details for something being able to be manufactured at a big scale. It was a great experience that I will cherish highly career wise. it has made me realize that I made the right choice with the ME major.