Mechanical Engineering Co-op at Dematic
Jared
Experience Information
Employer: Dematic corp.
Job Title: Applications Mechanical Engineer
Major: Mechanical Engineering
Received Credit: Yes
Paid: Yes
Abroad: No
Description of the Organization
Dematic corp. is a logistics handling company that has solutions from packing and tracking to shipping and storing products.
Description of the Tasks/Projects Completed
Mechanical Engineering in the Applications department of Dematic corp. deals mainly with engineering, ordering, installing, checking, and supporting the logistics system within a customers warehouse. In the first term of my co-op, I have experienced the first 3 of these to some regard. I have helped arrange conveyor and other systems within an AutoCAD environment, I have helped order conveyor along with its components and accessories and I have been to a customer site to help aid installation.
Skills/Knowledge Gained Through The Experience
Engineers must be able to communicate, throughout this entire experience, if any talk is misunderstood, it can quickly kill an entire project. If you don't know something, ASK somebody, not only do they love to explain, but you can use this information to help others around you who have the same questions. When on a job site, be prepared for anything, have your tool bag handy (or at least a handy multi-tool). You make more friends by jumping right in and by not being afraid get a little dirty. Experience with SAP, AutoCAD, and other Dematic specific software packages. Experience with short distance travel, expense reports, simple memos.
Favorite Part of the Experience
Job site visits. Though I spent very little time at the job site, I learned a lot there. I learned that as an engineer you are not expected to sit at a desk all day, you are expected to get out there, figure out what's wrong, fix it, and then record what you did so others can use your experience in similar situations.
How the Experience Influenced Future Career Goals
I plan on going for an engineer manager position, I know this requires experience and therefore I will return to school for a masters, spend as much time as I can getting to know company products in the field and in the office, and continue to invest in my relationships with co-workers, because the more you know about the people you work with, the better you can relate to them, and the better you can communicate with them.