Gentex: Production Support
Zachary
Experience Information
Employer: Gentex Corp.
Job Title: Production Support Engineer
Major: Computer Engineering
Received Credit: Yes
Paid: Yes
Abroad: No
Description of the Organization
Gentex is an electronics manufacturing company whose main product is automotive mirrors. These mirrors are equipped with a broad array of features. For example, these features include auto-dimming to compensate for headlights, displays for rear-view cameras, and high-beam headlight adjustments. Gentex supplies these mirrors to many of the prominent automotive manufacturers worldwide.
Description of the Tasks/Projects Completed
Initially, my role as a production support engineer was to learn all about the layout and flow of our production lines. I was tasked with debugging and fixing any problems on these lines (especially software-related ones). If I couldn't solve the issue, then I would escalate the problem to the appropriate support personnel. I also dealt with some of the aspects of managing the production team members who worked on the lines. As the semester progressed, I transitioned more to focus on my main project - a live dashboard that monitors the status of the production lines and detects any ongoing problems (downtime, scrapped parts, etc.). I designed this dashboard from scratch, although many of the events I needed to monitor already had code set up to provide a means of tracking each line's performance. My final task of the semester focused on distributing this dashboard and dealing with the issues that arose on its deployment, as well as tweaking the code to work well with the varying structure of our production lines between buildings.
Skills/Knowledge Gained Through The Experience
I gained experience in debugging production machines and HMIs, setting up visual inspections of parts, and monitoring the flow of production on various lines. I also learned somewhat about managing a team of production workers and interacting with a variety of engineers when collaborating on a project. Finally, I developed my GUI-design skills and learned how to monitor the production lines by both monitoring production events and loading data from the Gentex databases.
Favorite Part of the Experience
My favorite part of my co-op at Gentex is the amount of responsibility and control I had over my project. The production dashboard project I worked on was my own idea that I pitched to my supervisor, received approval for, and then spent my time developing. I was allowed to design and implement the entire project at my discretion while still receiving all the support and help that I needed from other software groups to complete it.
How the Experience Influenced Future Career Goals
After this co-op, I have learned that while the manual maintenance and debugging of machinery on the production line can be interesting, I prefer to be involved in the development of a new interface or application. Also, I enjoy designing this software much more than implementing the specific details. Thus, I hope to be the leader of a software development team in the future.