Herman Miller Co Op - Design For The Good Of Humankind
Xue Hua
Experience Information
Employer: Herman Miller
Job Title: Controls Engineer
Major: Electrical Engineering
Received Credit: Yes
Paid: Yes
Abroad: No
Description of the Organization
Herman Miller is a furniture design and manufacture company with its main site located in Zeeland. The number of employees is approximately 8000 strong. In regards to engineering, Herman Miller is largely manufacturing engineering. The electrical side of things will involve manufacturing machines, production lines, PLCs, sensors, motors, vision systems, and robotics. I would recommend this company to someone looking into supporting manufacturing and production.
Description of the Tasks/Projects Completed
The majority of my responsibilities were split into two categories: The Database Project and Work Orders. The Database Project was an 8-month project where I was responsible for programming, designing, testing, and implementing an asset management system. This system would be used by the entire Controls Department at Herman Miller. The specifications included vigorous querying needs, functionality to interact with the data, and an intuitive user experience. The goal was to manufacture an asset management system where the entire Controls Department could manage its internal assets and its various details and information such as IP information. On the other hand, Work Orders were work requests from other areas of the company to support production. The one I enjoyed most was implementing a sensor to detect the edge of a panel to eliminate a design error. This work order was on the back burner for around a year before it came to me. It was a 3-month project where I had to research sensors, calibrate them precisely and implement them into the existing PLC program. This specific was project was a success and the steps I laid out were administered to 7 other machines. This was an example of a typical work order.
Skills/Knowledge Gained Through The Experience
During my time as a controls engineer, I gained many technical and professional skills. For example, I programmed PLCs (Allen Bradley and Click) in Ladder Logic (RSLogix), learned how to interface with sensors (Barnum, Banner, etc.) and other peripherals (HMIs, ANDON systems, etc.), and designed electrical schematics in AutoCAD. It started off with updating existing code in PLCs to making minor changes to programming sensors and peripherals from scratch. Most of the work required robust troubleshooting skills and the ability to communicate with top and end-users. In the database project, I programmed heavily with PHP, javascript, CSS, HTML, Python, Angular, and other similar frameworks. I improved my skills as a programmer by coding the backend and front end of the project. Furthermore, I learned how to execute and manipulate databases with MySQL. Most of the work done was through Work Orders. Almost all of them involved working with PLCs such as system redesign, implementation, or maintenance. I was also exposed to robotics(FANUC) and vision systems (KEYENCE). In short, the skills I gained from this experience really prepared me for industry work.
Favorite Part of the Experience
My favorite part throughout my entire co-op experience was connecting and learning from my leaders and coworkers. They were always ready to teach and share their knowledge with me and I was always prepared to listen and learn. My technical skills with PLCs, sensors, electrical design, and programming grew under their tutelage. School will try their best to teach you but there is nothing better than first-hand experience. I was also fond of the opportunities to collaborate and be independent in my work. For example, the database project was self-managed from start to finish and there was constant collaboration with various levels of the company to complete a work order. Managing my work orders taught me teamwork and communication. Another strong example is the intern project, which is independently executed by a team of interns in collaboration with a sponsor. Opportunities to grow and refine your professional and technical skills like these emerge often at Herman Miller.
How the Experience Influenced Future Career Goals
I am very goal-oriented and this experience helped me narrow down and identify exactly what I wanted in a career. Through controls engineering, I realized that this was the field I was most interested in Electrical. I enjoyed problem-solving and working with various sensors and PLCs. When the company leveraged my programming ability, it cemented my natural love for coding and design. My supervisor directly impacted me with her leadership and my various company mentors polished off my professional skills. I also discovered that company culture was very important to me. Herman Miller emphasized work-life balance and social responsibility. I tried to be an active part of their company culture, most notably, participating in their internal employee events and their Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives. Overall, this experience positively influenced my future career decisions.
Internship Format
In Person