Herman Miller - Manufacturing Engineering Co-Op
Nicole
Experience Information
Employer: Herman Miller
Job Title: Manufacturing Engineering Co-Op Student
Major: Product Design and Manufacturing Engineering
Received Credit: Yes
Paid: Yes
Abroad: No
Description of the Organization
Herman Miller is a leading high-quality furniture manufacturer specializing in office systems for businesses, furniture for the home office, and health care furniture. They have 5 plants in West Michigan and other locations across the United States and in other countries including England and China. They are a leader in modern furniture design by working with top designers from around the world. They also believe in empowering their employees to be successful, helping the community around them, being an environmentally friendly corporation, and providing excellent customer service.
Description of the Tasks/Projects Completed
I worked on a capacity study of their panel saws to determine how many parts could be produced every shift. This incorporated a variety of variables including different sized parts cut from a sheet of material, a different number of sheets cut at a single time, and varying ways to cut each sheet. I helped with new shop floor layouts that would create space for new machines that were on order and re-arranging the current work cells to accommodate the new machines. I also participated in a corporate Intern Project, which is different every year. This project that I worked on was evaluating the training of new hires in their Customer Service groups and providing recommendations to improve their training programs. These recommendations would allow them to have new hires prepared to assist customers faster and would help Herman Miller provide even more excellent customer service. Some other projects I did this year included: ergonomic assessments, designing fixtures, and designing guards for their hanging staple guns. The ergonomic assessments evaluate the movements of workers on the shop floor and determine if something needs to be changed in the process to help them to have more ergonomically friendly movements.
Skills/Knowledge Gained Through The Experience
I learned a lot about the use of statistics to allow a company to plan their work load and ensure that they can produce their product in a given period of time. I also learned how difficult it is to obtain an equation to describe the output of a machine with multiple variables, and how to best approach this difficulty. I learned about communication with other departments and with workers on the shop floor. It is important to include every group that is affected by a project in the decision-making process so their input can be incorporated because they may have a point of view that you are missing. It also helps to speed up any project because there is less time spent revising designs as more people become involved in the project.
Favorite Part of the Experience
My favorite part of this experience was learning about how the individual work cells and machines operate and helping the manufacturing engineers keep the lines operating efficiently and safely.
How the Experience Influenced Future Career Goals
This experience has confirmed my interest in Manufacturing Engineering. I would like to explore different aspects of manufacturing engineering and learn more about optimization of processes.