Living Logistics
Beau
Experience Information
Employer: TGW Logistics
Job Title: Systems Engineer Co-op
Major: Mechanical Engineering
Received Credit: Yes
Paid: Yes
Abroad: No
Description of the Organization
TGW stands for Transportgeräte Wels, a rough translation of this is Transport Equipment. TGW is headquartered in a small town in Austria. With about 5000 employees all across the globe they are a pretty small company with a large impact. The main market is the e commerce producing systems to automatically store and retrieve items as they are needed to ship to customers. Our largest customers to date are Lbrands and GAP Group LTD in the United States.
Description of the Tasks/Projects Completed
I was a systems engineer at TGW. Our primary task was to take everything that was visualized in the sales phase and bring those layouts to reality. Gathering quotes and going on site to measure and map building columns and floor flatness along with meeting with the customer to approve drawings was a large part of the responsibility. Making sure that the system that sales built was going to be able to meet rate and also fit in the building was a tough task because in the logistics industry rate is everything.
Skills/Knowledge Gained Through The Experience
I gained the skill of knowing how to do every task in AutoCAD three different ways. Solid works is used for designing small parts for guarding wires and small brackets for supporting stairs. Everything else is created in AutoCAD. Every layout of the system is created in AutoCAD along with every drawing that you get from a supplier. Watching many YouTube videos in the beginning days of my job to teach me AutoCAD was an essential task.
Favorite Part of the Experience
Working in an office is nice because it is climate controlled, chairs are comfortable, and anyone you need to talk to is about 20 steps and a flight of stairs away. Getting to go on site though was my favorite part about working at TGW because it gave me the ability to see how the systems that we build actually are. In addition getting to see the conveyor or robot that I have seen in AutoCAD in a wire frame drawing was great.
How the Experience Influenced Future Career Goals
I did not even know that this industry existed before I started my co-op. The automatic storage and retrieval market is growing greatly in the United States with the reduction in unskilled labor. The systems that we design are able to reduce the amount of employees in a distribution center along with making the work that the few employees do a lot easier.