Shape Corp: Thinkers, Believers, Doers.
Chau
Experience Information
Employer: Shape Corp.
Job Title: Electrical Engineer Intern
Major: Electrical Engineering
Received Credit: Yes
Paid: Yes
Abroad: No
Description of the Organization
Shape Corp is a tier-one automotive and industrial component supplier with its main site located in Grand Haven and 14 global manufacturing facilities span three continents (North America, Europe and Asia) with more than 2-million-square-feet of manufacturing space. In regards to engineering, Shape provides local engineering support in the United States, Mexico, France, Czech Republic, India, China, Thailand and Japan. These globally positioned in-house engineering services allow Shape to provide research and development, product design, optimization, CAE and an array of engineering support options.
Description of the Tasks/Projects Completed
The majority of my responsibilities were split into two categories: continues improvement and maintenance. The continues improvement was an on-going project where I was responsible for designing, programming to upgrade the functionalities on all the roll-former systems, welding robot, or deburring system to improve the production processing. The main goal was to reduce the time needed to manufacture parts but still keep the product at high-end quality. On the other hand, maintenance was the work requests from other areas of the company to support production.
Skills/Knowledge Gained Through The Experience
During my time as an electrical engineer intern, I gained many technical and professional skills. For example, I learned how to program PLC (Emerson Proficy software), learned how to interface with sensors and other peripherals (HMIs, ANDON systems, etc.), and designed electrical schematics in AutoCAD. I was starting off with updating existing code in PLC such as updating faults, part tracking, etc. Then working on the continue project by adding sensors, relays, and other electric components from scratch. Most of the work required robust troubleshooting skills and the ability to communicate with other engineers and production supervisors. Furthermore, I learned how to solve the daily issues on the machines to bring it back to production as soon as possible. At the end of the day, the most important things from this experience was to be prepared me for the industry work.
Favorite Part of the Experience
Although continues improvement project was very interesting, the work I enjoyed most was maintenance. This work order was requested when machines went failure during the shifts. The most difficult of this work was to diagnosis the issues, solve the issues and complete the work as soon as possible to bring the machine back to production. Those skills request the engineer has the fully understand the functionality of the machine and has the knowledge of solving issues.
How the Experience Influenced Future Career Goals
This experience helped me narrow down and identify what I wanted in my long-term goal. I realized that automatic system was the field I was most interested in Electrical. I enjoyed problem-solving and working with various sensors and PLCs. Since my supervisor was used to be an Electrical Engineer Intern at Shape, he empowered me with his technical knowledge as well as his professional skills. I also discovered that company culture was very important to me. I am considering to join the Shape Family after graduation as well as moving my family to Grand Haven. Overall, this experience positively influenced my future career decisions.
Internship Format
In Person