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Co-op Work Experience

Carter
Major: Product Design and Manufacturing Engineering During my third co-op rotation at Trans-Matic, I had the opportunity to independently design and plan a completely new job. In a previous rotation, I worked closely with my supervisor to develop a new job design and layout. This time, I was able to take on a lead role with significantly less supervision. My responsibilities included scheduling and leading project meetings, maintaining thorough documentation, and completing key milestones throughout the tool design process.

MAGNA Mirrors 3rd Rotation

Jonathon
Major: Product Design and Manufacturing Engineering The main project I worked on this semester was creating a design and a Bill of Materials for a new suitcase tester for mirror programs that are being rewarded to MAGNA. This involved working with the Project Managers and Project Engineers at the Holland Location as well as consulting the Electrical Engineers at the 36th St location. I also tested a new chemical composition in mirrors that would allow our facility to save around $40,000 if testing is giving adequate results.

Autocam Medical Third Engineering Co-op Fall 2025

Antonio
Major: Product Design and Manufacturing Engineering This rotation I continued to provide engineering support at the manufacturing cell I am a part of, which specializes in laser marking the surgical equipment after the primary operations (that machine the main geometry of the part), and enter the secondary operations. The value streams converge at the manufacturing cell I get to be involved at, and I get to have hands on experience with High Mix and High Volume components. The main project I developed this rotation was a discrete event simulation (DES) using JaamSim to simulate the production output of my manufacturing cell with data collected with the product data management system and the PLC's in the machines. This allowed for the necessary data to be fed into the simulation that I made, and compared with real life data for validation. This simulation is the first one that has ever been made by a co-op student, and I was able to successfully develop a simulation that can accurately reflect the behavior in the manufacturing floor and simulate "what if" scenarios.

3rd Rotation Co-op

Leah
Major: Product Design and Manufacturing Engineering This semester I've been helping with the qualification and calibration of fixtures used in a new process, PTFE etching. I've also been helping to manufacture the PTFE tubes through blow molding, laser cutting, and tipping.

Bringing Mobility Forward for All

Jay
Major: Product Design and Manufacturing Engineering During my time at Magna, I've had the hands-on opportunity to characterize and build mirrors products. I have also been given the opportunity to work directly with multiple leaders of various groups within the organization. I've conducted experiments in both lab and manufacturing floor settings, developed internal product specifications, and benchmarked various products to support my team in bringing mobility forward for all.

Spring/Summer 2025 Coop at AirLife

Kelsey
Major: Product Design and Manufacturing Engineering I was able to collaborate closely with the onsite and remote engineers and lab technicians to help with the effort of consolidation of products acquired from other companies, improved organization of samples used for audits and validation testing, implement an efficient intake system for the FormLab 3D printers, and further aid in testing a vast number of products that are currently being used in hospital settings. One of the biggest advantages of this experience was that I was able to get hands on learning, and being able to take on the responsibilities of an engineer.

Fall 20224 Co-op at EBW Electronics

Logan
Major: Product Design and Manufacturing Engineering I collaborated closely with manufacturing engineers and technicians to enhance the ergonomics, optimize cycle times, and increase throughput across some of the highest-volume work centers in the facility. Additionally, I supported the ramp-up of new products to full production capacity, ensuring a smooth transition from the safe launch phase to active manufacturing.

Manufacturing Engineering Co-op

Kyle
Major: Product Design and Manufacturing Engineering I provided support to the production floor by addressing real-time issues and minimizing operational disruptions. I analyzed machine capacity to optimize production targets. I developed a performance tracking system using Excel and Python to monitor key metrics like downtime and output, which helps engineers identify what issues are most important to address. I created detailed process instructions to standardize operations, reduce errors, and empower team members to solve problems independently.

MAGNA Mirrors CO-OP 1

Jonathon
Major: Product Design and Manufacturing Engineering In my time working at MAGNA Mirrors, I was able to do a few gauge R&Rýs to test new and old measurement techniques and tools for repeatable and reliable measurements. Iýve also helped with building and testing mirrors at different MAGNA locations, and I designed and constructed a few fixtures that would for modifying mirrors, such as the one in the provided picture. I was also taken along and sent to different locations for our customers and dealerships to help diagnose problems and replace mirrors.

Autocam Medical First Engineering Co-op Summer 2024

Antonio
Major: Product Design and Manufacturing Engineering Part of the training Autocam gives every engineering co-op student during our first rotation is a hands-on learning experience on the floor to enhance our understanding of their manufacturing process. In my case this involved learning to operate lathe machines for turning operations. This implicated not only learning about the machines themselves (debugging, set up, tool change, offset adjustments, etc.) but the results of the quality of each part that is made and how small details carry throughout the entire job (most comprised of hundreds of parts).

First Co-Op Rotation with Genesis Seating

Casey
Major: Product Design and Manufacturing Engineering In my role as a manufacturing co-op engineer, I spend a lot of time working on process improvement. I am often out on the plant floor talking with employees about how I can improve their jobs, which can be anywhere from increasing production volume to reducing discomfort due to manual labor. Basically, I design and implement solutions to make our situation better.

Viking Products Engineering Co-Op

Logan
Major: Product Design and Manufacturing Engineering As an engineering Co-Op, I had the opportunity to work with all the engineers at Viking on various different projects. My responsibilities spanned the entire production process. One day I would be creating prints for new parts, and reaching out to our suppliers, and the next I would be testing the parts before they went out to our customers. Additionally, I provided support in Viking's assembly areas getting to set up and test the latest equipment and processes.

Great Coworkers Make All the Difference

Corey
Major: Product Design and Manufacturing Engineering As with the first two rotations, we are expected to conduct EMC tests; This time around, however, we were challenged to operate with more independence. I was assigned tests I had never conducted before and was trusted to be able to either figure out how to do it and know when to ask for assistance. We were also tasked with communicating more frequently and directly with clients, just like the full-time engineers.

Herman Miller CoOp Fall 2022

Dylan
Major: Product Design and Manufacturing Engineering I worked as the primary operations engineering support for the machining area in Casegoods manufacturing. I also helped integrate 3D printing into the plant and trained some of the engineers at the plant on 3D printing common practices and modeling.

SoundOff Signal Co-Op

Kristen
Major: Product Design and Manufacturing Engineering The internal projects I completed included, but were not limited to, designing a part in CAD for our goniometer to fix the chain slack, designing an LED sign for Project Night Lights, and creating an updatable bracket wall with all of our sellable vehicle specific accessories. I was also tasked with designing multiple sellable bracket products.

Herman Miller Co-op

Jarrod
Major: Product Design and Manufacturing Engineering I was tasked with day to day operations of running an assembly line. This included tasks from improving safety like creating new stapling processes to improving machinery to make lines more efficient. I was also tasked with larger products like helping with new product launches and creating floor layouts.

Koops Summer Co-op: First rotation

Cory
Major: Product Design and Manufacturing Engineering During my summer semester, I was a part of the Controls Programming team. My mentor and I worked on an automated conveyor line used to assemble a small oil pump. From day to day we problem solve issues involved with programming, vision systems, robots, sensors, and lights.

Manufacturing Engineering Co-op at Herman Miller

Nick
Major: Product Design and Manufacturing Engineering I worked on several projects that target creating manufacturing department more efficient. For one project I tested cycle times on a boring machine on our manufacturing line, and then presented results to the machine's manufacturer based in Italy.

GVSU PDM Engineering Co-op with Haworth

Emily
Major: Product Design and Manufacturing Engineering One of my most favorite things about working for Haworth is the large range of projects, both in time span and complexity. There is always filler work to do whether it's updating CAD files, or costing products in the system, or progressing through the stages of changing a product that's already in production. Additionally, I have had the opportunity to work on projects that have lasted several months. A lot of these projects have pertained to looking into the future and analyzing trends in order to brainstorm and cost products that may be popular in a few years from now. These projects are always incredibly interesting because you have to interact with so many different people in order to get enough input and questions answered so that you can justify your decision making. Lastly, there are projects that fit in between the long term and short term time span, but are just as important. For example, sometimes customers receive orders that are incorrect and you have to diagnose the problem, fix it, and go through a lot of other steps under a specific time limit depending on the demand for that product. If you are looking for an internship with a broad range of projects, Haworth does an excellent job providing exactly that.

Engineering Co-op

Nicholas
Major: Product Design and Manufacturing Engineering I worked as part of the engineering sustaining team. I worked with an engineer to maintain three manufacturing lines and assist in moving out one of those lines at the end of march. I wrote and worked on a wide variety of documentation for each line as well as performing hands-on maintenance for the lines.

Creating a Seat at the Table

Patrick
Major: Product Design and Manufacturing Engineering I participated in many projects in my experience at Genesis Seating. Shelving units and manufacturing fixtures were created to improve ergonomics and efficiency within the cell of a main chair line of Herman Miller, as well as cell layouts, which were redesigned to increase efficiency. A proposal was created for the re-design of an assembly station for the Eames Plastic and Wire chair line from Herman Miller. Torque specifications were gathered for battery, pneumatic, and electric drills from each cell in the factory. Finally, I re-designed a leather buck to expand and contract to improve ergonomics for the leather cutters.

Third co-op rotation at Autocam Medical

Zachry
Major: Product Design and Manufacturing Engineering For my third rotation I took on a full manufacturing engineer's role. I focused mainly on new product launches and production support for our bone screw division. I also completed many continuous improvement projects for secondary operations such as bead blasting and electropolishing.

3rd Co-op Rotation

Avery
Major: Product Design and Manufacturing Engineering I was assigned tasks throughout the semester that required me to design new tooling to make parts and to modify old tooling to improve our stamping processes. I also worked on a task researching new 3D printing technology that we might want to implement at Trans-matic

Herman Miller Co-op 3

Chase
Major: Product Design and Manufacturing Engineering This rotation, I was placed into more of a quality engineer role in an area of the company that packages the tabletops that we manufacture. My largest project this semester was to make an impact in the quality issues we had in fiscal year 20. In order to do this, I was placed on a blitz team that added multiple quality verification steps to the operator's jobs on the packaging line. Designing these checks in a way that makes them efficient was one of the early tasks of mine. Through data collection, it was concluded that almost 20% of our quality issues came from a singular supplied hardware box that we pair with our tables and ship to the customer. On top of the checks implemented on the line, I've been designing a process to "poka-yoke," or "error-proof" the way we package and ship these boxes.

ODL A Great Place To Work!

Caroline
Major: Product Design and Manufacturing Engineering I worked on design feasibility and verification. I designed and performed experiments to identify and compare the robustness of potential design solutions. I also completed comparative analysisýs of design concepts. I learned how to document results to clearly compare the performance of multiple design concepts. And lastly, I dove deep into Design and Manufacturing Engineering documentation and gained technical skills. I had the opportunity to learn how to complete important design and manufacturing engineering documentation as well as understand the importance of each document.