Experience Matters - Grand Valley State University

Altus Industries Co-op

Michael
Major: Product Design and Manufacturing Engineering Because it was my first semester at Altus, I had to start from the very beginning and learn everything about the company. So the first month or so I mainly worked on the floor and was building the products. This helped me learn the parts, the assembling of the products, and just the products themselves. After this month, I began to transition into more responsible roles. I helped with product development, quality checks, and quickening the assembly process. For product development, I assisted with accessories that went on the carts and even brand new styles of the carts. The quality checks occurred when parts were showing up frequently with problems. I would go through almost all of that part and decide whether it was just a coincidence or if this was a problem that needed to be quickly addressed. With finding faster ways of assembling the carts, I was able to change some parts by contacting suppliers so that it allowed for a faster assembly

Yanfeng Automotive Interiors

Morgan
Major: Product Design and Manufacturing Engineering This summer my main project was in supporting the advanced manufacturing team while they prepare for the transfer of three manufacturing lines from Michigan/Ohio to a new facility in Illinois. I spent time at the Ohio manufacturing plant to understand and document the line as it is today, helped to gather data for the design of the new line layouts, and several other smaller projects. In addition, I completed a side project on plastic welding, where I gathered knowledge from online and internal resources and compiled guidelines for four common welding processes.

EGR 290 Coop Experience Summary

Sam
Major: Product Design and Manufacturing Engineering I was a mechanical engineering intern which meant I was heavily involved in the design aspect of the company. I designed a number of modifications for existing machines as well as parts in machines still undergoing preliminary design. I was also responsible for ordering parts for machines, updating designs, and updating drawings. I also had the opportunity to get involved with a local robotics team and designed a workstation for them.

Engineering Co-op at Emerald

Trent
Major: Product Design and Manufacturing Engineering During my first co-op semester I was able to design fixtures for multiple projects and was responsible for taking my ideas all the way through the design and manufacturing process. I became trained on the laser etching machines as well as the digital printer and used the machines frequently for different trials and engineering studies. I was able to obtain some experience with Emerald's quoting process as well to help supply accurate quotes to all of our customers. I was also able to be included in multiple DOE (Design of Experiments) studies to determine the root cause of some issues that arose and move forward with solving them.

Disher co-op Experience

Jordan
Major: Product Design and Manufacturing Engineering As a co-op we all get a chance to show what we know and make the most of our experience. I started on smaller internal projects that improved Disher as a company. As time progressed I reached out and worked on developing a mechanized product for a company. Projects has a construction, solidWorks/design and electronics emphasis for me.

Royal Technologies - Plastic Injection Molding

Dylan
Major: Product Design and Manufacturing Engineering The theme for my summer at Royal was "learn the company from the ground up". I accomplished this by learning a variety of positions. The coop started with me working as an operator and then quickly becoming a scanner/auditor. I was then moved to the utility position where I got to change molds on the injection presses and learn more about how the presses worked. A supervisor role brought more chances for troubleshooting issues and learning more about team management. Later I moved to assembly and assembly supervisor. Time studies and management were used to help maximize efficiency.

Engineering Co-op

Ryan
Major: Product Design and Manufacturing Engineering Tasks include print creation for sales and production purposes. Includes quality checking and some product development

Herman Miller Options Co-op II

Taylor
Major: Product Design and Manufacturing Engineering In Herman Miller Options Engineering Department, I would engineer a customer's special order that had some deviations from the standard office furniture product. I would choose which products I wanted and had the ability to complete and start researching the standard products and the changes that were quoted. Then, I would create the appropriate CAD parts and drawings that were needed. The bill of materials would be altered by creating new parts, adding existing parts, and/or removing parts in order to match the order. I would self check all of my work, then pass it onto another engineer to audit. My product would then be signed off and sent to the next step towards manufacturing.

Landscape Forms Co-op Experience

Shane
Major: Product Design and Manufacturing Engineering For my co-op, I worked on updating work instructions for lines of product that were changed in any way. This included but was not limited to a fixture change or update, and update to hardware or an update to components. Also, I was able to do time studies of products to determine the correct time to allow to build each product. Finally, I worked with manufacturing and the shop floor to design and implement new fixtures

One World, One Dura

Dustin
Major: Product Design and Manufacturing Engineering Disassembled competitor assemblies to perform competitive analyses and completed PowerPoint presentations with pictures to show the specifics of the competitor's shifter. Wrote VBA programs to pull specific data from a directory full of excel files and performed statistical analyses on the data. Worked with international engineers to get engineering drawings created using proper GD&T for parts and made corrections where needed. Made engineering changes to assemblies when component suppliers went out of business or discontinued parts. Designed and machined testing fixture to perform testing on manufactured parts.

Irwin Seating, 3rd Co-op

Heather
Major: Product Design and Manufacturing Engineering A big project I worked on was designing a new style of armrest from sheet metal which the customer would interpret as more expensive and classier. This project was tied into another one involving hybrid standard which results in cost reduction, and a new wood bottom style seat. Irwin Seating is known for doing a lot of custom solutions for customers that other companies might not, so I also worked on prototyping solutions for project bids. I also acted as support for other engineers' projects doing CAD and drawing work for them.

NASA Internship with Systems Integration and Test Branch

Amanda
Major: Product Design and Manufacturing Engineering While working at Langley I was expected to complete a major project. This project focused on collecting information related to the design, assembly/integration, and launching of a small satellite. The goal eventually resulting in an accessible webpage that can be easily updates with new information. This was just the beginning of this project and there is still a lot that needs to be done. I also had the opportunity to witness and participate in a scientific balloon launch. I helped with document organization, hardware and ground support equipment packing before the launch. Once at the launch site I participated in launch day activities and data collection. The last responsibility that I had was to support the Thermal Vacuum Lab within the Systems Integration and Test Branch. This required me to write and run a Thermal Vacuum Test for space bound hardware, construct operational procedures for hardware, and help out where ever I could.

Summer 2015 Engineering Co-op

Zachary
Major: Product Design and Manufacturing Engineering During the summer I was part of a five man cell that operates an automated assembly machine that produces electrical parts for Haworth office furniture. Daily tasks for the cell included being machine responsible to make sure the machine is running smoothly, daily machine maintenance, machine repair, and design for new machine processes or re-design existing processes. I spent a lot of time working on projects to improve the efficiency of the assembly machine that I worked on as well as a quality check station re-design for another machine in my building.

Koops Co-op

Alex
Major: Product Design and Manufacturing Engineering I did various controls work on several different machines such as PLC, HMI, vision camera and robot programming. Some of the projects I was involved in produced interior car panels, headliners, as well as other automotive interior components. My work lead me on multiple trips to Louisville, KY for install and support of a line I worked on, which was a great experience with the manufacturing industry.

Co-op at Corvac Comp

Abby
Major: Product Design and Manufacturing Engineering I had a few major projects throughout the summer as well as small tasks. My main projects were; (1) Record cycle times of the top 80% of parts based on quantity shipped in order to get a base line standard. Also involved with this project was timing change over times to get a base line for those as well. (2) Layout proposal for the redesign of a cell. The purpose of the redesign was to see how the addition of another trim machine would affect the cycle time of that part. (3) Running samples of different sheet where regrind material was replaced with reproduced material to see how the different material affects quality of the finished part.

A Jack of All Trades

Colin
Major: Product Design and Manufacturing Engineering I worked in the New Product Manufacturing group. When new products were launched, my group was responsible for spanning the bridge between design and mass production of new products. My work entailed the design and development of tooling, fixturing devices, and other various manufacturing tools that would make new parts possible to produce. On top of my engineering responsibilities, I also took part in an intern project with a team of interns with a diverse set of skills. Together, we looked at the way Herman Miller trains and communicates to the people who install the product for our customers. This involved conducting research speaking to business partners involved in selling and putting together the product (dealers and installers). Ultimately, this culminated in a presentation of our proposed solutions to the CEO and executives of the company.

UCC Summer Co-op Experience

Nick
Major: Product Design and Manufacturing Engineering As a project engineer co-op I was given a wide variety of tasks. Some small projects include pellet limiting plates for the classifiers, strand separating fingers, and a light diffusion tester. With these small projects I was involved in the sourcing of materials as well as building the final products. Some larger projects I was involved in were the design of the dosing station for the new Georgia plant, the redesign of two extrusion set-ups to accommodate multiple feeders, and the redesign of the existing packaging line at UCC. For large scale projects, I was assigned specifically to making CAD drawings using either Solidworks or AutoCad.

Autocam Co-op

Alissa
Major: Product Design and Manufacturing Engineering I focused on continuous improvement throughout the semester. I completed a damage study to reduce scrap rates. From this, re-designs of trays and fixtures were made to make the process more efficient. These re-designs required reprogramming of robots and troubleshooting. I also created a design of a tray cover to implement in order to keep parts from coming out of the tray while they go through a chemical wash.

Inrad Inc Co-op

Patrick
Major: Product Design and Manufacturing Engineering I was responsible for monthly maintenance procedures, designing and implementing fixtures, writing, quality assurance and performing testing protocols and other day to day operations as necessary.

The Disher Co-op Experience

Casandra
Major: Product Design and Manufacturing Engineering This co-op term, I worked offsite as a Product Launch Coordinator for a Tier 1 automotive supplier. I was in charge of line layout, inventory, training new employees, getting our orders built on time, and shipping and receiving. I also worked at a high tech manufacturing facility as a Quality Technician for the pilot line. There, I was in charge of collecting data so that we could show the capability of our machines and processes.

Final co-op at Drawform

Will
Major: Product Design and Manufacturing Engineering My primary project this semester involved transferring several large pieces of equipment to a sister company in Connecticut. My role in this transfer has been the project manager at our facility. I did also had a couple of simple design projects which were also enjoyable.

Eaton Design Internship

Kathryn
Major: Product Design and Manufacturing Engineering As a Design Intern in the Supercharger sector I worked in ProE to update drawings and submit revisions. I also did approval tasks to ensure that other people's corrections were on par. There were also many drawings that needed to be categorized by specific dimensions and traits which I created spreadsheets for and reference documents for the data. I also designed a request system for the production plants to submit design requests via SharePoint.

Costs and Concepts

Reuben
Major: Product Design and Manufacturing Engineering I worked to develop concepts and quotes for customers on behalf of JR Automation.

Manufacturing at Haworth

Kevin
Major: Product Design and Manufacturing Engineering I was assigned as a manufacturing engineering co-op student. My tasks varied from cost-savings projects to plant layout redesigns. I also assisted some of the other engineers with daily tasks. One of the best opportunities that I was able to take advantage of was a kaizen. During these kaizens the company takes a problem and assigns a group of people closely related to the problem to solve it. These normally last a week long and end with thorough plans to fix the problem assigned.

Co-op 1

James
Major: Product Design and Manufacturing Engineering During my experience I was given many different tasks. However, the majority of my time was spent learning the system and how to navigate and use their standards by updating part prints. A toolmaker would submit a change to a tool by designating it on the part print, and I would make that necessary change. Also, they would do the same for an entire book, and I would go through the book and update every part that needed it. I also designed many small projects including an automation project, and a threaded rod and its corresponding nut.