INTERN Spotlight “It’s rare to have an intern take on projects of this magnitude, and
successfully wrangle them to effective completion while drawing meaning from their work. Hitchiner Manufacturing benefitted greatly from Athena’s Industrial Engineering efforts. We hope Athena drew as much from the experience as we did from working with her.”
– Justin Mintz, Hitchiner Manufacturing Co., Inc. My next project was the ERP
ATHENA LAJEUNESSE Hitchiner Manufacturing Co., Inc.
of the entire casting process, along with completing projects that were beneficial to the company. These included an engineering change order business process improvement, ERP system configuration, engineered labor standards and a process flow kaizen event. The first main project I worked
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on was the ECO business process improvement. The original reason we decided to investigate this project was to better understand the process, specifically looking into the 3 different types of ECOs which include new product introduction, samples and other production changes. The other reason was to map the current states of the three processes and identify potential areas of improvement and integration for the new ERP system. This included reading documents to understand the process better, creating swim lane diagrams to show the process and each owner. I then presented this information to all the stakeholders of the process and got feedback on pain points. I presented my takeaways and suggestions for the future state of the process and ways to continue the integration of the process.
22 ❘ December 2019 ®
his is my second internship with Hitchiner Manufacturing. I was able to broaden my understanding
configuration. As an industrial engineering major, I have heard a lot about the benefits of implementing ERP systems into companies to have an integrated tool to help keep things organized. My main goal for this project was just a sliver of work going into the ERP system. I was able to make production calendars and shift calendars to be used for scheduling production on the ERP system. This project helped me branch out into new areas of the company and to learn more about the business side of the company. It also allowed me to see first-hand the challenges of the implementation of an ERP system. The project I spent most of my time
on was the engineered labor standards. I was the project manager for this task leading a group of product engineers to make their engineered standards as well as making my own. Each week I met with the engineers to be updated on their progress and to set a plan for the next week. In this meeting, we discussed and scheduled how much they would need to get done to hit their due date. I also had weekly meetings with my manager to go over any issues that had arisen and to learn more effective leadership skills to help me better manage my three engineers. At the start of the project, we had 1522 standards to make and by the end, we had about 15 still to make. I faced many challenges with this project, but it ended up being the most rewarding. I learned a lot about the processes and different types of machining. Most importantly I also learned about my leadership skills and my weaknesses that I can work on. All the work that myself and the product engineers completed will be rolled up into the ERP system under the methods to
be used for accurately costing the parts. The last project I worked on was a
kaizen event to find out the flow of a specific product group. I first took all my labor standards and applied them to the operation per the specified amount of parts we wanted. We then compared the standards created by the MOST tool and the estimated times from operators on the floor. After that, we were able to pick the most accurate standard and apply it to our process to find out the true lead time of the part. We spent three days determining how we can improve the process. This event was extremely helpful for me to take a step back and see the process as a whole and to understand what is happening at each operation. The kaizen event was successful and made huge strides in improving the lead time. The experiences and knowledge I
have gained at my two internships at Hitchiner are something that I plan to use throughout my career, whether it is operations, engineering, or a leadership position. I have learned so many hard skills but the soft skills that I have learned here will carry me through any situation in my life. Investment casting is something I never knew about until I heard about Hitchiner Manufacturing. This is probably the number one thing I will always thank them for, introducing me to a whole world of knowledge and experience and such a great technique. I can see investment casting becoming a full-time career for me, whether it is at Hitchiner or another company. l enjoy the fast-paced energy of investment casting along with all the history that comes with it and the innovations in the future. I am excited to see where my career leads me, and I thank you for the opportunity to apply.
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