My most influential real-world experience thus far has been my work as a Production and Manufacturing Intern at Libra Industries located in Mentor, Ohio. Libra Industries is a contracting manufacturing company who produces many different products, specializing in electrical components requiring integrated circuits and chips. I worked closely with the plant managers and learned manufacturing practices such as Lean Six Sigma. Their newest plant was to become ISO certified and I was greatly involved in the process by developing SQCD (safety, quality, delivery, cost) boards for every department. I created and updated charts daily for each category. During the audit, I followed the auditor and viewed his thorough examination of the plants and I explained my contribution to him.
This work experience allowed me to assume great responsibility and showcased my ability to be trusted. I was able to sit in with Libra’s engineers during their design meetings and witnessed the compromises and challenges they faced when designing a product for maximum production while retaining quality. It was extremely interesting to speak with the engineers about the challenge of designing a product and then actually manufacturing it in a way to reduce cost and to ensure safety and quality.