STEP – Internship – Emerson Climate Technologies

My STEP project took place at Emerson Climate Technologies where I was a material analyst co-op. My job entailed communicating with suppliers from all over the world and locally, addressing inventory concerns related to accuracy and handling personal relationships with everyone I met and dealt with.

 

The biggest purpose of the internship was so that I could gain work experience with a large company. I certainly gained a lot of experience. I learned that there are a lot more factors to take into consideration when working with a large company. Being at the bottom of the food chain you learn to set your goals and priorities within a company. You can fade into the background, become just a number and be complacent with your job, or you can take advantage of the opportunities you have available to you. I decided to take advantage of my opportunities.

While at Emerson I got to work hand in hand with multiple groups of the organization, from operations, engineering, human resources, finance/accounting and upper management. While working with these groups I learned to take advantage of any knowledge provided to me and to also pay attention to the people and how happy they seemed at their jobs. I learned that even with a highly stressful job that you must take task day by day, with an outlook toward long term goals and that you can only do the best that you can do. That doesn’t mean to slack off, it means to give your best effort and to try and impress with every job presented to you. I learned to take advantage of my opportunities given to me.

 

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My changing experiences at Emerson came about over time when I did not necessarily realize that they were occurring but when I reflected about my time there, I realized that I was being changed by those around me. My changing moments came when there was a challenge in my path, a mentor to guide me and an opportunity to work as an individual.

One moment that changed me the most was when the materials team discovered we had an inventory issue with our screws. We were told that we were out of these screws, but our system said we had more than plenty to keep production rolling for a few weeks. My job was to determine exactly how many screws did we had in the plant. I had cycle counting training prior to this experience and had done well finding out why we were having inventory issues. However, this job challenged me to a greater extent. I counted all the screws at the lines, in our racks and any other place they were at before. But I did not count them properly, I was never informed of scales that can weight count small objects like screws, so on the first day I tried counting roughly 100,000 screws by hand and obviously came up empty handed. I tried the second day to be more efficient with my route and I discussed with my superiors how to count these parts better and that’s when I discovered the weight scale.

I was able to count a lot more effectively and I came up with an answer that was shocking to the team. We had way more screws on hand than we should have almost double our inventory. So how could we be short of screws? Well, the had me get another count on the third day and my answer came back the same. After digging into the issue and getting supervisors involved, we discovered the line workers were using the wrong screw and they were calling for the wrong screw to use in place of the correct screw.  In order to confirm this, I now had to count the other screws as well… I was growing a little impatient running around the plant hunting down tiny screws and not feeling like I was getting anywhere. But I learned very valuable lessons about my job that I can take anywhere. 1) try to be as efficient as possible (working smarter), while also working hard. The second thing I learned is use all the available resources and don’t be afraid to ask for help. I must try and work on projects on my own however if it is faster to gain knowledge and more skill to accomplish a job that is the route to take.

This internship taught me many other lessons, such as how to conduct oneself in a meeting, how to teach others, how to supervise, and many others. I feel that I can pursue a lot of career fields, whether with a large corporation or a small business, because I have the mentality of working hard but also working smart.

 

 

This transformation has been extremely valuable to me because I feel confident in going into new situations and learning or figuring out the best methods to solve issues. I believe I have gained a lot better personal skills dealing with people of all walks of life. This experience will help me in the future as a student by prioritizing my studying load and finding out what ways I learn best. This will also help me with my future career, where I would like to be a financial planner that helps all types of people accomplish their financial goals.

 

Image result for Emerson Climate Technologies Sidney Ohioimage: Overview of Emerson Climate Technologies in Sidney OH. Photo Credit: https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&source=images&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwiuuZbVz6vkAhWKc98KHbErAkEQjRx6BAgBEAQ&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwikimapia.org%2F17474724%2FEmerson-Climate-Technologies-Copeland-refrigeration-compressors&psig=AOvVaw0uOURC6wiKeBsx6Pt3IN_G&ust=1567289704845719

 

 

One thought on “STEP – Internship – Emerson Climate Technologies

  1. Thank you for sharing. It sounds like your had some great hands on experience during the time you were with this firm. Good to hear that you had exposure to multiple units within the organization. Glad STEP could be a part of you securing this opportunity.

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