Manufacturing Engineer/Lead

I was elected to be Manufacturing Lead (ML) after just one year on the team (spent being a manufacturing engineer), for the semester starting in August 2017 before studying abroad on the Pacific Program in the Spring. I entered GTOR with hundreds if not thousands of hours of machining experience gained in school and in using my lathe at home (see personal projects). This meant I was entrusted to do the team’s most demanding machining work almost immediately. In this first year, I became trained in using CAM (Fusion360) and CNC machine tools (SWI Prototrac, Haas).

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As ML, I worked primarily to:

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• Complete complex or high precision machining jobs

• Offer DfM/GD&T consultation: I worked with the design leads to ensure that their designs were manufacturable (a rare thing, unfortunately), that tolerance stack-ups would not be problematic, and that their drawings permitted unambiguous manufacture. A great deal of time was also simply spend explaining the minutiae of manufacturing procedures and their interplay with tolerances and manufacturability. In addition, I would write the CAM programs needed for the CNC tools.

• Training: I would train new members on tooling from files through mills. I also provided assembly and servicing training by creating rebuild or repair projects on old cars.

• Expanding capabilities: I would interface with faculty in the design/manufacture spaces around campus to build rapport, equipment access or pro-bono machining work. Under my leadership, the team got a record amount of work outsourced to the schools ‘Machining Mall’, saving time and money and improving quality

• Quality assessment: I would use (manual) metrology equipment to check off parts against tolerance specs or to reach decisions about necessary redesigns