Engineering Intern Review

I enjoyed the placement because I had a hard working and fun group of interns working alongside me. The company itself does well to introduce you to the other interns and the management. But they leave you to fend for yourself with the operators, which at the beginning was quite daunting. There were several opportunities to interact with other departments, which I enjoyed. The work can become tedious, with lots of data collection and chasing after people.

The operators tend to be difficult at first, but this understandable. You must work at building rapport before you feel valued by them. The interns were trained together and were introduced to the CI team who did their best to welcome us.

My supervisor was always available for support and guidance. The management in general are extremely busy but will try their best to assist you. There were a lack of technical experts to assist with process related problems.

Some days were very quiet when the line was off and you were stuck in the office. Other days were crazy, with several problems on the line, people requiring assistance, general deadlines on top of your daily schedule.

The first project was based around a problem and took up most of my time. During this, my responsibility was minimal. I was in charge of no areas nor reported any issues daily. After this was completed, more responsibility was handed over. I became involved in daily meetings with management where I had to report any issues on the line, data such as waste and over weights.

I received a weeks training on Green belt and its relevant tools that range between statistical analysis, problem solving techniques and solution generation. The projects helped develop a range of interpersonal skills due to the constant interactions with a variety of different people. The technical project helped development from a chemical engineering standpoint as I could apple the principles I had already learned and take it further by learning about industry specific topics such as rheology and tempering.

The atmosphere in the factory was up and down. There had been several cuts and some operators did not take that lightly. The office side was fine, not lively but it came alive during special occasions.

The placement was different to previous years. The structure was not very firm and each placement student found their own role within their respective lines. If you felt comfortable with this role it was easy to adapt the placement around it. There were also 9 interns to 1 manager, who did her best but she already had one of the busiest roles on the site.

The company spend the first 2 weeks training us in the relevant CI tools (lean manufacturing), general safety, environmental and sustainability issues and food safety. There was a further week training on the green belt process.

They are quite appealing as long as the structure strengthens. At the moment there is currently a massive restructure taking place which has caused the specific roles to blur as people fill the gaps.

Great. There were 9 interns in engineering and many more in R and D, CS and L and IT. With the university of Birmingham close by, there is a lively night scene.

Being in a city meant slightly higher living costs. Takeaways are cheap and you can get cheap drinks on student nights.

Great, broad street has a variety of different clubs. Can get boring, but digbeth and other areas add to the overall experience.

Not many, there were a few Joy festivals where we were asked to help promote the business. There were several work nights out.