My Academic Internship was actually conducted as experiential learning with my employer, Continental Powertrain.  I was working as a Manufacturing Technician.  On a daily basis I was a part of daily gemba / status meetings, the repair and/or upgrade of: grinders, swiss type screw machines, and automation.  My long term employment with the company provided me with a different internship experience than a typical student would have.  Since I have 20+ years of manufacturing experience, my internship experience was much more hands on with the various types of equipment.  This is simply not safe nor advisable for someone without experience.

One of my projects during this time was to improve our automatic bar loaders on the screw machines.  In particular, there was a gate that also acted as a switch when the bar tip first exits the loader.  This switch point would set how far the bar would feed into the machine beyond the gate.  The gate over time would wear and the switch point would change cause bar feed issues.  The original gate design was one piece and took about 2 hours to replace.  I designed a 2 piece design utilizing the original worn gate and adding a bolt on replaceable hardened and coated lower section.  The new design takes about 15 minutes to replace.

Original Gate 

New Design

During my Academic Internship experience, I routinely used and developed the ability to make decisions and solve problems, demonstrate technical knowledge, and communicate verbally.  I continue to use these skills in my daily functions as now an Engineering Analyst.  These skills are vital in the world of manufacturing.