MATT MORELLI
On co-op with Matt Morelli, majoring in mechanical engineering technology
Company | The M.K. Morse Company
Location | Akron, Ohio
Position | Product Development Engineer Intern
Matt Morelli, mechanical engineering technology student at 国产精品 of Akron.
7 a.m. Arrive at the shop
When working for a manufacturing company, the start time for the majority of employees is typically 7:00 a.m. sharp. Most of the office staff start a little later, but the operators and engineers begin their day at this time. We usually start the day with coffee and a Scrum meeting to discuss what we need to accomplish and if we would need any assistance on our projects.
8 a.m. Start the task of the day
In the product development team, we typically float around between active projects. If we come to a roadblock on a project, we start on another one and come back to reevaluate the roadblock. This lets us not get frustrated and gives us the ability to constantly think about the project with a fresh outlook. In the mornings, I typically work on Solidworks drawings for prototypes that are in development.
9 a.m. Check on the progress of prototypes
The main goal of product development is to design new products that have better performance than your competition. Each person on our team was in charge of their own project, and we had a mutual project that we were all working on. At The M.K. Morse Company, I had the privilege to work on my own product. As an intern this was a truly great experience and it gave me the freedom to be creative with my designs.
10 a.m. Progress meeting
For each of our projects, we have weekly meetings with sales and marketing to discuss the project progress. In these meetings, I usually talk about updates on the progress of the prototypes in production, and if I am at a testing phase, discuss how the testing is going. Sales and marketing then talk about how we can market it and if I am meeting all of the requirements as far as the performance goals.
11:30 a.m. Lunch
Lunchtime at Morse is always a blast, and I looked forward to it every day. All the interns, and coops get together and we discuss how our work is going. Sometimes we will go offsite to find a place to eat and will usually take about an hour. This is a great way to break up the day, and when we come back to work, we are refreshed and ready to continue our work. "I also use this time to check for updates on my classes and if there are any upcoming assignments that are due.
12:30 p.m. Research
In product development, you need to stay up to date on new design concepts and what the industry is going towards. After lunch, I’ll do research and patent searching to try to come up with new ideas. This proved to be very effective for our team and we really propelled in progress over this summer.
3:30 p.m. Leave work
At Morse, the workday for the coops and interns is 7 - 3:30 p.m. I found this work time to be easy for me since I am more of a morning person than most. I liked starting my day early so that I was able to fit summer classes into my work schedule. After 3:30 p.m. rolls around, I leave and head home to start working on my classes. Over summer, my lectures were prerecorded so I never had a set time that I had to log into WebEx to sign into a class. This enabled me to work at my own pace and do tasks for my classes right after I got off work. On most days, I spent around 5 to 6 hours on my classes after work.