Manufacturing Engineer Review

The placement was in JLR's Solihull site, where they final assembly and testing of the cars were done. On the whole the placement was ok, as there were some parts that were very interesting (such as learning how the cars were manufactured), but other parts were very stressful (at times having to stay well after working hours, when the start time was 7am). Also the nature of the job meant it was very data heavy which meant spending a lot of time in excel which gets boring after a while. The end product of my time there helped make the struggling throughout more worth it.

I had one direct manager who was in the loop of the project, but other people in the office din't really know anything other than that I was a student. The manager was aware that the work would significantly help the company (as I was making changes to the main assembly line) and hence valued what I was doing. The rest of the team just treated me like another team member, asked an occasional question and got on with their own work. Because of the huge size of the company it is easy to feel like a small part of the operations.

The manager had quite a strict style, even on the first day asking for a project plan and deliverables, which I found quite surprising as I still didn't understand how everything worked yet. He didn't really get involved with the core work content (data capture and analysis) but rather just wanted to know the high level stuff (when I could deliver, what the risks were, what resources I needed). It was a bit different to previous management styles I had experienced, but I understood why since the manager was way too busy with his own work to get involved with mine. Anything I did ask for was taken care of (meetings with other functions in the company, specific data etc).

I was given a lot of responsibility, being allowed to go on the shop floor, interact with the workers and cars all on my own. I was given all the tools I needed to do the job as well as possible and because of this a lot of responsibility was included in the work. The work was involving one of their bottlenecks, which if improved could save £1000s monthly as well as having other benfefits, so the work was not at all meaningless.

The placement was very intensive and involved, especially near the end, so I had to manage my time well and be organised - no doubt helping with university study and exams. Some of the excel and data management techniques used were useful to know and I will most likely use them in the future again. Also just experiencing how such a large company functions and how different people and teams interact, and what sort of problems they have is good to know and remember. The problem I was focusing on had so many input factors I was surprised and instead of improving them one by one I had to take a different approach entirely, showing things are nearly always more complicated than they seem.

The office was a very large open floor with each person having a desk in rows. This, coupled with the early 7am (and most earlier) starts meant people seemed tired and unenergetic. People got on with their own work, on PCs/phones and rarely communicated with people other than for work. There weren't many jokes or non -work activities, probably due to the corporate nature of the company. The main time people were not working was lunch, but a lot of people would eat at their desks. On the shop floor the atmosphere was a bit lighter (manual workers) making jokes or talking to boost morale, but even this stopped as soon as there were problems meaning they had to work harder.

On the whole, everything was very well organised and structured, including the HS&E, logins and meetings. The first few days were a bit slow, in particular for access to the site as the supervisor had to walk to the reception (15minutes away) to let me in. The manager's management style meant it was hard not to have a strict structure to the project.

JLR is a huge company and takes on a lot of engineers each year onto the grad scheme/internships. The placement certainly helped gain a good understanding of what a job at JLR would look like, and there were several graduates in the office who talked about their experiences in the company. Personally, I felt like the company's size hindered creativity and free thinking as there were so many processes to follow and a general bureaucratic nature. Since the company is so large it is easy to feel like the work you're doing doesn't make a large difference. This being said, the salary is one of the highest in the manufacturing engineering sector.

Although there are many students in the company, there are all dispersed in different buildings and since the site is so large it makes it difficult to socialise other than with people in your office. The main social time is lunch where people some people go to the canteen and buy lunch, whilst some go the the kitchen area if they brought their own food. Since the day starts so early, people generally don't hang out after work, unless they rent accommodation together.

The factory was in Solihull, so the living cost (accommodation and food) was quite average if not slightly more for the UK. There aren't many supermarkets to choose from (one large Morrisons in town) but it is manageable. The JLR canteen is expensive. Solihull is quite small, so there aren't many places to socialise other than a few clubs, pubs and restaurants, which are all priced as expected.