Cost Reduciton Placement Engineer Review

I cannot picture a placement year that could provide me with more opportunities and experience that my year at Cummins Darlington and I have really enjoyed my time here.

I was seen as an integral part of my team and my work was vital to the performance of my group. They would always take the time to help out if i got stuck and I never felt my work was less important that anyone else's.

Everyone at the plant is incredibly helpful and will always take the time to help out with any issues. My manager would always help if I got stuck with things , or at least be able to tell me who to speak to about it to get more information. My team were also advocates of cross training, and so would schedule meetings to go though training they thought I might find helpful. I was also encouraged to do thins myself and held a number of session to train my team in processes I was involved with that they had not experienced.

Spot on. My reasons for taking a placement year were to gain experience working in a engineering related job and as such I would have been disappointed if I had a limited number of things to do and found myself with large gaps in my workload. At Cummins I have always had things to be getting on with. I was always provided with enough work to keep me busy and had to practice effective time management to ensure everything is completed to its own deadline and no projects are delayed.

I was treated in the same manor as a graduate engineer throughout my placement by all I had contact with. With this came the responsibility to manage and run a number of different projects, each bringing different challenges and scopes. The projects I ran had wide ranging affects, both at my plant in Darlington, and on a global scale which required collaboration with engineers in the US, South America, Europe and Asia, all of which had to be coordinated and managed by myself. I began my role as part of the cost reduction team at Darlington which consisted of 2 technical lead engineers and 2 other placement students. Due to internal job transfers within the Darlington site I was the only remaining member of the cost reduction team after 2 months and so was entrusted with continuing and tracking all cost reduction projects run out of Darlington and creating and presenting the department measures, as well and managing my own projects. One of my main reasons of deciding to take a placement year was to gain experience managing projects and being in a position of responsibility, and I can't imagine any other placement that could have offered even a comparable scope to practice this as I have found here. 10 Stars minimum.

I took my placement year between 3rd and 4th years (MEng course) and have been able to apply and expand upon my knowledge in almost all the modules I have taken as part of my degree. Working with Cummins there is the obvious chance to gain experience with mechanical systems and the thermodynamics of heat engines. I have also relied on modules covering materials science to assess component failures and casting defects; CAD software to produce concepts and technical drawings that comply with drafting standards; and also I have built upon experience with FEA software (ANSYS) to preform structural, thermal and modal analysis as well as CFD to asses the performance of a number of components in their intended operating environment.

Very friendly and approachable.

You are treated as an equivalent when on a placement at Cummins which comes with the expectation you are able to practice time management and complete tasks on time and to a high standard. There is a student development program in placement which provided helpful tips on soft skills such as conflict management and meeting etiquette, however, due to the variance in the different placements on offer at the sight these are not tailored to specific placements. You are expected to proactively seek further training and advice which will beneficial to your projects (which also change in scope and content), and so are given the responsibility to organise your own work load and ensure you are making progress. A benefit of this is that it means you are not restricted to only working one project at a time or you have to wait for months until you are trained enough to be given a project - you have to choice to make the placement your own and take on as many tasks as you feel you are able.

Your managers at Cummins will encourage you to think about what you want to get out of your placement year, and if you provide them with this information they will try to tailor projects to suit you. For example I showed an interest in gaining experience using FEA software and so was provided with an additional licence to ANSYS to allow me to perform analysis on components I was designing. I was also called upon by others to run some FEA simulations for their projects, despite the fact that using FEA was not part of my job description or expectations.

For what I have experienced so far I can find no reason not to apply and aim to secure a graduate role here at Cummins. The scope for gaining experience in a global engineering company is staggering. On leaving university my plan is to start working towards charter ship with the IMechE and so far my placement year has provided evidence for almost every aspect of the UK-SPEC standard, so I believe it would be an excellent place to complete a graduate program.

There were 22 year placement students at Darlington the year I was on placement there, all of which were friendly and talkative. There weren't a great deal of events organised outside of work, however, During my placement I commuted from Gateshead rather than move to Darlington so I imagine I missed many of the week night events. That said a number of us often played squash and football at some of the local leisure centres around Darlington and there were nights out in different places in the area including Darlington, Yarm, Durham and Newcastle.

Darlington is CHEAP to live in as is most of the north east!

An experience.... Although Newcastle is nearby which never disappoints (see Geordie Shore for more details).

Yes, the students are good at organising sports nights after work and there is a subsidised gym on site (£10/month). Not sure if it counts as out of work but Cummins are very keen on employees taking part in charity work and volunteering (its even written into the contracts) so there are many opportunities to get out and volunteer and a number of local charities and events.