The first internship program at The Industrial Controls Company (ICC) lead to significant contributions to a strategic software upgrade, enhancing customer experience and engineering productivity. According to Don Lavrenz, President of ICC, “The internship program is off to an excellent start. We are very excited about the vital role that Rachel Yehle and Matt Taylor played in the launch of the AutoCAD® Electrical platform.”
The Technology Solution
Using traditional processes presents issues to control systems design teams that strive to meet or exceed productivity goals. Many new control panel projects are simply small changes to previous drawings. Mundane tasks such as looking up part numbers to check amperage and voltage is time consuming. That time adds up quickly as we continue to expand our employee base through organic growth and acquisition.
Anticipating this, our team came up with a technology solution and the newly launched internship helped provide the extra manpower to accelerate bringing it to market. The solution was to upgrade from AutoCAD® to AutoCAD® Electrical, including modifications to the database with additional content and functionality customized to ICC’s processes. AutoCAD® Electrical is design software for controls designers, purpose-built to create and modify electrical control systems.
The Internship’s Vital Role
The internship, which started in May, 2014, was comprised of two interns, Rachel Yehle and Matt Taylor (both electrical engineering students). Both interns played a vital role in developing the database. They made sure that parts data from suppliers like Rockwell Automation was complete and accurate. They also added extra part information that our engineers commonly look up. These make the database an extremely useful tool, enabling staff to be more responsive to customers.
According to Rachel Yehle, “I’ve been very pleased with my experience at ICC. We haven’t done the typical things like filing. I think we’ve played an essential part in making AutoCAD Electrical work in this application. And we’ve helped the company grow by helping the engineers boost their productivity; it allows them more time to expand their work.” Matt Taylor added, “We jumped right in, head first. It shows a lot of faith in me when they give me responsibility. That’s what I would expect in a solid intern program.”
Key factors for success of the internship include their background with electrical concepts, a great culture fit and direct access to company leadership. Rachel and Matt worked directly with Engineers, Quality Control, Production and Customers on a daily basis. This position allowed both interns to see how electrical concepts are used in the field as well as gain valuable communication and customer relation skills. They also participated in a number of training sessions and attended key metrics meetings.
Conclusion
Our team identified a technology solution to enhancing the customer experience, and has invested time, manpower and expertise in this software upgrade. To support the continued development and implementation of this initiative, we are currently recruiting a CAD Operator.
The newly established internship program played a vital role in making this software upgrade a reality. With the new solution in place, we will be able to turn around part drawings at a fraction of the time it took previously.