GE Challenge

One IRE group has spent the semester competing in the GE challenge, a design competition where a team of engineering students are paired with a GE plant, trying to increase efficiency. This IRE project group is partnered with Midwest Electric, a GE plant in Mankato, Minnesota. Our completion of this project required quite a bit of travel and effective use of the time we spent at the plant, but we overcame these difficulties and implemented positive changes at Midwest Electric. We learned a lot about industrial engineering and lean manufacturing, but as important as that, was our exposure to professional development opportunities.

One of the major lessons we learned was how to make changes smoother by involving everyone affected. When we first proposed many of our changes, some of the floor employees were resistant. So to get the positive involvement of these employees we informed them of what we were doing, and, why we were doing it that way. Not only did this get the employee's more comfortable with our changes, they made some suggestions an outside observer would never have made. This helped our project go more smoothly for both us and for the plant.

The last part of our project is the final design presentation. We are now preparing for that presentation, to GE corporate. Wish us luck for this upcoming Friday.