My Prospect of Engineering
Accompanying my parents on their business trips and gatherings, who are engaged in work in mechanical engineering, I came into contact with people from state-owned enterprises to private companies, from manufacturing industry to heavy industry, and from Japan to India. Hearing the conversation between them with my parents, I was widely exposed to the mechanical engineering field as well as relevant technologies used in the operation of business, financial management and actual production process. Gradually, I have maintained a belief that technology can change the world.
Since I had the overseas exchange experience in my senior high school, coupled with my interest in engineering and the steadfast conviction about technology, I decided to study abroad to study more technologies. During the four years’ study at Kansas State University, while immersing myself in advanced theoretical knowledge and experimental projects, I have laid the solid foundation and honed my hands-on skills within the mechanical engineering area. Moreover, I also find that both my teamwork spirit and the cognition of technologies have been significantly strengthened. More importantly, I develop the thinking mode and working style as a real engineer. For example, in SPX Cooling Tower Sound Attenuator Testing, I got involved in the whole process from purchasing experimental materials, negotiating with the company, making the budget to seeking for sponsorship. Under my proposal and through frequent group discussion, we finally determined the purchasing channels and materials by simplifying and classifying various resources. In this way, we significantly increased the project efficiency, decreased the expenditure and guaranteed the schedule.
Although having those experiences, I am still far from my belief of “technology can change the world” and thus began to search for practical experiences. From May to July this year, I had an internship in Shanxi Jinbaodao Piles Foundation Co., Ltd. As the assistant to the president, I assisted in work scoping from applying AutoCAD to design the foundation, operating measuring equipment, participating in the corporate competitive tender, formulating the construction scheme, negotiating the contract and supervising the construction process to on-site training. During this process, I learnt the nature of industry engineering, which is to analyze the complicated system, build abstract model and then improve the existing systems, and was aware of the importance of industry engineering. For example, in arranging construction vehicles, constructors and capital, the scientific proposal and rational coordination play the decisive role in the situation of revenue and expenditure of the project and even the whole company. Witnessing the project, I found the advantage of the experienced decision-makers and also detected the room for improvement to the operation system of the company.
With the growing understanding of industry engineering, coupled with comprehensive groundwork gained at the undergraduate level, I believe I am prepared well academically, practically and mentally for the master’s study in industry engineering.
Since Industry Engineering (IE) is a highly interdisciplinary field, at the graduate level, I would like to undertake systematic studies respectively from following aspects. Firstly, I would like to take courses related to operational research, such as optimization, simulation and stochastic oscillator. While building corresponding models according to the operational process, I can adopt these methods to optimize the industrial process. Secondly, I will absorb knowledge concerning supply chain, including logistics, manufacturing, warehouse, distribution and inventory. Grasping those skills, I will settle similar problems in real work. Thirdly, I also plan to attend courses on quality, statistics and manufacturing system, which are inclusive of quality control, regression and forecasting. All skills and techniques to be gained will help me solve problems in production lines optimization, producing scheduling, transit system, etc.
As industry engineering gallops ahead in China, especially over the recent five years, IE department has been set up in more and more companies. But, the hard fact is that many company superintendents are still in the theory cognitive phase towards industrial engineering and lean production. In other words, they do not quite know how to put those theories into practice, especially into planning, designing and improving the existing enterprise production system. Thus, the industrial engineer is in urgent need. Such an industry demand not only coincides with my career planning, but also indicates my high career prospects. When I graduate from your MS program, I aim to embark on my career as an industrial engineer focusing on bringing the state-of-the-art production equipment in America into my homeland and imparting the most advanced enterprise management philosophy to the manufacturing industry in China. During this period, I will pay much attention to store up my practical experience, enrich my knowledge hierarchy and hone my executive capacity, resource allocation ability and management ability. Gradually, I will develop into an accomplished industrial engineer. In the longer term, with expertise and experience accumulated over the past years, I wish to become an industry engineering consultant to direct more companies to establish and perfect their industrial engineering systems, along with my constantly growing soft skills such as communication skills, decision-making capacity, and predictive ability.
Yukun Wen
Dec 2015
Since I had the overseas exchange experience in my senior high school, coupled with my interest in engineering and the steadfast conviction about technology, I decided to study abroad to study more technologies. During the four years’ study at Kansas State University, while immersing myself in advanced theoretical knowledge and experimental projects, I have laid the solid foundation and honed my hands-on skills within the mechanical engineering area. Moreover, I also find that both my teamwork spirit and the cognition of technologies have been significantly strengthened. More importantly, I develop the thinking mode and working style as a real engineer. For example, in SPX Cooling Tower Sound Attenuator Testing, I got involved in the whole process from purchasing experimental materials, negotiating with the company, making the budget to seeking for sponsorship. Under my proposal and through frequent group discussion, we finally determined the purchasing channels and materials by simplifying and classifying various resources. In this way, we significantly increased the project efficiency, decreased the expenditure and guaranteed the schedule.
Although having those experiences, I am still far from my belief of “technology can change the world” and thus began to search for practical experiences. From May to July this year, I had an internship in Shanxi Jinbaodao Piles Foundation Co., Ltd. As the assistant to the president, I assisted in work scoping from applying AutoCAD to design the foundation, operating measuring equipment, participating in the corporate competitive tender, formulating the construction scheme, negotiating the contract and supervising the construction process to on-site training. During this process, I learnt the nature of industry engineering, which is to analyze the complicated system, build abstract model and then improve the existing systems, and was aware of the importance of industry engineering. For example, in arranging construction vehicles, constructors and capital, the scientific proposal and rational coordination play the decisive role in the situation of revenue and expenditure of the project and even the whole company. Witnessing the project, I found the advantage of the experienced decision-makers and also detected the room for improvement to the operation system of the company.
With the growing understanding of industry engineering, coupled with comprehensive groundwork gained at the undergraduate level, I believe I am prepared well academically, practically and mentally for the master’s study in industry engineering.
Since Industry Engineering (IE) is a highly interdisciplinary field, at the graduate level, I would like to undertake systematic studies respectively from following aspects. Firstly, I would like to take courses related to operational research, such as optimization, simulation and stochastic oscillator. While building corresponding models according to the operational process, I can adopt these methods to optimize the industrial process. Secondly, I will absorb knowledge concerning supply chain, including logistics, manufacturing, warehouse, distribution and inventory. Grasping those skills, I will settle similar problems in real work. Thirdly, I also plan to attend courses on quality, statistics and manufacturing system, which are inclusive of quality control, regression and forecasting. All skills and techniques to be gained will help me solve problems in production lines optimization, producing scheduling, transit system, etc.
As industry engineering gallops ahead in China, especially over the recent five years, IE department has been set up in more and more companies. But, the hard fact is that many company superintendents are still in the theory cognitive phase towards industrial engineering and lean production. In other words, they do not quite know how to put those theories into practice, especially into planning, designing and improving the existing enterprise production system. Thus, the industrial engineer is in urgent need. Such an industry demand not only coincides with my career planning, but also indicates my high career prospects. When I graduate from your MS program, I aim to embark on my career as an industrial engineer focusing on bringing the state-of-the-art production equipment in America into my homeland and imparting the most advanced enterprise management philosophy to the manufacturing industry in China. During this period, I will pay much attention to store up my practical experience, enrich my knowledge hierarchy and hone my executive capacity, resource allocation ability and management ability. Gradually, I will develop into an accomplished industrial engineer. In the longer term, with expertise and experience accumulated over the past years, I wish to become an industry engineering consultant to direct more companies to establish and perfect their industrial engineering systems, along with my constantly growing soft skills such as communication skills, decision-making capacity, and predictive ability.
Yukun Wen
Dec 2015