Did you know the easy-open can was started right here in Dayton, Ohio? It was invented by a man named Ermal Fraze in 1959. He founded DRT a short time later and today DRT is still a leading innovator of easy-open end systems, in fact, they are the largest supplier of easy-open end system parts and tooling in the world.
So what do I do? I was hired as a helping hand to the research and development team. I work closely with five other engineers in a lab environment helping to develop new ways to improve our products. But it's just a "pop-top" right? Does it really deserve a whole team who's jobs are dedicated to something like that? Absolutely! Next time you get a pop or beer out of the fridge, take a look at what's going on on the end. Everything you see has a practical purpose; every bump, indent, fold, or dimple. Also, every one of these features has a tolerance range of just a few thousandths of an inch. The tightest feature is the scoreline, the tiny line that breaks when the end is opened. Just a few ten-thousandths out of specification, and the end will not open. Crazy right? These ends are produced at an extremely high rate too; 750 per minute to be exact. At a 24 hour run-time that's just under 1.1 million converted in one day! And they're all expected to work, the accepted failure rate is 0%. However it is not a perfect world we live in and failures do occur. In R&D we manage quality control in addition to development. I do my best to assist the other engineers in keeping our customer's quality of production at a maximum. I enjoy my time at DRT; it is a good work environment and I have learned a lot. But I am not sure if the easy-open end industry is my calling. That is something that I need to figure out. Simply, if I were to work for DRT full-time, I wouldn't love what I do and that's precisely what I don't want in my career. I will take the time starting now and through this up and coming semester to find something that I love to do. Having said that, it is a great co-op and I know the things I have learned will help me in my future pursuit of a co-op job and career path that I love. |
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