The featured student this week is Benjamin Hopkins, a chemical engineering major from Greeneville, Tennessee, who worked as a co-op student at SABIC Innovative Plastics in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi.
Hopkins worked specifically with the reliability group in maintenance. His role was to help develop maintenance strategies for all on-site equipment. Some of his day-to-day tasks included conducting critically assessments for various systems within the plant, managing on-site inspections, conducting RCA’s (Root Cause Analysis) on equipment failure, and analyzing and developing pressure relief systems.
“All of those projects are centered around helping the maintenance department increase the reliability of equipment and develop plans to prevent future equipment failures,” said Hopkins.
One of his major projects involved using an unfamiliar software package called Ivara, which was a challenge to learn to use, keep up the pace with his project, and make sure all the work was accurate. As he grew to know the program he could add more complexity to solve the problems he faced.
A key lesson Hopkins came to learn was that even though a situation can be difficult or confusing, and can seem daunting at times, breaking down the problem into more manageable pieces is a powerful tool. Another valuable benefit he took away from this rotation was learning to take technical ideas and communicate effectively to both technical and non-technical groups. While understanding your target audiences’ level of inference with various subjects allows for successful communication for a team.