Aerospace engineering major William Harrison Haupt completed an internship with Southern Champion Tray during the summer of 2023.
My name is William Harrison Haupt and I am a junior in aerospace engineering here in the Tickle College of Engineering. Over the summer of 2023, I accepted an internship opportunity to work with Southern Champion Tray on the Continuous Improvement team. Southern Champion Tray is an independent paperboard and packaging specialist company that provides paperboard products and packaging solutions for customers across various industries. With expansion into Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America, and Europe, they continue to grow and be one of the largest independent paperboard and packaging specialists in the United States.
My job while I was an intern contained many projects and assignments where I contributed to the improvement of manufacturing processes and met other needs of those in other departments across the company. The projects and assignments I worked on included production process tracking to eliminate unwarranted downtime and waste throughout the production facility, development of an improved sample system by taking a data-based approach, I created a custom product catalog containing AutoCAD 3D images and product specifications of custom paperboard products, I performed quality testing on different board caliper and finish, I performed a cost savings analysis on current and previous projects, I had the opportunity to lead weekly project update meetings, as well as completed a Yellow-Belt project that practices lean six sigma methodology to receive my yellow-belt. All of these tasks were a great learning opportunity for me all across the board and greatly contributed to my professional development.
Since I had no prior experience in manufacturing, it was a great challenge to overcome and to learn more about the production processes and all who are involved. Along with that, I had to learn to communicate with people throughout the company, whether that be those on my team or those in other departments. One of the biggest takeaways that I have from my experience is to always ask questions, and, as cliche as that sounds, it stands to always be true. I am very thankful for all of those who helped me along the way, the people I worked beside, and the great leadership that surrounded me at Southern Champion Tray.