The 2021 session of Enterprise Automation University, EAU for short, was completed just a few weeks ago. The program is part of the on-boarding process for new engineers at EA, and is structured around helping the new hires build up their project processes and technical skills. The team this year was comprised of three new employees.
The 5-week course consists of intensive classroom instruction accompanied with a collaborative mock project. Our Inside Sales Manager, Alex Stipe, posed again as the mock project’s client. The project this year was to incorporate a new water distribution tank on an island. The system required not only automatic and manual modes, but emergency operations as well. The team also had to incorporate screens that would allow a user to have access to set point control. The new engineers divided into teams during the development of the Functional Specification, and then came together to tackle different programming aspects of the system. Running a control strategy workshop with the client allowed the team to outline the customer’s requests early in the project.
Since it is a fake project, the team is known to throw in some silly aspects. The system this year includes the Catalina wine mixer and one of the requests from their mock client was to have an indication when the users are out of wine. While it is a silly request, the team designed it thoughtfully, so that it is available, but not a nuisance on all the screens. They also required a higher privilege level to reset the alert and turn it off.
“This year’s incoming class has a range of experience in their backgrounds, including robotics, computers, client service and event planning,” said Jasmine Jauregui, Engineering Supervisor. “They are bringing different strengths and it showed up a lot in these conversations about being a systems thinker and putting solutions together for the end user.”
The three EAU 2021 graduates are:
- Golden Se, B.S. Chemical Engineering, UC Riverside
- Sierra Stevens, B.S. Mechanical Engineering, UCI
- Nathan Burdick, B.S. Mechanical Engineering UCSD
With the COVID restrictions lifting this year, we were able to bring back some of the team building events. This year, we were able to gather together for a new hire lunch and compete in a volleyball tournament.
“An interesting thing about this group is that they’ve all had to complete their senior year remotely,” said Jasmine Jauregui. “So they’ve been super eager to be in the office, to be hands-on, to jump into the project work. It’s such a change of pace.”
The team presented their experiences and lessons learned during a recent company meeting, and demonstrated their familiarity with the system and leveraged their electrical training.
Here’s to another year of EA University in the books!
