EAU: Enterprise Automation University

At Enterprise Automation, we make new employee training a priority, devoting five weeks to the technical and cultural onboarding process.

Last week, we wrapped up a successful 2020 session of Enterprise Automation University, EAU for short.  During this five-week orientation, new engineers at EA learn about the technical skills and project processes that are driven by our core values.  Five new hires and one existing staff member successfully completed our most recent EAU session.

The 5 weeks is comprised of intensive classroom instruction intermingled in a collaborative mock project.  During this EAU session, Inside Sales Manager Alex Stipe posed as the client implementing a water storage tank in a new housing community.  The system required several automatic and manual modes of operations, high-performance graphics, and data trending. The team was challenged to develop a solution within a very short window with a firm delivery date.

The new engineers, self-dubbed the ‘Masked Men,’ divided into teams to tackle different areas of the project including electrical design and implementation, Functional Specification writing, and SCADA and PLC programming. Faced with a box of loose components and EA’s reservoir “rig”, they practiced the team communication skills and documentation processes to deliver a successful project.

“Our team puts our all into preparing for this training and we expect the same from our new hires,” said Josh Riley, EA Principal.  “Let’s just say they delivered – with excellent technical results, and entertaining features such as a voice-activated Rave Mode which initiated an additional SCADA screen and sequenced stack light flashing.”

EAU 2020 Grads

Our six EAU 2020 graduates are:

  • Ezequiel Ansaldi, BS Chemical Engineering, UCSD
  • Joberto Lee, BS Mechanical Engineering, UCI
  • Keegan Kim, BS Chemical Engineering, UCLA
  • Marshall McElroy, BS Chemical Engineering, University of South Carolina
  • Nicholas Blischak, BS Mechanical Engineering, UCSD
  • Steven Drooz, BS Chemical Engineering, UCLA

EA University Ping Pong

In addition to the technical experience and project management lessons, we also use the time for intensive team building.  Of course, some events on the typical training schedule were modified due to COVID. Rather than our typical companywide lunch and K1 racing activities, we got together over Zoom and had a masked ping pong tournament.

At our next company meeting, the team will present their experiences and lessons learned to staff, cementing another banner year of team onboarding at EA.