The placement
Month one: watch, ask, write it down
The plant’s maintenance team gave Tolulope a hard hat, a locker and one rule: no hands on a running machine for the first fortnight. She spent those weeks shadowing the shift technician, filling her SIWES logbook every evening and asking why each sensor was where it was.
Month two and three: the jammed diverter
A diverter on the bottle line jammed three times a shift. With the shift technician she traced it to a photo sensor knocked out of line, wrote a small change to the PLC logic to check it at start-up, and the stoppages fell to almost none. The change was written up in her logbook and signed off by the plant engineer.
Month four: the offer
In her last week the plant manager asked whether she would come back after her ND. She is finishing her final year now, with a start date in October. Example story for this demo.
“The PLC lab at Meridian is the same brand of kit as the plant. I did not have to learn the software, only the line.”
Tolulope, ND2 Mechatronics, example student
Tips from the industry office
- Write the logbook every day, not every week
- Ask for one small problem you can own
- Learn every operator’s name in week one
- Ask your supervisor for written feedback at the end
