Southwire manufactures a variety of power cables ranging from wire for use in a common home to high voltage shielded and armored cable for use at power plants and industries with high energy needs. The company's corporate headquarters is located in Carollton, GA.  My employment with Southwire consisted of (3) 6-month rotations separated by semesters at Mississippi State University (MSU).  Since Southwire was also located in Starkville, MS along with MSU, I was able to hold a position as a resident assistant on campus simultaneously.

Plant AutoCAD Specialist

            As the mechanical engineering co-op, I served as the plant's AutoCAD specialist.  When machine parts failed, my job was to precisely measure the component and create it in AutoCAD to check for failure modes and to facilitate the manufacturing of a new part either through the in-house machine shop or through a number of external machine shops.  I created the requisitions and directly contacted the machine shops.  In addition to creating drawings for broken machine parts, I also designed elevated platforms, a wireline payoff, and numerous other items to improve the operations at the Starkville manufacturing plant.

Lockout / Tagout

            My most demanding project at Southwire was the authoring of the plant's machine specific lockout / tagout procedures.  This 250+ page manual took me several months to complete as I documented the locations and methodology to isolate all of the individual machines pneumatically, hydraulically, and electrically for the entire plant.

Engineering Projects

            Working with the full-time engineers at the plant, I assisted with a variety of engineering projects.  These included investigating methods to increase airflow in the plant and decrease heat fatigue during the summer months, designing a mezzanine to relocate the plant's parts supply shop, developing an Excel program to track the wear of PVC extruder parts, designing various crane structures, and mapping the piping networks within the plant.