General

Overview of the corporate

Cummins Inc. is an American Fortune 500 corporation that designs, manufactures, and distributes engines, filtration, and power generation products. It has sites worldwide with its headquarters in Columbus, Indiana. The annual revenue of the company is on the scale of $20 bn. The company has around 60000 employees worldwide. (Figures are available on the Internet)

Overview of Cummins Turbo Technologies

Within Cummins there is the component business, and within the components business there is Cummins Turbo Technologies (CTT). CTT is based in Huddersfield, UK. The company used to be an independent turbocharger manufacturer called ‘Holset’ and it was acquired by Cummins later on. The company continues to produce Holset brand turbochargers.

CTT has around 900 employees. Its main customers are OEMs of commercial vehicles.

Department overview

The author works in the research department of CTT which investigates new concepts and technologies and their potential applications on turbochargers.

The department has around 20 people and it is in active collaboration with other functions.

Applying for an opportunity

Cummins UK recruits interns collectively, and the applicant will be assigned to the business function operating on the site to which they have applied. An applicant is allowed to apply to multiple sites which belong to different business functions (such as Turbo Technologies and Engine business), but it is unclear whether applying for multiple roles within a business function is allowed.

The application process is simple to the point that the applicant can be unsure whether their application is being considered. After the initial CV screening which is done in the background, there is only one stage of assessment for the candidates that stand out, which is the assessment centre. An invitation to the assessment centre is likely to be the first communication the candidate would receive after the acknowledgement of the application.

The candidates can expect two visits to the site. One is for the assessment centre, and, should they be successful, a second optional one for an introductory session.

There is a chance that the candidate is not notified should his application be unsuccessful.

The assessment centre format is standard, with the exception of an element called a ‘3D CV’ which requires the candidate to demonstrate their passions and reveal the personality by showing an object and explaining the story behind. Such objects vary by candidate, ranging from conventional examples of a family photo or a football to very weird items.

Internship programmes

12 weeks summer placements and 1-year industrial placements are available.

For CTT, placement students who remain with the company for one year will undergo three rotations at different departments, with each rotation being four months in length. Exceptions to this exist and for some departments, students remain with them for the whole year. These are usually departments which need a fairly stable team, examples include the customer teams. After the acceptance of the offer, students will be asked to indicate their preferences for departments. Briefing materials will be made available for this purpose. These preferences will be taken into account but students sometimes cannot be allocated to their preferred departments.

The interns are offered an standard competitive annual salary (the amount of which the company does not reveal openly, but higher than other prestigious companies such as Rolls-Royce), and higher amounts than the standard are known to exist for experienced students in their latter years of the degree. There is no other forms of bursaries or allowances for things such as accommodation. A range of employee benefit programmes exist, such as dental health insurance and discounts at Sainsbury’s.

For office roles, the normal hours are 8:30 to 16:30 with one hour for lunch, making 35 hours of working in a week. For every contractual week an employee gets 3.5 hours of paid holiday. There is no need to clock in and out.

Content of work

The author has an engineering role in the research department of CTT.

The content of work greatly depends on the studies, experience, and capabilities of the student, but the work addresses the business needs of the departments with no ‘set programmes’ or ‘toy projects’. Exceptions to this exist for work experience students, who have not yet started university education.

Placement students are treated as full-time employees in CTT, and they are entitled to listen to monthly briefings where information such as the financial performance of the company is disclosed to employees. They are also given access to file servers that store things such as engineering data, and they can access all locations on site (subject to universal limitations) without the need of escort.

Knowledgeable and skilled students can lead their own projects or become the de facto leader of larger projects which involves cross-functional collaboration. Less capable students can expect to participate significantly and make real contributions to the projects which their departments are running at the time. The difference is mainly in the instructions that the student receives. Whereas work shadowing, detailed instructions, and one-to-one tutorial / assistance is available when deemed as appropriate, if the student is evidently competent to lead the project then people are generally willing to step out of the way while still providing the support to make a team effort, in which case instructions will be less and vague.

Examples of work that an engineering student can expect:

• Reviewing and analysing existing literature / data
• Planning standard and non-standard tests
• Doing mathematical, physical, or numerical analysis
• Organise cross-functional collaborations
• Design (either conceptually or CAD) and procure hardware
• Manage external suppliers / test facilities
• Doing computational analysis (FEA, CFD, etc.)
• Writing documents such as work requests
• Preparing presentation slides
• Managing data on computer systems

The managers are usually willing to take into account the students’ learning, preferences, and personal development plans when delegating work. They are usually open to prospects of getting engaged in works that interest the student. Alternatively, they are willing to hear complaints about the work and make alternative arrangements.

There are opportunities for placement students to volunteer locally, although the author did not participate in such activities.

Apart from the said work which generally aligns with the projects currently underway in the functions or teams concerned, placement students are often given ‘side projects’ or ‘filler tasks’, completion of which is not expected but the students can pursuit at their own interests. Such tasks are usually non-standard and investigates new concepts currently not under the organisation’s formal consideration. For example, the author has contributed to the project of writing a set of educative notes explaining in detail an algorithm published in open literature which can potentially be applied in the company.

Colleagues and working environment

The diversity of the colleagues is high, in terms of age, race, country of origin, religion, etc. The company takes its policy of diversity and inclusion seriously.

There are experienced senior employees approaching 60 years of age, there are new graduates completing their rotation, and anything in between. There are employees with or without degree level education. There are managers who started as an apprentice, and managers who hold Ph. D. degrees.

The employees of CTT are generally competent in terms of their duties. People tend to have received good general education and are conversant as far as mathematics and engineering sciences at a junior level are concerned. People with a fair amount of experience with the company generally have very good understandings of the practical technical aspects of the products and their design. As expected, younger and recently graduated colleagues are more fluent with degree level theory while older people generally have more experience and collective wisdom.

A few individuals that the author has met hold doctorate degrees, and a few individuals that the author has met qualify as chartered engineers.

At an advanced level, the majority of the employees are rusty with mathematics and physics. For example, concepts such as surface integrals and differential equations are poorly received by the team that the author works with, with the exception of perhaps one or two individuals.

Generally, CTT engineers approach problems by means of computer analysis or experimental methods, with a lack of modelling from first principles and theoretical estimations of expected outcomes. The author has experienced scenarios where simulations were conducted in FEA software and the engineer analysing the results could not describe what he expected to happen when such a design decision was made. There is a high degree of specialisation within the organisation with teams dedicated to running computer simulations and functions dedicated to running experiments. While this is beneficial to the organisational efficiency, it results in a general lack of understanding of the theories and practicalities of such tasks amongst the engineers who submit the jobs.

The author has found that, within the organisation, only experts who specialise their job duties in the relevant functions, or exceptional individuals perhaps with strong relevant backgrounds, are conversant on (one or two of) the following topics:

• Fluid mechanics (inc. at an advanced level, gas dynamics)
• Finite element theory
• Continuum mechanics
• Mathematical modelling
• Numerical analysis
• Heat transfer

The working environment is helpful. Most colleagues are happy to answer quick questions, and, should the request be more extensive, willing to make time and schedule a meeting to provide help. In the rare circumstances that an individual cannot provide the requested assistance, most people will provide the name of a suitable contact. The author has not experienced occurrences where he was declined of assistance.

The pace of work is generally slack and relaxed. Some level of chatter and standing-around within the office is allowed. Spending some time snacking or having a tea break is generally allowed. Meetings generally start five minutes late. Usage of mobile phones, social media, etc. during work is not allowed, but the rule is not enforced strictly in the office.

The reporting system is informal and, unless explicitly requested, report of progress in writing is not necessary. The managers track progress of things in meetings and delegate tasks at the same time. The organisation prefers meetings over other possible forms of collaboration, and, consequently, it is not unusual for an individual to spend four hours or more on an average day in meetings, although this varies greatly by role (for example, managers are engaged in more meetings than technicians). Teleconferences are not uncommon, given that Cummins is a global organisation and CTT has colleagues working in all sites across the world. Occasionally this means that conference calls need to take place outside of normal working hours.

Facilities and housekeeping

For an office role in CTT, expect open plan office equipped with basic furniture (such as desks, chairs, and cabinets). There will be washrooms and vending machines conveniently available. Fridge can generally be found around office areas to store food or drink (such as milk to go with tea or coffee).

You can expect an average quality laptop computer to be issued, together with reasonable peripheral hardware (such as a monitor, and keyboard and mouse). Equipment such as printers and scanners are connected by the network and are shared. For functions that require such capabilities, there will be some computers that are powerful enough to run demanding tasks (such as FEA) or graphical software (such as Creo). Such machines may be available to individuals who use such software on a regular basis, or be shared among a group of people. There are remote servers available for large scale computing tasks.

You can expect free general stationery of average quality.

There is a canteen on site, providing average quality food that is good for the money. Usually the author visits for lunch, but breakfast is also provided. All employees are entitled to use the car park, a space is not guaranteed but can be easily found at most times.

CTT has migrated to the Microsoft Office Suite in recent years, so common office software is available. However, apart from that, the software systems are very confusing. There are separate systems for different functions (for example, you have to go to two different places to book holiday or view your payslip, instead of a collective HR system). For engineering, the PLM system used is very dated and it has not changed since over 20 years ago. It is difficult to use, and there is plan underway to migrate to a system that is used across the corporate (at the time being, CTT has a lot of its own systems in which data is not shared with other business functions such as the engine business). This migration process has led to additional difficulties in tasks such as accessing files.

However, you can expect to have a universal worker ID and password that grants access to all systems you are normally entitled to visit, which is managed by the corporate. Similarly, IT support is provided at a corporate level and the helpdesk staff are in India. Therefore, you will need to submit tickets online or make telephone calls to have somebody resolve issues for you.

The manufacturing facilities are generally modern but the test facilities are very dated, with out-of-date computer programmes. CTT is gradually upgrading those test facilities but restrictions in available resources mean that the old facilities are still to be used for a long period to come.

The majority of the housekeeping tasks for interns are organised by the HR department. Interns are usually taken good care of, but exceptions exist when an intern joins and exits at irregular times such that he cannot follow the training and housekeeping schedule of the wider cohort. Most of the housekeeping actions take place at the start of the internship, which includes the issue of necessary equipment such as safety goggles and footwear. The termination of the internship is handled swiftly and neatly, with the P45 form issued soon after the final payment.

Training

Expect general corporate onboarding training (such as code of conduct, personal safety, and business models). The rest of the training is generally role-specific. For office roles there is ergonomic training and assessment. For engineering roles in CTT, specific training include introduction to turbocharging, and familiarisation training on computer systems used in the organisation. Interns can expect a turbocharger strip / rebuild training to familiarise themselves with the parts.

Training typically take the form of lectures. However, there is a fair portion of the training to be done via an online portal which is corporate-wide. Examples are workplace harassment awareness and office ergonomics. On the portal there is also a range of courses that are free to enrol, and people can take those voluntarily out of interest.