For my Internship I went to Oradea in Romania. There I and another TUM Kolleg student got an insight into the work of the German company Iwis. Although Iwis supplies chain drive systems for a variety of branches, including manufacturing, agriculture and packaging, the plant in Romania produces mainly timing chains and chain tensions which are being used in car motors.
During our internship we were shown all the different departments of Iwis Oradea. We started with the chain tensioners, where we took a look into the assembly process by assembling chain tensioners ourselves. Our task was then to experiment with the steps needed to assembly the chain tensioner, doing steps at a different order or with a different movement to find the fastest process.
This information can later on be used to improve a plants efficiency. We were explained the Overall Equipment Effectiveness, which is an important value to measure and increase time loss in a production process. This model defines 4 dimensions by which time is being wasted in plant, one of which is the performance loss, which means the time which is lost by an inefficient assembly process. In this model time is lost, whenever a machine could work, but does not. E. g. if something is produced on an assembly line, there are different steps, performed by each machine at the same time. If one step takes longer than another one, this other one has to wait for the former machine to finish. During this waiting time it cannot work, thus this time is being lost. The goal is to reduce this time as much as possible to increase the number of goods being produced at the same time.
With the ideal time that we measured for producing one chain tensioner and the amount of time which was actually needed to produce one chain tensioner under work conditions, we could then measure the performance loss in the chain tensioner department. This was the first time, that I learned about this model and I thought it was really interesting, because back then I didn’t know that it was that easy to improve a plants efficiency.
Then our next station was the chain assembly. We were shown the different assembly lines, ranging from recent models to older one which worked in a totally different way. One essential step that I didn’t think of before, is riveting. The pins are keeping the inner links and the outer plates in position. By pressing them, which makes them extend the whole in the outer plate, the outer plate is being kept from sliding of the chain, even under pressure.
After the chains are produced, the last step is the quality check. This is maybe the only step, which is still performed by a human. The chain inspectors are checking every single chain, looking for damages, missing parts or chains which are assembled the wrong way. In the quality department these inspectors are being trained before they start working and all the chains with defects are being looked at more closely to avoid this flaw happening again. There we did the test which all the inspectors have to pass, before being allowed to work independently. The test was really hard, and though I did actually find lots of defect chains, I am definitely not suited yet to become professional chain inspector. Afterwards my eyes were really tired from looking at chains for one hour straight and I gained lots of respect for all the chain inspectors who do this eight hours a day.
The second week we worked on our own project. Just as with the chain tensioners, we were again trying to measure the productions efficiency, but this time we looked at the machines which produce the inner links. In order to compare the ideal cycle time (time, spend to produce one inner link) to the actual cycle time, we had to measure the actual cycle time first. For this we would take the several cycle time for each machine and then calculate the average to compare them. The cycle time was displayed at a monitor next to each machine, which we took several pictures of. To not having to write them down by hand, we trained an AI from Microsoft Automate to extract this information for us. After training at testing the AI, it was able to extract the right information from the pictures, afterwards we inserted and save them. The Information by the AI could be analysed using excel. Our final step was to calculate an average cycle time for each machine and to compare those averages.
The best part about my internship was the conversations in the pauses between work. Most of the employees speak either English or German, which made it quite easy to communicate.
I found that Romanians in general are all really cordial and welcoming toward strangers. After work, when we met someone from the plant, who was also headed toward town, they didn’t hesitate to take us at home in their car. There I always had great conversations, talking about culture, the differences between Romania and Germany and personal experiences. But it was in fact not only people from Iwis, that I knew who treated me warm and welcoming, but also people on the street that I had never met before.
When the bus didn’t arrive one day, one woman, who was waiting at the bus stop with me, offered me to take me with her in her car, since she was heading in a similar direction. We talked during the car ride, and although she didn’t know me at all, she treated me in a warm and kind way.
Oradea is known to be one of the most beautiful cities in Romania. This is due its historic center, where there all the houses have old, decorated facades. Apart from the houses, there were churches in nearly every corner. Because people in Romania are still really religious and they have three main religions, which all have a different style of churches, you can see those beautiful buildings everywhere in the city.
Apart from those really traditional houses, I lived in a rather modern part of the city. There were lots of supermarkets in every street and there was even a commercial center right next to the block where my apartment was situated. It really surprised me, that almost all supermarkets are german or other west- European supermarket chains. Right in front of my house was a Kaufland and a bit further a Lidl and a Carrefour. This makes it really easy for a German to feel at home in Romania. In the Lidl most of the products were the same as the ones you would get in a German Lidl. This is maybe one of the reasons, why I managed so well to buy groceries with only a few words of Rumanian.
The Romanian language is quite similar to other roman languages such as Spanish, French or Italian. Although I had only learned a few, essential words in Romanian I was able to understand lots of written Romanian, even though when someone spoke it to me, I didn’t understand a word.
Unluckily for me, I couldn’t taste too much of Romanian food, for it is based a lot on meat. Nevertheless, I tried some traditional sandwich spread cooked out of eggplant, which was really delicious.
Last but not least I want to talk about the public transport in Oradea and our ride to Romania. We went by train, which took about 13 hours. I can highly recommend buying an interrail ticket. This is a lot cheaper than booking all the tickets separately and you can easily buy all the tickets in the same App instead of having to purchase them on the Websites of the local train companies. I went from Munich to Vienna and from Vienna there is a train going directly to Oradea. This saved me lots of changes, and made it a lot less complicated to travel. Alternatively, you could go by plane, but for me the train ride was a real adventure that I wouldn’t have wanted to miss. The trains in Hungry and Romania are one of those you would see in an old James Bond movie, with train compartments and neither Wi-Fi nor AC. Although I was quite uncomfortable sometimes, I always meet the most extraordinary persons in this train. During the ride through Hungry I had an interesting conversation with a Romanian woman who spoke more than 4 languages.
The public transport in Oradea on the other hand was a lot less enchanting. The busses were coming irregularly with the arrival time changing every hour. Apart from that some busses weren’t driving at all at some hours e.g., the bus I took to get to Iwis driving only at 7 am and then again at 13 pm. This posed a real difficulty to move freely within the city, which led me to only visit places, I could reach by foot.
But in retrospective I am really grateful for my stay in Romania, even though there were some inconveniences like the public transport. I learned a lot about work life, got an insight into the daily business of a production company and most of all, I got a lot more independent through this unknown situation. This was the first time, that I lived so long entirely on my own, doing the daily purchases, cooking and managing my own little apartment. I met lots of interesting persons and I could experience for 2 weeks, what it would feel like to be independent and to be responsible for myself entirely.
Emma Panzner