Pella Externship 2011

Summer Externship - Day 1

Pella Corp.

 

The first day of orientation at Pella Corp. has gotten me very excited about the summer project.  We began with a tour of the Lumber Processing plant.  As we follow the lumber from its entry in to the warehouse through the entire processing center and on through final assembly, it becomes clear that there are a lot of variables that will be hard to isolate in the optimization process.

 

As I talk to Jeff and Mike, my primary contacts, I start to get a feel for some of the methods they have tried to collect usable data.  I start to realize that in my math classroom I present students with "Real World" challenges that provide easily attainable data and nice and neat solutions.  In the actual Real World, the data isn't always so black and white.

 

As we finish the first day, we talk about some expectations and possible directions we can head with the summer project.  Ideally, we would be able to create an optimization tool in Excel to help make decisions about what lumber is purchased and fed into the plant to raise yield and lower costs. 

 

 

 

Summer Externship - Day 2

Pella Corp.

 

The morning of my second day is spent looking at data that has been collected over the past few years.  Jeff and Mike do a great job of explaining how the data has been summarized.  Overshadowing the data is the fact that multiple sources of lumber are mixed daily, making it difficult to assign yield values to particular mills.  Just before noon, we meet with some of the team that has been working on the statistical data.  It is agreed that we need to dig in and try to identify usable conclusions before an optimization tool is realistic.  The remainder of the afternoon is spent getting comfortable with the data .

 

I can tell that my experience will be challenging and rewarding this summer.  I've already seen a need to bring more ambiguous problems into my classroom.  Can't wait to see where this will lead me.