Z-Modular

After my first year I sought out an internship in mechanical engineering, and ended up at Z-Modular, a prefabricated modular construction company. Prefabricated modular construction involves manufacturing large-scale buildings room-by-room in a factory to create individual "modules" that serve as the rooms of the building. Once built, they are wrapped and shipped to the construction site where, utilizing proprietary connection technology called "Z Block" built into the corners of each module, they are craned on top of each other like LEGO to construct multifloored buildings. This unique way of construction was extremely interesting to me, and I joined the company as a production intern. One of my responsibilities was managing and updating bills of materials for 80 modules, either currently under, or scheduled for construction totaling around 200,000 individual materials. I worked closely with all production and floor managers, gaining a greater appreciation for the processes of construction and production. While undertaking and completing a variety of tasks from IT to providing status updates to the plant manager regarding the status of the production, I soaked in the expertise of experienced people in a variety of fields, improving my productivity, attention to detail, and flexibility. Nearing the end of my tenure, it came to my attention that many of the materials that were used during construction were not entered into SAP, the system we used for billing clients. I set up meetings with all floor managers and meticulously compared what our bill of materials said should go into each module, and what was actually used on the floor. This resulted in $80,000 worth of capital recovery for the company, and although my work term ended before the effort was completed, I am happy I was given the chance to work in such a unique field with such exceptional people.