Greetings from MIE alumni, Janelle Ross (BSME/IE class of 2014) and Ellen Rizzardi (BSME Class of 2014)!
We both currently work at Target in Minneapolis. Janelle works in Product Safety and Quality Assurance and Ellen works in Product Design and Development.
Our roles recently took us on a week long trip to India. During our trip we went to several factories that produce Target owned brand products such as Hearth and Hand, Threshold, Opalhouse, and P62. We reviewed manufacturers’ product designs, assessed features that could be modified to provide better guest satisfaction, walked the factory to understand vendors’ specific areas contributing to manufacturing variability and defects, and discussed continuous improvement initiatives.
It was exciting to travel together and reflect on our time at UMD. We saw several manufacturing processes that we learned about in a textbook and attempted in a lab (such as sand casting). We wanted to take a moment to say thank you for providing the education and foundation that has contributed to our successful careers at Target.