Employee Profile: Isabel
Process Engineer

Isabel, how did you hear about Autocam Medical?

I was working towards my Bio-Medical Engineering Degree at Worcester Polytechnic Institute and a coworker mentioned that I should investigate opportunities at Autocam Medical.

What made you want to Intern here?

I was looking for an internship or an apprenticeship. During my junior year COVID had just started. With classes being online I decided to take an interactive SolidWorks CAD class that I became completely immersed in. Later I found that the skills I had acquired could be transferred over and applied directly to Autocam Medical. In fact, CAD applies to so many things I do every day at work. That next summer I graduated, and I was brought on full time, and have been loving it since.

So, you decided to join Autocam Medical full time. What happened next?

I did a lot of SolidWorks projects for everyone, like fixturing for laser marking parts and then fixturing for the quality department on all their programs. I did a lot of work in the lapping department. I helped redesign some of the cups and get some of the equipment upgraded so it produced better polishing results.

The exciting thing about the laser marking project was when I initially talked to the Engineering Manager about a future at Autocam Medical, the company expressed a desire to purchase a laser marker. That really got me excited to be able to work on that just because I had been doing all the fixturing for it previously. We got the machine, and I went through validating it. We have three metals validated. Production is up and running now. Now I create fixtures for in-house products.

Currently we can laser mark almost everything we manufacture. So, we took something that previously had to be done with outside suppliers and now we do it in-house. We produce a better result for our customers and control the quality process and timing. And it’s a big cost savings.

It’s amazing to see that initiative brought to fruition and my skills making a real difference.

What stands out to you about working at Autocam Medical?

I love the variation and knowing that it’s not going to be the same thing every day. There’s always some kind of puzzle to solve and you never really know what the root of the challenge might be. I enjoy getting to investigate the processes and digging to understand exactly what’s happening then working the questions to find the solutions. There’s a lot of moving parts and processes.

Tell me about being a Process Engineer at Autocam Medical

I take what I do very seriously, and I’ve always tried to produce the best work that I possibly can. I am very thorough with what I do. I connect all the dots between everything, and I am always reminded that my work affects people.

It’s important work that we do. We work in medical devices and instruments.