Daisy Di Pardo and Jan Costermans, two master’s students in Electromechanical Engineering, went to Shanghai for three months to work for Philips Lighting as part of the two-year master program. Daisy and Jan agree: "We could never have accomplished this in the classic one-year master.”
/jaargang-19-3/images/19_03_02b.jpg "Jan Costermans and Daisy Di Pardo, two master’s students in Electromechanical Engineering, supplemented their curriculum with a special in-company learning path of two semesters.")
Jan Costermans and Daisy Di Pardo, two master’s students in Electromechanical Engineering, supplemented their curriculum with a special in-company learning path of two semesters.
During their initial traineeship in Belgium, they assisted in the development of a light sensor for gas-discharge lamps. “There were problems in the company with the reception of the sensor signals”, Jan starts out. “In addition, it used a complex and time consuming algorithm as a result of which the system could not be put on the fast production line. After a thorough analysis we were able to accelerate this process, which has been implemented in the meantime. We also formulated suggestions for improvement to the sensor optics."
The local traineeship was the ideal leg up and preparation for the continuation in Shanghai. Daisy was assigned the task of designing a camera system to monitor the production line. “All this was carried out in continuous consultation with the local engineers and the engineers in Belgium.”
Jan was set to deal with gas-discharge lamps. This time it was about collecting production data. “This is still done manually in China,” he explains. “They were looking for a cheaper alternative to collect the required production data in a more automated way.”
The contact and the cooperation with the Chinese colleagues was smooth, considering the great differences between Belgian and Chinese corporate culture. “In China, there is a much stricter hierarchy in everything. The true extent of the differences we only realized when we were back in Belgium.”
After three months abroad, Daisy and Jan are quite sold on the idea of a job or training in China or Japan. “In Shanghai, we regularly worked for Japanese customers and they made me very curious,” Daisy explains.
