I interviewed jairo satto who is manufacturing engineer at SAGE Electrochromics. A company that produces window glass. He is been employees there for six years.
How did you get involved in this line of profession (what inspires you to pursue this career?)? Satto states his inspiration as Well, it all began at the university when I did an internship with a glass manufacturing company previous to working for SAGE. The chairman of my program had some relationships with this industry and brought me here to take a tour. And through some networking, I got an internship with SAGE. I interned for five months, and then when I graduated from the university I was hired here full time. I'm really pleased to be working here. There are a lot of good opportunities.
What kinds of training did you receive before or after getting into your profession?
I have a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering that I got in Columbia, South America. Then I came to the United States and got a master's degree in manufacturing engineering. I also did some internship, and I worked on some lean projects and some Six Sigma projects when I was going to school in Mankato. SAGE has decided to change their method of production to Six Sigma, so we're currently being trained to be black belts in that program, so that's part of our training here at SAGE as well.
What are your job functions?
My job focuses on the production of our product, which is a tintable glass. We have a clean substrate and we then deposit films in the glass through voltage induction that causes the glass to tint or to become clear based on the voltage going through them. This glass can then be assembled into an IGU — an insulated glass unit — which is basically two panes of glass with a metal frame that creates a window or a skylight.
My responsibilities here are primarily two things. First, I'm in charge of clean-room operation, which means monitoring the clean room where production takes place for things like relative humidity, temperature, particle counts, contamination issues, and any other things that impact the clean room and its environment. So I need to make sure everything is in good order for production. We have carriers which are like cassettes that the glass goes into when it's coated. The other part of my job is to make sure that they are assembled properly and to be a part of a team that ensures continuous improvement of these carriers and to maintain them, re-design them as needed, and keep improving them.
What do you like about your profession?
For me, every day is a challenge, and I enjoy that. Because we work on continuous improvement projects, we're always looking for ways to make things better, to make the production process more efficient, and to make it more operator-friendly so we have fewer defects in the product. So there are opportunities for being creative and coming up with the best solutions to problems. The environment here at SAGE is also something I really enjoy. We have people here with a lot of experience who like to share their knowledge, and that makes it enjoyable too.
What do you don’t like about your profession?
One big I don’t like about this profession is that manufacturing generally takes place in dark or dirty environments. I did have an internship at a glass manufacturing company before working at SAGE where that was somewhat true. Here at SAGE though, everything is so clean and pristine and well-organized. The nature of our process and our
