Interns To Innovators
When GHSP President Paul Doyle arrived at the plant one early Saturday morning and saw a BMX-style bike at the entrance, his first thought was that someone must have brought one of their kids along to the office. He soon learned that the bike belonged to one of the college students working on a GHSP-sponsored engineering project at Michigan Technological University. Several years ago this, and other projects like it, started out as a way to provide real-world experience to undergraduate engineering students. It soon became much more.
Watching these bright, young, green but innovative thinkers at work, the leadership team at GHSP realized how valuable this kind of talent could be. With their encouragement, the student projects soon became a sounding board for GHSP’s engineers, giving them support for current projects as well as a venue where new proposals outside the typical scope of GHSP’s business could be evaluated. It also helped GHSP identify future talent.
“Having a top notch educational partner like MTU involved and given the opportunity to work side by side with talented students for up to nine months gave us the chance to learn much more about each other than we ever would have be able to do with a traditional interview process,” says Eric Bryant, Director of Technology at GHSP. Those internships turned into full time jobs for several of the students who joined GHSP as part of a group of future thinkers working together to identify new and different technology needed by customers long before market forces dictate requirements.
According to Bryant, what started as a ‘small group, off by themselves huddled around a white board,’ is now a permanent team involving every aspect of the business – production, application and process engineering, supply chain management, finance and marketing.
One of the direct results of this educational partnership and innovative process is GHSP’s Smart Actuator product line, which employs leading edge brushless DC motor technologies and manufacturing processes in combination with state of the art software control strategies. The products provide efficient control of actuation in advanced vehicle applications. This product line is poised to be a very significant factor in GHSP’s diverse future.
“I think going from an idea on a white board to a $100 million product line in just a few years is pretty impressive,” says Bryant. We think so, too.
About GHSP
GHSP, a business of JSJ, is a leading global supplier of mechanical and mechatronic control systems to surface transportation industries, including automotive, heavy truck and others. The company serves its customers from concept to delivery with world-class product design, development and program management, as well as excellence in manufacturing in locations around the world.