An Investment for Factory Workers Anonymous

I never thought that, at 17 years old, I’d make a decision to spend $50,000. Last summer, I had a paid internship at Fresca Foods, a small manufacturing company. For six weeks, I worked in the Engineering, Technology and Continuous Improvement departments; my main project was to find cost savings on the cracker production lines. At first, I didn’t know where to start. I researched lean manufacturing, but decided the best place to look for problems was on the factory floor, observing the process and talking to workers.

Eventually, I became comfortable communicating with the workers, even speaking a little Spanish. I met people with very different life experiences from mine, such as a boy named Jose. Like me, Jose was 17 and in high school. In speaking with him, I learned about his circumstances and empathized with him. He had a long commute and worked 10-hour days on his feet. I realized that Jose faces many more challenges than I do. That’s when I truly became invested in my project. I wanted to make the workers’ jobs easier so they could reach their daily goals and earn bonuses.

A potential improvement I found was that a person had to manually weigh cracker packs to ensure they meet weight requirements. It was inefficient and...