June 4, 2020 | 5 minute read
June 23 marked this year’s International Women in Engineering Day, a global awareness campaign to raise the profile of women in engineering and focus attention on career opportunities in our industry.
By encouraging girls into engineering careers, not only does society increase diversity and inclusion —a business imperative—but it enables an opportunity to fill the substantial future job opportunities that have been predicted in the engineering field.
Read below to see the profiles of several of our global women engineers, in which they detail why they chose their profession, the different paths they have taken and what makes John Crane such a great place to work.
Location: Concord, California
Job Title: Sales Engineer
What are the primary responsibilities of your role?
I provide engineering expertise to clients with their new product developments projects, recommend products and application of products, as well as maintain healthy clientele relations by travelling to client locations and conducting product training sessions. I also discuss future requirements with customers and assist in solving problems associated with their equipment and other applications to improve reliability.
What made you choose engineering as a career field?
My dad was a heavy equipment operator and he took me to the field with on various occasions. I was impressed by how machines working in such a precise harmony. I wanted to learn more of it and wanted to work somewhere where I can be part of it. A career in engineering is interesting and fun; it involves a lifetime of continuous learning to adapt to changes in society and the natural world. Engineering often involves working in multidisciplinary, multicultural, multisite teams. It is a very worthwhile profession, and the results, when you succeed, can be incredibly satisfying.
What makes John Crane such a great place to work?
John Crane provides its employees with training and opportunities for growth. This investment sends a clear message to us that John Crane is committed to our career growth and longevity within the organization.
Location: South Africa
Job Title: Manufacturing Engineer
What are the primary responsibilities of your role?
My responsibilities include streamlining manufacturing processes, procedures and methodologies to improve product outcomes. I also review current operations and initiate improvements to enhance efficiency.
What made you choose engineering as a career field?
It was in high school, during my final year, when my physics teacher said, “Why don’t you try engineering?” I started listening to career discussions and one day they were explaining what an industrial engineer does and how they can work on solving different problems in any industry. I chose to be an industrial engineer because I thought it would be a lot of fun! Being involved in solving problems is what I enjoy the most as I get to learn something new every day. As an engineer, I am involved in constantly changing the world with innovation and solutions that affect everyone's lives.
What makes John Crane such a great place to work?
Everyone shares the same vision and mission, and there is a genuine spirit of cooperation and shared goals all revolving around helping the customer. For me, this creates a family environment where everybody is there for each other—and this keeps me engaged and excited!
Location: Taiwan
Job Title: Operations Manager
What made you choose engineering as a career field?
Before joining John Crane, I didn’t have a heavy engineering background. However, the curiosity and passion I get from my work every day, as well as from my colleagues, keep me energetic and devoted to learning sealing technology and reaching a high standard in operational excellence.
What was the most fun/innovative project that you’ve been a part of at John Crane?
I have worked on an SAP implementation and continuous improvement project for my site, which were, to date, the most challenging and fun parts of working at John Crane. I was also able to present the achievement on service processes at the 2019 APAC Management Conference, which was very exciting. Additionally, supporting regional countries outside of Taiwan has allowed me to interact with and learn from more colleagues outside my site.
What makes John Crane such a great place to work?
John Crane provides the opportunity for career development and growth.
Location: Tianjin, China
Job Title: Gas Seal Design Leader
What are the primary responsibilities of your role?
I am a dry gas seal application and design engineer, working on the dry gas seal product line. I am responsible for the general assembly of dry gas seals, designing and drawing up new seal parts, and seal standardization.
What made you choose engineering as a career field?
When I was a child, I liked to disassemble and assemble toys. As a student, I enjoyed studying mathematics, physics and chemistry. I am specifically interested in geometry, mechanical design and mechanical drawing. I have a Master’s degree in chemical process engineering, and after I graduated from college, I chose John Crane to work as a design engineer. I am proud to say I am still working here after 11 years.
What was the most fun/innovative project that you’ve been a part of at John Crane?
Working on the standardization of dry gas seal design and establishing test part databases have been some of my favorite projects.
Seal standardization work encompasses the design process—compiling part structures and part drawings, implementing design calculations, gathering guidance documents, and creating test design and framework standardizations. The seal standardization process provides design engineers with rules of consistency to follow when it comes to seal design, which reduces the number of overall design drawings and error rates. When it comes to seal standardization, I am always working to update and improve the design processes.
The work of establishing a test database primarily includes drawing the arrangement of test parts, key dimension input of test parts and borrow management of test parts. This work makes it easier to facilitate the inventory management of test parts, improve the speed of part selection during test design, reduce the number of new parts processed, and thereby reduce the overall cost of the test.
Location: Seoul, South Korea
Job Title: EPC Key Account Manager
What are the primary responsibilities of your role?
My main role is to support global project business through growing relationship with EPCs and to seek out opportunities to win new projects and business.
What was the most fun/innovative project that you’ve been a part of at John Crane?
The opportunities I have had to collaborate with my global colleagues is my favorite aspect of the job. It’s amazing what the size and scope of John Crane’s global engineering team can do when everyone is working in unison.
What makes John Crane such a great place to work?
The people I work with every day, as well as the culture, is what makes John Crane such a great place to work.
Location: Rayong, Thailand
Job Title: Application Engineer
What are the primary responsibilities of your role?
I handle technical queries for the customer, sales and service teams, and take care of product selections, product upgrades, provide trainings for customer/internal staff, field service and supporting root cause analysis (RCA) activities, as well as provide field service for dry gas seal replacement supervision. I also provide support to the sales teams by creating a product guideline and attending customer meetings.
What made you choose engineering as a career field?
I have enjoyed physics and mathematics since I was a kid, and have always been interested in mechanical design, root cause analysis (RCA) and troubleshooting, which led me to choose mechanical engineering for my career path. After I graduated with a Master’s degree, John Crane was the first place I worked, and I am still here after nine years.
What was the most fun/innovative project that you’ve been a part of at John Crane?
I was assigned to work with a customer to find out what the root cause of the problem for a failed seal was. Upon inspection, I found the seal was damaged due to improper installation. I was able to improve the seal by showing the customer how to properly install the seal. By doing this, we were able to gain form a deeper relationship with the customer.
What makes John Crane such a great place to work?
John Crane has a good company culture that creates a positive working environment. John Crane has provided me with many learning opportunities and many challenging project to improve and grow my skills.
Location: Singapore, SG
Job Title: Reliability Engineer
What are the primary responsibilities of your role?
I providing on-site support for sealing systems and other rotating equipment, as well as identify poor-performing rotating equipment in our customers’ plants.
What was the most fun/innovative project that you’ve been a part of at John Crane?
The most challenging and fun project I have worked on was retrofitting a customer’s vacuum pump seals for one of their equipment bad actors. My team and I had to come up with a cost-effective and reliable solution to solve the problem, and it took some trial and error for us to fine-tune our seal design and installation procedures. Eventually, we managed to figure out the perfect solutions, and our seal has been running well ever since.
What makes John Crane such a great place to work?
My efforts and hard work are always recognized and encouraged by colleagues and supervisors.
Location: São Paulo, Brazil
Job Title: Sales and Customer Service Manager
What are the primary responsibilities of your role?
I help manage an internal network composed of sales, procurement, aftermarket and engineering to ensure excellent customer service and high-quality performance.
What made you choose engineering as a career field?
I chose engineering as a career because it’s a broad field that gives me a lot of opportunities for growth and to feed my constant desire to learn.
What was the most fun/innovative project that you’ve been a part of at John Crane?
I had a lot of fun working on a value stream mapping (VSM) project, where I was involved in several sectors of the company (e.g., manufacturing, purchasing, logistics) that I don’t normally get to deal with every day. By working on this project, I was to understand in much more detail how each area plays an integral role in my every day job, and how I could effectively manage and work with individuals within these departments moving forward.
What makes John Crane such a great place to work?
As a female engineer, John cane offers me all the possibilities in an equal manner to develop all of my professional competencies and goals.
Location: Solaro, Italy
Job Title: Project Engineer - Systems Contract Management
What are the primary responsibilities of your role?
John Crane Solaro, Italy, is the Manufacturing Center of Excellence for customized seal support systems.
The primary responsibilities of my role are project management of systems, ranging from order receipt to shipment of goods, as well as being responsible for delivery lead time and cost.
I also manage customer kick-off meetings, get customer approvals for jobs documents, and maintain a job execution schedule. In addition, I manage the project team and communicate with the internal/external customers on all the job-related topics.
What made you choose engineering as a career field?
I chose to be an engineer because engineering is a creative profession. An engineering career is a “work in progress,” and something you have to continuously develop through experience and real-life applications.
What makes John Crane such a great place to work?
Our values—Responsibility, Respect, Integrity, Customer Focus and Passion—make John Crane such a great place to work and I’m so proud to be a part of it.
Location: Aberdeen, UK
Job Title: Assistant Maintenance Engineer
What are the primary responsibilities of your role?
As an Assistant Maintenance Engineer, I contribute to the maintenance build process by developing Master Equipment Lists (MEL). The MEL then has equipment classes assigned and is built into a hierarchical structure which aids to the application of maintenance later in the project. I work with colleagues and clients in developing maintenance strategies and task lists, which are applied against the MEL developed previously.
What made you choose engineering as a career field?
I chose a career in engineering as I was good at math in school and math goes hand in hand with engineering. I grew up surrounded by the oil industry, so I was exposed to a certain level of engineering at a young age.
What was the most fun/innovative project that you’ve been a part of at John Crane?
The most enjoyable project I have been involved in was the Western Isles Maintenance Build. This was because, due to project circumstance, I was involved in a more client-facing role early in my career. Although initially daunting, I thoroughly enjoyed that aspect of the job.
What makes John Crane such a great place to work?
I enjoy working for John crane as it presents opportunities to work, learn and expand into different aspects of the industry. It also gave me the opportunity to become a Smiths Ambassador. Being a Smith’s Ambassador has encouraged me to communicate with other parts of the wider John Crane/ Smith’s business, allowed me to be a part of the diversity and inclusion workshop and organize non-work-related events (i.e., repairing a local bird hide and a beach boardwalk).
Location: Algeria
Job Title: Sales Manager - Algeria
What are the primary responsibilities of your role?
My responsibilities include building and promoting strong, long-lasting customer relationships by partnering with them and understanding their needs. I achieve this by meeting with customers to discuss their evolving needs and assess the quality of our company's relationship with them. I strive to achieve objectives through effective planning, setting sales goals, analyzing data on past performance, and projecting future performance.
What made you choose engineering as a career field?
I chose engineering as a career for a variety of reasons, but in the end, it all comes down to passion and innovation. I always wanted to use innovation to impact our world in a positive way, and I wanted to believe in and be passionate about the product or service I am working with. This is truly at the core of what engineering is about. Also, I believe that women can thrive in the world of engineering; engineering promises real opportunities to change the world!
What was the most fun/innovative project that you’ve been a part of at John Crane?
During my time at John Crane, my most enjoyable projects have been the ones that resulted in solving a problems, working close to our customers’ teams, providing John Crane solutions and sharing my experience with others.
What makes John Crane such a great place to work?
John Crane operates in an ethical and safety-first work environment. The company gives me many challenging job and learning opportunities that allow me to improve my skillset. I am able to divide my energy between home and work priorities, which creates a healthy work-life balance.