Testimonial Mechanical engineering – production engineering

I’m Marc and I’m completing a cooperative education program in mechanical engineering, specializing in production engineering, at Bosch Rexroth in Horb.

How do you like the Horb location?

Located between the Swabian Jura and the Black Forest, Horb is a real epicenter of an international corporation. Horb is the lead plant for five further Bosch Rexroth locations in the US, Brazil, China, Japan, and Turkey. Within this global development network, Horb is responsible for the development of the axial piston units at all production sites. What’s more, a wide range of manufacturing processes are housed under one roof. State-of-the-art turning and milling machines, precise grinding processes, additive manufacturing processes, robot cells, and an in-house hardening shop are just some of the things that fascinate every mechanical engineer. All of this offers the best conditions for experiencing the theoretical learning content from the cooperative state university on site. The combination of rural charm with international responsibility makes the Horb site unique in my eyes.

The departmental assignments at Bosch Rexroth were incredibly informative and, in my opinion, outweigh the theoretical part of university. I’m grateful that I got the opportunity to learn what methodical, structured, and responsible work means on the basis of my own projects.

Can you describe your course so far?

The key thing about a cooperative education program is being able to alternate every three months between the theoretical part at the Horb campus of the cooperative state university and the practical part in the training company. At the cooperative state university, I was taught the theoretical content of technical mechanics, materials science, design theory, thermodynamics, mathematics, and control engineering, and much more besides. In the training company itself, you start with a pre-study internship in metals to learn the technical basics together with other trainees in the training workshop. You then move around numerous departments – both technical and commercial – during your individual, subject-related departmental rotation.

Have you also gained any experience abroad?

Thanks to the international nature of Bosch Rexroth, we have the opportunity to complete a placement abroad during the fourth practical semester. This is a fantastic opportunity to improve your language skills as well as to develop both personally and professionally. On top of this, you also have a unique opportunity to get to know the culture of the host country.

During my studies, I was lucky enough to spend three months at a sales and service location of the Bosch Rexroth AG national company in Thailand. During this time, I was given the opportunity to work on my own project. This involved the introduction of a standardized, electronic data exchange between Rexroth locations, the aim being to transfer logistics information and documents to the other location’s system automatically. This results in significantly shorter process times and thus faster delivery times. Moreover, automatic data transfer also enhances process quality by avoiding human oversights.

This was a genuinely unique experience, which gave me the opportunity to move out of my comfort zone and get involved with unfamiliar subject areas. While working on my project, I learned and applied problem solving and project management methods, which will undoubtedly come in useful in my future work as an engineer. I also had plenty of free time to make new friendships and to travel around Thailand, Malaysia, and Laos on weekends.

All in all, I would say that cooperative education is the optimum solution for a practice-oriented course of study. The departmental assignments at Bosch Rexroth were incredibly informative and, in my opinion, outweigh the theoretical part of university. I’m grateful that I got the opportunity to learn what methodical, structured, and responsible work means on the basis of my own projects. Thanks to the diverse departmental assignments, you soon get to tell which departments are the best fit for you and get an idea of what your future career might look like. Gaining experience abroad is the icing on the cake, rounding off your learning and practical experience.

Personally, I can only recommend a cooperative education program at Bosch Rexroth in this field and would choose it again anytime.