Intern, MES SystemsAt — Harbinger Motors Inc.

We are looking for a highly motivated and curious MES Intern to join our Smart Factory team. This is a hands-on opportunity to work at the intersection of manufacturing, engineering, and IT.

You will assist our team in supporting, configuring, and enhancing the core Siemens MES systems that run our production floor. This role will give you direct exposure to Siemens Opcenter (Discrete), Opcenter Intelligence, and Mendix as we work to improve efficiency, quality, and traceability in the factory of the future.

What You Will Do

• Support & Troubleshoot: Act as a first line of support for our Siemens MES platform. You'll work directly with operators and engineers to gather information on, diagnose, and resolve real-time production issues.
• Assist in Application Development: Support the MES team in designing, building, and testing new operator-facing user interfaces and applications using Siemens.
• Build & Visualize Dashboards: Help create and maintain manufacturing data dashboards using Siemens Opcenter Intelligence to visualize key metrics (like OEE, cycle time, and yield).
• Validate & Test: Assist in the formal testing and validation of new system configurations, workflows, and the Mendix applications you help develop to ensure they are bug-free and meet business needs.
• Document & Train: Help create and update technical documentation, standard operating procedures (SOPs), and training guides for end-users on new and existing functions.
• Collaborate: Work closely with cross-functional teams, including production, quality, and maintenance. You will shadow senior engineers in meetings to help translate business needs into technical requirements.

What You Bring

• Currently pursuing a degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Industrial Engineering, Automation, or a related technical field.
• Strong analytical skills and a logical, step-by-step approach to problem-solving.
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to talk to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Bonus Points (Not Required)
• Exposure to any Siemens platform (Opcenter, Mendix) is a major plus.
• Understanding of basic manufacturing concepts (e.g., OEE, traceability, SPC).
• Exposure to any programming language (Python, C#, SQL, etc.).

Tasks:

Professional Duties & Linked Learning Outcomes

1) Outcome: Develop & Deploy MES Applications
Assist in Application Development: Contribute to the development of new operator-facing applications under the guidance of a senior engineer. This includes assisting with UI mockups, building and configuring specific features or logic in Mendix, and participating in design and logic reviews.

Support UI/UX Enhancement: Help implement iterative improvements to existing MES interfaces. This involves taking user feedback or a senior developer's design and making specific modifications to Mendix forms or Opcenter UIs to improve clarity, ergonomics, and workflow.

2. Outcome: Analyze & Visualize Production Data
Contribute to Dashboard Development: Support the creation and maintenance of production dashboards using the Siemens Opcenter Intelligence platform. This involves using the tool's graphical interface to configure widgets, charts, and tables to display key KPIs (like OEE or scrap) based on established data models.

Perform Data Validation: Assist in validating the accuracy of new dashboards and reports. This includes comparing the data shown in Opcenter Intelligence against other system reports or live production data to ensure calculations and data feeds are correct.

3. Outcome: Troubleshoot & Support Core Systems
Provide Tier 1 & 2 MES Support: Act as a first line of support for production operators. This involves gathering detailed information about system errors, performing initial diagnostics, and resolving known issues using standard procedures. For complex issues, the intern will be responsible for accurately documenting and escalating the problem to senior engineers.

Contribute to System Validation: Assist in the formal testing of new applications and system updates. This involves executing pre-defined test scripts, meticulously documenting any bugs or unexpected behavior (including screenshots and replication steps), and reporting the results back to the development team.

4. Outcome: Translate Operational Needs into Technical Specifications
Assist in Requirements Gathering: Shadow senior engineers during shop-floor observations and interviews with operators to understand workflow pain points. The intern will be responsible for taking detailed notes and helping to summarize operational needs.

Contribute to Technical Documentation: Support the creation of technical specification documents by drafting specific sections, such as UI mockups, data-field definitions, or \\as-is\\ vs. \\to-be\\ workflow diagrams, under the supervision of the project lead.

Supporting Professional Duties
Participate in Team & Project Meetings: Actively participate in team stand-ups and project meetings, providing clear updates on assigned tasks and learning from technical discussions led by senior staff.

Training:

1) Foundational Onboarding
The first week is dedicated to setting a strong foundation for success, safety, and system understanding.

General Employer Orientation: Completion of all mandatory company-wide training, including HR policies, IT security protocols, and site-specific safety procedures (e.g., shop floor PPE, GMP, emergency response).

Smart Factory & MES Contextualization: A dedicated session with the hiring manager to review the facility's end-to-end manufacturing process, the digital architecture of the \\Smart Factory,\\ and the specific role of the Siemens Opcenter ecosystem (Discrete, Intelligence, Mendix) in achieving business goals.

System & Environment Setup: Guided, hands-on setup of all development and production environments, including access to Siemens Opcenter, the Mendix development portal, and relevant databases.

2) Structured Mentorship & Guided Observation
Continuous support is provided through a formal mentorship and observation structure.

Regular Mentor Check-ins: Scheduled one-on-one meetings with the direct manager to review project progress against learning objectives, troubleshoot blockers, provide continuous feedback, and introduce new concepts for upcoming tasks.

Targeted Job Shadowing:

Senior MES Engineers: The intern will shadow senior team members during high-priority activities, such as real-time production troubleshooting, a new Mendix application deployment, or a system integration design session.

Manager/Team Lead: The intern will observe the manager in cross-functional meetings (e.g., with Operations or Quality) to understand how business requirements are captured, negotiated, and translated into technical tasks.

3) Technical Skill Development (Self-Paced & Guided)
To build competence with the core technology stack, the intern will utilize a mix of formal and informal learning resources.

Curated Siemens Learning Path: The intern will be assigned specific training modules from the Siemens Xcelerator Academy (or internal library) focusing on Opcenter Discrete (Execution), Opcenter Intelligence (Data Analytics), and Mendix (Low-Code Development). This provides baseline familiarity with the tools.

System Documentation Review: The intern will be guided through a review of existing technical documentation, data-flow diagrams, and SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures) to understand the \\as-is\\ state of the system before making changes.

4) Applied Learning via Project-Based Work
This is the core of the internship, where learning is applied to real-world business challenges.

Progressive Task Assignment: The intern will begin with small, well-defined, and heavily supervised tasks (e.g., \\add a new data field to this existing Mendix UI,\\ \\fix a label on a MES screen\\).

Contextualization of Tasks: No task is assigned in a vacuum. Each project, large or small, will be prefaced with an overview that answers:

Who is the end-user? (e.g., a line operator, a quality manager)

What problem does this solve? (e.g., \\reduces manual data entry by 30 seconds per cycle\\)

How does this integrate with the wider MES? (e.g., \\this Mendix app writes data directly to this table in Opcenter\\)

Hands-on Development & Integration: The intern will be given dedicated projects involving editing and creating UIs in Mendix and integrating new tools/functions into the core Opcenter MES. This work is done in a development environment, allowing for experimentation and learning through trial and error, followed by a formal validation and testing process.

Learning Outcome:

By the end of the academic internship, the student will be able to:

1) Develop & Deploy MES Applications: Independently design, build, and deploy a functional, operator-facing user interface or a small application using Siemens Mendix to extend the core functionality of the Opcenter MES.

2) Analyze & Visualize Production Data: Create and publish a production dashboard using Siemens Opcenter Intelligence (or SQL) to track key performance indicators (KPIs) like OEE and cycle time, and present actionable insights from this data to the engineering team.

3) Troubleshoot & Support Core Systems: Diagnose and resolve real-time production issues by tracing data flow and system logic from the operator-facing UI back through the Opcenter Discrete application layer to identify the root cause of an error or data gap.

4) Translate Operational Needs into Technical Specifications: Collaborate with production or quality teams to understand a process challenge and author a technical specification document for a new workflow configuration in Opcenter or a new feature in a Mendix application.