Jessica G. Lyon – 2020 Steel Intern Scholar
This summer I worked for Steel Dynamics Inc., (SDI) at the Structural & Rail Division. I was very fortunate having the opportunity to maintain my internship amid the COVID-19 pandemic. I worked as a metallurgical intern in the melt shop department where I completed a variety of projects.
Early in the internship, all the SDI interns were assigned to read the book The Ideal Team Player. This book explains that in order to build a culture of great teamwork within a company, individuals being hired must be humble, hungry and kind. This book taught me that while it is important to obtain a proper education; being humble, hungry and kind will take you far in life both personally and professionally. Along with this, having an overall positive attitude, asking questions and taking charge on opportunities presented to you will have a large impact on where your career will take you.
During my internship, I completed a variety of projects. The first project that I worked on involved optimizing the scrap recipes charged into the furnace. This was done to increase yield and decrease conversion costs. The second project I worked on consisted of using value-in-use concepts to evaluate the costs associated with furnace inputs such as scrap commodities and charge bucket fluxes. The third project examined the costs associated with recycling mill generated materials back into the furnace. The fourth project I completed consisted of writing a procedure on slag analysis techniques to establish a uniform practice across all crews in the department. The fifth project I completed involved using SQL code to evaluate data that was obtained during production. In addition to these projects, I was also tasked with exploring visual basic for applications (VBA) within Excel to develop future data analysis tools.
While interning with SDI this summer, I gained valuable experience and technical knowledge regarding the costs that go into steel production at the electric arc furnace (EAF). Not only is purchasing scrap an ever-changing cost based on the market and availability, but there are also costs associated with electrode consumption, energy required to heat the furnace, carbon and oxygen injection, and fluxes needed to offset dirt within the scrap. This internship also improved my time management skills by working on more than one project at a time, and my communication skills by working with people of various personalities and backgrounds. Something unique about SDI is that they genuinely care about the improvement of their employees, and the advancements made in their careers.
These skills will help me in my career and within the virtual classroom finishing out my last year of my undergraduate career at The Ohio State University. It is important to be able to adapt and apply time management and communication skills while being humble, hungry and kind. This internship is my second internship within the steel and special metals industry and has further strengthened my desire to continue my career within the steel industry once graduating from college.