Co-op student recognized for FMF project

University of Victoria Student Emily McKee has won recognition by the Association of Professional Engineers and Geologists of British Columbia for a cost-saving initiative she developed for office printers and photo copiers while doing a co-op work placement at Fleet Maintenance Facility. Photo by Peter Mallett, Lookout

Peter Mallett, Staff Writer ~

A co-op work placement at Fleet Maintenance Facility (FMF) Cape Breton is giving University of Victoria engineering student Emily McKee a new outlook on her career path after she graduates.

McKee, 21, is entering the final semester of her three-semester work placement with FMF’s Information Technology and Information Management departments.

Her work has focused on a project to generate recommendations on how to reduce waste, duplication, and costs in the over 200 office printers and photocopying machines in the ship repair unit.

That work earned her the Summer of 2016 Engineering Associates Term Report Excellence Award Dec. 2 by the Association of Professional Engineers and Geologists of British Columbia at the Oak Bay Recreation Centre.

“Being nominated for the award was a complete surprise, but when I heard I’d won out of the work of hundreds of engineering students, I was completely floored,” said McKee.

Her project was determined to be the best of all the submissions because it was detailed, thorough and used professional language that would contribute to a smooth process of implementation.

She developed a cost and service contract evaluation of all of FMF’s printers and copiers. She tracked usage and location of the machines, and consumption of materials such as paper, toner cartridges, that can cost close to $800 to equip some of the many larger four-cartridge high-end machines.

She then made a series of 20 recommendations in her report to Information Technology staff on how to improve their existing system of printers and copiers. Half her recommendations have been implemented with more to follow.

Even though McKee is studying for a Bachelor’s Degree in Biomedical Engineering in the electrical stream, which is the application of engineering principles and design concepts to medicine and biology for healthcare purposes, it’s the problem-solving skills she has learned in her placement at FMF that has been highly beneficial.

“It gave me some experience outside the classroom in real-world engineering,” said McKee. “The process enabled me to speak with employees of FMF who rely on these machines on a daily basis, so I could then understand what changes would work best and how they would impact operations.”

McKee grew up in Parksville, B.C., and excelled at math and sciences in high school. As a teen she had thought about a career in medicine after volunteering at her local hospital, but she said that interest gradually morphed into a desire to study biomedical engineering.

Her placement at FMF has made her realize the skill set she is learning may provide her with career opportunities she hadn’t previously imagined.

“It’s given me a different perspective of what options are out there going forward,” said McKee. “I’m grateful for the opportunity to work in FMF and the experience I gained has been invaluable for my education. I’m more confident and excited about my career as an engineer now.”