industrial electrician

industrial mechanic

machine operator

operator

truck driver

Gerdau

• Leadership
o Currently direct two Planners and one Reliability Technician
o Worked as a shift manager for operations for one year to obtain frontline supervisory experience and to also develop improvement projects pertaining to methods to produce specialty products.
• RCM
o Key stakeholder in developing standard process flow for Routine Equipment Care program, where the operators clean and perform basic inspections on equipments using their five senses.
o Audited daily round inspections and reduced the amount by 80% and converted them to less frequent PM’s.
o Developed routine routes for:
 Vibration measurements on major rotating equipment such as the Combustion Air Fan Bearings, Main Mill Motor Bearings, Gearbox Bearings, and Exhaust Air Fan Bearings.
 Thermography on pumps, motors, and hydraulic systems. This particular mill uses the most hydraulic systems in North America and therefore is critical to capture potential failures.
 Checking gas and air leaks using ultrasonic technologies.
 Using ultrasound meter to pump grease into bearings in some areas of the plant
 Taking oil samples via bottles and inline particle count from major gearboxes, motor bearing oil, and hydraulic systems. Received certification from ICML as MLAII to perform oil analysis and develop Work Orders to counter any anomalies.
o Key stakeholder in developing and initiating standard swim lane process flow for Work Orders and responsible for ensuring that the Maintenance Facilitators, Production Facilitators and Planners do not deviate from that standard.
o Developed and improved quality of PM’s during the CMMS transition from D7i (EAM) to SAP
 Directed and ensured Rolling Mill Planners input all PM’s based on standardized format.
 Provided technical support for PM’s, such as providing information on volume of grease for each bearing, establishing frequencies for oil changes, setting the correct torque on fasteners, checking the clearances of wear liners and filter change frequencies with correct Beta Ratio filter element.
• Failure Analysis
o Led Failure Analysis meetings with Operations and Maintenance on getting to the root cause of failures that caused maintenance delays over 60 minutes.
o Ensured that Maintenance Facilitators followed the Failure Analysis standards and the information was into PRG (Portal of Routine, pre-formatted database) within 24 hours of the failure.
 Failure Description
 Observation (What and Who)
 Cause Analysis (Asking up to five why’s and developing fish bone diagram which should include variables such as equipment, measurement, personnel, and environment.
 Action Plan (Who and When)
 Evaluation (FA automatically gets sent to Reliability or a Maintenance Sponsor to check if the action plan was actually completed as described.)
 Led Maintenance FA Check meetings to provide support if any of the action plans were behind.

A Typical Work Day
Stepping through the threshold of the front door I make my way to the time clock. After clocking in I step out back where I smoke a cigarette, and prepare for the day ahead. When the other employee's show up for work I cut up, and have a couple laughs with them talking about what they did the day before, or after work. While insuring that they are not in need for anything. We try to take care of one another, even though sometimes the job gets stressful. 

What I Learned
At Gerdau I have learned to appreciate others, and their hard work, we can not operate as a unite when someone is injured, angry, or just fed up with the job. I have had to step in for others to make sure they don't get fatigued with the jobs we have to produce. Taking care of one another is the most important part of a job. Many hands make a heavy work load light. I have learned the ability to communicate with others under pressure, and make the environment lighter, rather then add to the hostility.

Management
Management caters to the needs of the employee's making sure we have all the equipment necessary to fully function. The management encourages us to produce as much in the time that we have. They work hard to run a productive business, and it starts with us. 

Co-Workers
Along with taking care of one another co-workers have to produce material just as I. Sometimes the environment gets stressful do to the production needed to complete a job but they work hard to ensure the safety of one another. We have a bond that is hard to find in other places. 

Hardest Part of the Job
The hardest part of the job is when mistakes are made such as loading material on the wrong trailer, or misplacing steel and trying to meticulously search for a small bundle in a huge stack of steel. 
When trailers are loaded wrong it is very time consuming, so now we have to produce the product along with trying to reload a trailer. 
Searching though stacks of steel is very difficult in a time sensitive situation. When your being told to get the job done, but the last part of the job is on the bottom of a large stack of rebar. 

Most Enjoyable Part of the Job
When driving past a bridge, or even on, you get the sense of accomplishment knowing that you contributed to the making of a strong, sturdy bridge that brings commuters the sense of safety. 

This is why the job is so important! Peoples lives are in our hands when producing and distributing rebar. Having strict guidelines to follow allows the public to feel safe the next time a bridge is built, and crossed.

Gerdau Ameristeel Joliet ILL, 60435
QA Floor Supervisor Tech. 12/16/2004 to 01/12/2009
* Inventory Count on Steel Billets and Warehouse
& Finished Goods Counts with RF Scanners.
* In House Calls from Higher Management
for Input/Corrections of Customer Orders.
* Trained workers in work procedures.
* Recommended measures to improve production
methods,
* equipment performance and quality of product
procedures.
* Interpreted company policies to workers and
enforced safety regulations.
* Established and adjusted work procedures to meet
production schedules, using knowledge of
capacities of machines and equipment.
* Recommended measures to improve production
methods, equipment performance and quality of
product that comes In & Out. Interpreted company
policies to workers and enforced safety
regulations.
* Check Chemistry Of Steel to meet Qualifications
for customer orders.
* Grind Steel Billets to check different kinds of
graded steel 1018-1045-1065-1080FG, And Aircraft
Quality...etc
* Computer Skills Experience: Microsoft Word,
Outlook, Excel... etc
* Check for Any Defects on the HOT Bed Walkway of
finished Steel/Goods.
* Magnaflux Machine Sample Testing for Defects on
Finished Samples..
* Tensile Machine Testing For Strength &
Measurements Of Finished Goods..
* Computer Data Entry & Customer Paper Order
Changes, Tag Reprints Etc..
* Inspections On Customer Returned Bundles in Warehouse
For Visual Defects on Orders with Union Crew
Members..
* Steel Sample Size Checking with Digital Gages &
Micrometers for Tolerance Requirements of Customer
Orders.

What is the best part of working at the company?
Honestly,  I like my schedule, I work nights, 3 on 3 off. That's it though. This company is the worst company I've ever worked for. They encourage and in fact nurture a culture of  intolerance, where if ur not from the area or are different then everyone else u get alienated, singled out and torn down. I've never worked w such rude and petty people before and would never recommend this job to anyone. The management is very hands off and rely on word of mouth of people who are lazy and self serving. I could go on but there isn't enough space I'm sure to adequately describe this place. Do not work here. 

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
The people. I've never worked with a more petty and self serving group of men in my life. It seems that the people w seniority are some of the laziest people I've ever worked w yet but say and do exactly what they need to to keep management happy. The managers are a joke. Again. Do not work here.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Garbage. These people ate all self serving and don't care about helping others out. Especially if ur not from the area and don't act and think exactly like they do. It will not matter how hard you work Especially if ur an outsider. I'm still floored at how people can even treat people the way they do and not see anything wrong w it.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
12 hours, work very hard but get next to zero appreciation not to mention have to deal w co workers who will go out of their way to make sure ur aware that ur not respected.

The thing no one talks about is that this place has everything you need to not struggle in life. If you have no skills, in need of a steady job, or just plain out don’t want to be broke come here. The melt shop is super hot, any where else isn’t bad. That being said melt shop makes the most money. The truth is that this is a dangerous, extremely hot, tiring, “not for everyone” kind of job. You can move up somewhat fast. Most jobs start around $20/hr but 1st operator jobs get paid $29-$32/hr. I’ve seen people come in and within 6 months they are making $26/hr. Just depends on the situation on being short handed and how well of a worker you are. The management is terrible and they really don’t care what we have to go through to get their profits high. Almost all routine facilitators are terrible as well. They mainly care about their bonuses so they always keep us running 24/7. Coworkers are pretty cool and generally want to help get stuff done. Safety is a joke here because they just want stuff done so it gets overlooked until someone makes a big deal about it. If you love being home this is not the place to be. Overtime is pretty much required because we are always short handed. In conclusion, if you want to make a lot of money pretty fast and aren’t attached to your family and are a good worker in a fast paced environment you’ll do just fine. I’ve seen 18 year olds come through here with $80k lifted trucks for all the guys coming straight out of high school. If you don’t like heat, loud noises, people yelling all day, and bad management don’t come here :)

My job as Supervisor was to monitor temps as they worked on heats. I checked over their grinds making sure no defects were left in the bars. When they was done with a heat I would first double check their work, make sure everything was correct and in order, then I would load the heat onto a trailer and call shipping to come pull the trailer out and bring an empty for the next heat. I gave a safety meeting at the beginning of every shift, made sure everyone was there who had to be and if they weren’t make not and log into computer. I assigned them to tables and made sure they had the tools and equipment they needed to complete the tasks for the work day and if they was broken or damaged I would get them new ones and had them sign their name to it so if it got broke again I would know who did it and why. I would also have to order parts in for them to use if we didn’t have any in the store room. If a temp got fired or walked off the job, I would have to conduct interviews and decide if they had the qualifications to do the job right and in a safe manner. If they did I hired them and gave them a chance to prove themselves for the job. At the end of each week I would have to get their times cards and make sure they was filled out and had the correct information on them and turn them in so they would get paid. When it was time for Gerdau to hire some people on full time I would give them names of the temps I thought proved themselves and deserved the chance as a full time employee and that had the right attributes for the job.

I enjoy working at this Company just from the fact that everyone is friendly, except for maybe one or two co-workers. I enjoy the people I work with and they are very flexible as far as home life, errands, Dr's appointments and every day life. They offer nice benefits and paid time off privileges. I enjoy the Holidays we get off and how they let us go home early the day before holidays or even weekends.

I have learned a lot about the rebar/construction industry and I hope I can use the skills and education I received here and apply it towards my career and future. They really take the time to teach you anything you would like to know about how things work around here.

I basically assist everybody in the office with anything they need, especially the Operations Manager. Lots of clerical work and data entry, including answer phones and assisting with Payroll. 

One of the reasons I am leaving this company is because they basically have no advancement opportunities. I really want to move up within a company and get regular raises/bonuses. I feel like no matter what I do here I will be stuck in the same position for the rest of my life, which is not what I want. Besides that this place is a nice place to work.

Everyday is a fun and exciting day. Recently, we just concluded a 2.25 million dollar expansion at my facility that brought several challenges each and everyday. These range from ensuring that the contractors we used met our safety requirements as well as stayed safe while on our facility to recruiting and hiring in another 20 employees to work in various departments that report to me. Once the above was completed, then we were challenged with training our new hires to our culture, our safety programs and finally our production processes and practices. This is one of the most rewarding parts of my job in looking where we started this facility in 2009 and where we have now been able to bring it. We are still faced with many challenges ahead of us but have laid down some great groundwork. The most important job that one can do as a manager is to make sure that everyone of his employee's goes home at night in the same shape if not better than when that employee started off that day. I can proudly say that we have not had a LTA since we opened these doors and have gone over 3 years no pushing on 4 without an OSHA recordable. 

All this and we still lead our Region in 80% of our KPI's as well as put ourselves up there with the best in the company.

Oversight of the production operation and personnel.
Analysis and correction of mechanical and quality control issues to maintain product integrity and maximize machine output.
Finalizing daily production data for submission and review.
During my tenure I enhanced my industrial knowledge through active involvement. Increased my communication and listening skill set.
The responsibility associated with this position refined my leadership qualifications and inherent ability to engage individuals to promote their desire to deliver a higher quality result and participation level.
The most difficult aspect of this position was maintaining the numerous communication channels while responding to operational problems. Ascertaining the appropriate cause for the failure, deciding on a corrective action and aligning the operation with the situation to ensure faster restarts for the production process.
The most intriguing aspect of this position was the unanticipated challenges and the use of creativity to expedite resolution in a safe and efficient manner.

What is the best part of working at the company?
Sunday premium pay is the main reason working here is acceptable.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Wage freeze in place but only affects new hires, laziness and bitterness infest this place. Unwelcoming and poorly maintained if not hazardous to your health and longevity. Everything feels extremely outdated like you’ve traveled to the 1970’s. This applies to the chauvinistic atmosphere as well.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?

Environment: It’s either a death furnace, an infested spidernest, or an ice box. Ive been in hunting blinds with better element protection for employees. Inside always has a mysterious haze in the air or bird droppings falling from the ceiling.
Culture: Hostile and suspicious, bitterness, no discipline, favoritism. Unbalanced expectations placed on newer employees. They have incentivized backstabbing, one of my pet peeves. Nothing to motivate you, and seemingly no concern for retention.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Dress at home according to weather. Read worklist, plan with partner, adjust as things breakdown or circumstances change suddenly. Which happens a lot.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Industrial electrician 14 salaries reported	$37.34 per hour
Industrial mechanic 3 salaries reported	$103,200 per year
Machine operator 17 salaries reported	$22.83 per hour
Operator 8 salaries reported	$30.34 per hour
Truck driver 4 salaries reported	$28.17 per hour

Working at Gerdau: Company Overview and Reviews

Gerdau

Gerdau Ratings

Popular jobs at Gerdau

Salary Satisfaction

Job Seeker Tools

Employer Tools

Browse

Stay Connected