Torben Etgen
Senior Production Manager

Many students ask what comes next after they have gained their BA: Work or further study? I decided on a trainee programme at MHA ZENTGRAF, a medium-sized enterprise.

What triggered this was a one-year project within the R&D department. That gave me my first experience in feature-based CAM programming. At the same time, I made initial contacts with other production areas and with the company’s manufacturing strategy. Thanks to the clear structures and personal atmosphere, it was not difficult for me as a newcomer to integrate myself within the company quickly and get to know colleagues in all departments.

After the research project came the introduction to work preparation – on the one hand in assembly, on the other in production. Production planning, the planning of production control, scheduling and capacity planning as well as my first managerial responsibility when I represented the head of my department, all these, together with the coordination of processes, were features of my everyday work.

The primary activities in these areas overlap only a little with the concerns of the actual mechanical engineering, but I was able in particular to make good use of the structured ways of thinking and acting learned during my studies. As a medium-sized enterprise, MHA ZENTGRAF offered me varied and responsible tasks and thus wide opportunities for development extending beyond merely the discipline mechanical engineering. The linking of social and strategic competence as well as the ability to make decisions when faced with the realities of the workplace presented a welcome challenge.

After I had expressed a desire for academic further training in 2014, the management proposed I should undertake distance studies for a Master of Business Administration (MBA) in production management. I graduated in 2017. Through this further training measure, MHA ZENTGRAF made it possible for me to combine my studies for this degree, professional experience and financial independence. The path I took definitely also gave me the opportunity to define the limits of my performance. Discipline, but also an efficient approach to learning and working, provided the basic framework for solid performance at that time. I am convinced that, also in the future, I will benefit from this experience both at work and in my private life.

Looking back, I can see that I was right to decide to begin my career with MHA ZENTGRAF. I like the clarity and regional nature that MHA ZENTGRAF offers as a company from the Saarland. MHA ZENTGRAF also enables me, as a young graduate, to take on responsibility at an early stage and to work closely together with employees, department heads and management.