This summer, the University of Houston's student chapter of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) was awarded Gold Status by SME national leadership – a considerable accomplishment.
This award recognizes outstanding achievement in three out of four prescribed categories: professional development, communications, advancement of manufacturing and merit. In addition to a certificate of recognition, the chapter has received funding to continue supporting their efforts in the aforementioned areas.
SME is a professional student organization housed in the Technology Division of the Cullen College of Engineering. They aim to help individuals with an interest in manufacturing engineering to develop peer and industry connections, and to work towards manufacturing, quality and design careers.
The interdisciplinary group meets weekly, and activities often include talks from industry professionals and SME board members; workshops with industry partners such as Autodesk and Laser Welding Solutions; tours of local plants and manufacturing campuses including Master Flo Valve and Daikin Comfort Technologies; and attendance at large scale conventions like the Houstex trade show.
"You're able to learn so much from these industry professionals. Their insights into the businesses they've built their careers in can help illuminate the path to the type of career you might want, especially in the technology or engineering industry,” said outgoing chapter president Francis Simpson. “On many of these tours, we're able to see things that can relate to and pique the interests of our students as well. There's something for everyone to follow, even if it's a process like automation and not exactly manufacturing itself.”
Like many student organizations, SME struggled in the wake of COVID-19 closures. Once UH students returned to in-person classes and activities, the organization needed to be rebuilt from the ground up. This provided a unique opportunity to ground the chapter's goals and values not just in participation, but long-term community relationships and student success.
Now SME is participating in campus-wide engagements such as The Cat's Back and Cougar Carnival, which allows them to grow their connections and membership as they support their UH community and fellow students.
"I was one of the four students – along with Tallal Bhutta, Genaro Guel and Brandon Ong – who attended the first meeting with the sponsoring Houston SMU Chapter 029, and in turn we were given the first board member positions,” Simpson said. “It was up to us to recruit new members and officer positions. Tallal and I recruited Francis about two weeks later. In the beginning, before we started participating in events like Cougar Carnival, we were just recruiting among our peers. Afterwards, we were able to reach out and recruit some freshman, sophomores and students from other majors as well.”
The award is reassessed on a yearly basis, and Simpson and current president Areeb Gwadri intend to continue elevating and investing in the UH chapter until they reach Platinum Status. Platinum is the only award ranked higher than Gold and is earned by demonstrating outstanding achievement in all four assessment categories.
"We have an amazing board this year. Francis and his board left a strong foothold for us to grab on to and hopefully launch ourselves even further,” Gwadri said. “We started our planning early, so we already have a lot of great events lined up. If we can have a strong start to the year with recruitment and get good interaction from the student body, then we expect that to lead to a successful year.”
The chapter encourages any students who might be interested in manufacturing engineering, regardless of their major or program, to get involved and learn more about the organization and its activities.
"When people think of manufacturing, they don't always understand that there's much more that goes on behind the scenes. Many students don't realize how much other fields are involved in manufacturing. We have computer scientists and chemical engineers and systems engineers,” Gwardi said. “There are people that deal with the business aspects – sales, marketing, executives. You need people to do your creative arts and your media creation, like flyers and posters. There's so much more involved in manufacturing than just the manufacturing process, and we want to bring that to light.”
Weihang Zhu, professor of Mechanical Engineering Technology and the organization's faculty supervisor, is also hopeful that the Technology Division's recent joining of the Cullen College of Engineering will provide an excellent opportunity for new students to get involved with the organization.
"We want to recruit more student members now that we've merged with the College of Engineering,” Zhu said. “We're hoping to no longer limit ourselves to the Technology Division, which is currently where all of our members are from, because we'd really like to have more students from, say, mechanical engineering or industrial engineering join our chapter of SME. We have lots of activities and support for future professionals. It's great for them to get to see what's really needed in today's manufacturing engineering industry.”