It has been a summer I will never forget in Guymon for my internship with Seaboard Foods. As I reflect back on my experience, I would like to extend a huge thank you to Seaboard for allowing me to intern with them and learn about the commercial pork industry. I sincerely appreciate all of the help I have received with my research project and would like to thank everyone who helped me out!
As an update to my research project for the summer, I successfully completed the project and presented to senior management on July 28th. I worked like crazy to compile my results into a slideshow that was easy to understand, but still emphasized the problems within the packaging system. I presented to the plant and operation managers, as well as a separate presentation for the cut floor general supervisors and packaging supervisors. It was successful and my recommendations were well received by management. It turns out that the number one cause across the lines and shifts were seal- operator issues with bone punctures coming in second.
After I completed the summer internship, I was asked to also complete the week-long internship that Seaboard has during the first week in August and also in January. This internship was different, as I saw the complete spread of Seaboard’s operations. We began on Monday with an overview of the farms, where we started at the sow farms (for biosecurity reasons), then followed up with the nursery and finisher farms. Soon after, we toured the biodiesel facilities, feed mill, and the plant, as well as met with various departments, like Human Resources. This helped to enhance my Seaboard experience, as I already knew about the plant operations, but it showed me the almost completely vertically integrated company. It’s amazing how far technology has brought the swine industry in just a few years. We are producing more food than we have ever done and it is all due to enhanced production practices and technology.