“I’d been in the automotive industry and never worked in aerospace before, so this was a big change and really appealing. You have to keep moving,” Castillo says.
“Basically, every engineering change has to come to my group before it’s released. We make sure the specs are correct before anything is released to production and I give the final approval for build,” Castillo says.
The company’s worldwide reach often means that Castillo has a short lead time for her projects. “The manufacturing group naturally wants to move as fast as possible. But our products are custom-made and involve a lot of engineering, and we have to make sure the data fits and is reviewed,” she says.
She received her BS in industrial and systems engineering from Florida International University in 1997. While in school she became a mom; today her boy and girl are eleven and ten years old. “It was hard, but I had a lot of help from my mother and husband. I couldn’t have made it without them!” Castillo says.
Starting out
In her senior year she worked part time as a clerical contractor at Baptist Health Systems (Miami, FL). “I was two courses away from my degree, so I offered to do some process mapping on my own time. They liked what I did and I wound up working fulltime at mapping and process improvement.”
That was her entrée into a job as a business analyst and engineer that continued on after graduation.
A passion for manufacturing
In 1998 she took a job as project engineer at Security Plastics Inc (Miami Lakes, FL). The company satisfied her “passion for manufacturing,” making injection-molded thermoplastic parts for automobiles.
Castillo began by doing time studies. Then she got into streamlining operations for a leaner manufacturing environment.
In 2000 she became facility engineer supervisor, in charge of maintenance for the manufacturing facility. “I got involved with a project to replace cooling towers,” she recalls. “It wasn’t really my area, but it was a good opportunity to learn something new, and of course I had the background from school.”
She went on to production planning and control management: scheduling, production and setup of tooling. “We worked with the estimating team to figure labor and materials costs, with the plant manager to schedule the jobs, with engineering for prototyping and with the sales group for changes to the orders.”
Preparing for change
That job helped prepare her for what she’s doing now at B/E Aerospace. “It was a smaller company and I got to work in many areas,” she says.
Her membership in the Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE, www.iienet.org) provided a wide networking opportunity. At one meeting she ran into an engineer from B/E Aerospace who suggested that she consider joining the company.
“I was comfortable at Security Plastics and my manager was great, but when I thought about it for a while I decided to make the change. I’m glad I did. With a big corporation there are more opportunities,” Castillo says. She accepted her current job in 2005.
After hours
Castillo has been working on an MS in engineering management at Florida International University, a course or two at a time. “I was taking a lot of courses in the beginning, but I felt I was not spending enough time with my family so I decided to step back and take it more slowly,” she says.
She and her husband are volunteers with Impact, a Catholic marriage enrichment program. They help take care of children, to free other couples to attend the seminars. “I have to get someone to take care of my kids while I do that,” Castillo says with a laugh.
Happy in IE
She is happy with her IE career, which combines her dual interests in technical and business fields. And she feels that IE has led her to good opportunities in management.
“In the end, the goal of every company is to save money and improve efficiency. So if you’re looking for a management position, IE is the way to go, and a masters in business or engineering management should make it even better,” she says.
D/C
