Ryan Kim

Job Description

Just like a giant How It’s Made episode, I work at a Toyota factory where we make over half a million SUVs a year! The car literally starts from scratch and we have mini factories inside that make the body, paint the body, make plastic parts, and assemble everything together.

I manage one of many teams in Quality Control Engineering and we are all responsible to ensure all parts and the full vehicle give our customers the best safety and most satisfying driving experience. We always have ongoing complex investigations and use a lot of problem solving methods and our engineering intuition to help both internal groups and external suppliers that make parts for us. We also work very closely with Japan and so we get to learn a lot about Japanese culture and teach them about our Canadian culture.

Another QC team I used to work in is trying to develop systems that help automatically inspect cars to improve inspection consistency in order to make perfect cars each day. We work with artificial intelligence, design and use 3D printers, and we hope to soon start using augmented reality in our every day jobs!

Relevant School Subjects

• Arts
• Mathematics
• Science
• Technological Education

Areas of Expertise

• Engineering
• Manufacturing/Production

Career Story

I started biochem at UW thinking that I wanted to go into pharma and then changed to mechanical engineering after I learned more about what engineering was in my first year. It was too much memorizing in biochem and I enjoyed the applied problem solving in engineering. I worked at some automotive suppliers during my coop terms but mostly at Toyota. Then I got hired full time after school and have been here ever since. Most of my years started off developing new prototype vehicles with designers in Japan and then I’ve recently transitioned into a more internal innovation role.