About the Company

Jindal Stainless Ltd, a part of the O.P Jindal group is India’s largest stainless steel company. They have stainless steel plants located at Hisar in Haryana, Jajpur in Odissa, Vishakapatnam in Andhra Pradesh, and also in Indonesia. The Hisar plant where I interned, is spread over a few hundred acres and has a turnover of Rs. 140 billion and produces hot rolled and cold rolled coils and sheets, coin blanks, razor and precision strips etc.

Making it there

JSL came for recruiting interns early in October with openings for Metallurgy, Mechanical, P&I and Electrical. The recruitment process included resume shortlisting, group discussions and personal interviews. There wasn’t any CGPA bar for shortlisting. For Mechanical and Industrial Engg students, the personal interviews were more of a ‘walk me through your resume’ type with questions about your previous works, projects and internships along with usual HR questions and a few technical ones. On the other hand, for the Metallurgy students they went more on the technical side with questions about process metallurgy, steel making etc. The interviewers also tested your management skills by citing examples of different day to day problems you might face in the plant and asking you to solve them.

Work and Culture

Together we were 19 interns at the Hisar plant from IIT Roorkee, IIT Kanpur and a few NITs. Some were placed at their corporate office in Gurgaon. The internship began with a 3 day orientation session through which we were acquainted with the manufacturing processes and facilities here. For mechanical and P&I students, the projects were related to increasing productivity of mills, improving efficiency of processes, logistics planning, procurement planning, waste heat treatment etc. For those with metallurgy background, the projects dealt with improving the quality of stainless steel, enhancing efficiency of steel-making processes etc. Monthly review meetings were held with the plant head and other members of the senior management.

I worked on two projects here. The first one was in the finishing section of the Hot Rolling Division where I was given the task of enhancing the productivity of the line. We used time motion study, delay analysis etc. to find the bottlenecks in production. The second one was with the Production Planning & Control Dept. where I worked on optimizing the logistics planning of the company. The aim of the project was to reduce dead freight on trucks using algorithms for truck utilization.

Personnel safety is given utmost importance inside the plant and you would be allowed to enter production facilities only with protective helmets and shoes. The safety culture soon becomes a habit of your life too. Work hours are from 9:30 am to 6 pm and 6 days a week. Interns are treated like regular employees and therefore, attendance and work timings are strictly followed. The good part, we were given club membership with indoor courts, gym and swimming pool and increased stipends owing to higher profits of the company. Interns are accommodated at Engineer’s hostel which is located close to the plant and are provided AC single rooms.

The city doesn’t have much to boast about except the legacy of colossal industries and manufacturing plants. Nevertheless, it’s got almost all celebrated food chains and a few local attractions too. Delhi, Shimla, Mcleodganj etc. are also possible weekend getaways.

Summing Up

It was the second time that JSL came for internships in IITR. They are in the process of restructuring their internship programme and recruiting more people from Tier 1 colleges in India. So, in the years to come, you can expect more from the company. The internship familiarizes you with the day to day operations of the company and provides insights into the working of the core sector. For students interested to join or experience the core sector, JSL provides an enriching experience. The company also selects interns for Pre Placement Offers. The students from the previous batch have already joined the company as Graduate Engineer Trainees.