Alexis Hu faced a pivotal choice: she could work for a large firm in a big city or she could choose to remain in South Bend at a smaller business. Alexis opted for the latter, fueled by her desire to learn as fast as possible. For her, it was essential to have responsibility and exposure across the company from the beginning.
“I didn’t want to be a screw in a big machine” she explained, underscoring her preference for a more hands-on, impactful role. At a smaller business, she found her contributions were meaningful from the start and she had a greater opportunity to grow even if it meant taking on greater risk.
While in South Bend, she had met several Fellows at enFocus and decided to apply for the Fellowship. Despite her lack of engineering experience, she leveraged her data analytics skills and entrepreneurial mindset to secure the position.
While working as an enFocus Fellow, Alexis’s most interesting project so far has centered around helping a company find solutions to inventory loss due to scrap material. Alexis helped the team collect better data and then used it to create two dashboards. The first showed the impact and root cause of excess material, equipping the management team with critical insights for informed decision-making, and the second promoted a culture of responsibility and continuous improvement among operators by vividly showcasing the specifics of waste generation on the shop floor.
The greatest challenge she has had to overcome during her projects is helping companies to actually implement these data-driven solutions and tools – there is a big difference between formulating a recommendation and ensuring that suggestions make sense on the shop floor. By supporting the change management process, Alexis ensures the company adapts to the change and achieves transformation, securing long-term growth and resilience.
In the future, Alexis aspires to found her own startup. Although she doesn’t yet have a product in mind, her eagerness to solve problems for small and midsize manufacturers drives her towards this goal. She explained that during her time as an enFocus Fellow, her conversations with mentors and managers have encouraged her to shift focus away from starting with a product idea and instead focusing on surfacing a common need. With each project as a Fellow, she sees more and more how solving these business problems is the optimal way to drive value. Through her project experiences she has discovered a passion for helping companies to leverage their data and technology to achieve better data visibility and make business decisions. Who knows, maybe 10 years from now Alexis will be leading a game-changing technology company helping regional companies to unlock their potential, leveraging the insights she gained from her time with Industry Labs!