For Krystal Brown, a member of the Assembly team at Borg Warner Turbo Systems Inc., manufacturing vehicle parts is more than a job.

“I take my job very seriously,” Brown said. “I realize that I am building parts for vehicles that go onto the road. Making parts for a variety of vehicles, I’m always thinking ‘that could be my mom’s car.’ It’s imperative that they are all safe, so I do my very best to ensure correctness and quality in the work that I do.”

Brown began working with BorgWarner in Arden during February of this year after connecting via Spheron, an employment agency in Asheville. She said she has learned how to effectively perform at a wide variety of positions within a short time. “My supervisor recognized that I was observant and able to learn skills rather quickly,” Brown said. “He told me to stick with him and that I could become a very valuable employee to the company.

“I’m admittedly a bit of a workaholic,” Brown said. “I enjoy learning more and more tasks. This allows me to not only to achieve better positions, but also to be more helpful to the company.” 

Brown said that since February, she has learned to successfully fill three to four positions on three to four lines in nine separate departments. “If someone is out sick, I can easily step in and fill a position,” she said. “I can also pick up extra shifts in various departments and earn overtime. It’s mutually beneficial for me as well as the company.”

While much of the work is automated, Brown said that part of her responsibility is to make sure that the automation continues to run smoothly. “The insert machine operates on its own, but I have to make sure to keep it going,” she said. “Sometimes I have to dust off a sensor or refill necessary items. It does require some human assistance for production.”

In her hands-on positions, Brown said that there have been challenges that she has overcome with each new learned skill.

“The hardest part for me to learn was the snap rings,” she said. “Assembling one specific turbo has 22 steps. There is one tiny snap ring that must be slid into a groove very precisely with pliers. It was really frustrating to learn and it literally took me weeks to get it right. Sometimes I would have to walk away and take a deep breath. Once I started catching on, though, it got easier. Now it has turned into one of my favorite steps to complete.”

Each line varies in the number of steps and the amount of parts required to assemble different items. “One assembly line can produce 40 to 84 items per shift,” Brown said. “Others can produce 1,500 to 1,800 items per shift. In the lines that produce more items, machines do a lot of the work, but each part has to be manually stamped. That’s a lot of work.”

Brown said that she is impressed and inspired by her coworkers. “I’m surrounded by some highly intelligent individuals, especially the techs,” she said. “There is a photo taken at each step in the line. When a problem arises, these techs are able to look at these photos and figure out problems so quickly that it amazes me. It’s really mind-blowing.” According to Brown, these photos are one portion of the many safety checks and audits that occur throughout the lines. 

Learning about the mechanical workings of engines has been helpful for Brown personally, too. “I’ve learned a lot about how my own car actually works,” she said. “I’ve learned how the parts come together, and how to mediate problems for myself. I can talk to my coworkers, too, if there is something that I don’t understand, and that helps me know how to better approach a mechanic if I need to. I know that when I get work done on my car, it is the required repair needed and nothing more added. As a single female, this feels pretty empowering.”

Krystal Brown is a member of the Assembly team at BorgWarner in Arden. Learn more about BorgWarner at BorgWarner.com.