For some people, encountering a problem at work is at best a hassle and at worst a disaster. But Faizan Yoosaf gets a thrill from seeking out problems and fixing them. In fact, he’s made a career out of it at CRRC.
“You solve one problem and the next day there is a new one. You always have to monitor quality,” he said. “Engineers like challenges.”
As a senior mechanical engineer, Yoosaf is responsible for identifying problems on railcars before they grow into larger issues. His primary focus is quality, which he monitors by meeting with manufacturers weekly, setting a high bar with vendors so they can monitor quality internally, and communicating with other teams at CRRC through the whole process.
“I expect my team to interact with all the internal and external teams to ensure quality,” Yoosaf said. “Quality is the responsibility of everyone, not just one department.”
Yoosaf has advanced quickly in CRRC since he started in 2019. He now manages a team of engineers and says a highlight of his job is training new graduates because they often haven’t worked on trains before, so he can mold them to focus on quality and details.
At CRRC, engineers are trained on site and learn about the assembly of the entire car. They check for quality at every step of the process, so quality assurance doesn’t stop after the cars leave the facility.
“I encourage the production team to find issues because they have first eyes on the cars, and then engineers can come in to resolve it,” Yoosaf said. “When the train car is in service, we can solve issues because we have a team in the field.”
Yoosef enjoys working with a team that shares his same goals and appreciates that every day on the job brings new challenges. He says his friends and family are always impressed when they hear cars are being built in Chicago. He especially loves that his son is interested in trains and gets to ride the very trains Yoosef helped build.
“I’m proud of the CTA project because we’re building trains that are going to be running for the next 30-50 years,” Yoosef said. “We are building the next generation of trains.”
