Manufacturing and Engineering Blogs
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Gardening and Guinness
Posted by Peter on 22 Nov 05
Not being an expert gardener by any stretch of the imagination, I was relieved with the success of my first environmental community project last week. As the project manager, I organised for the management team from Chirk (the cocoa processing site in North Wales were I am based for my first placement) to spend a day at a nearby junior school undertaking a range of gardening, building and decorating work. Though the day was bitterly cold, the team's hard work resulted in an interior makeover and a transformation of an underused, overgrown garden into a tidy, manageable garden, with which the school was delighted.
When I applied to Cadbury Schweppes last year, the strong tradition of community involvement was an attraction. It was therefore good to experience in practice the encouragement from the business and support from my colleagues on this project.
Part of the week was also spent working on information and ideas for my technical project, which I gathered from my visit to the Cadbury Trebor Bassett factory in Dublin the week before. My project covers process optimisation, and includes development and justification of new equipment installation. The site tour of the Dublin factory was one of the highlights, with the Cadbury Flake production line being a 'must see' in my opinion!
Time Pressures
Posted by Kate on 17 Nov 05
Returning from a 3 day Graduate Induction covering topics such as Leadership Imperatives and Career Development my drive and optimism has increased. However as urgent lab work on characterisation of a new product is required and the deadline for one of my main projects analysing benefits of introducing new equipment is bought forward, my optimism has begun to fade a little!
I'm realising that due to the nature of the role I have in new product development, projects can be very stop/start so work load in this case can run in peaks and troughs. In a situation like this my time management skills are really tested and I will admit on this one it's all a learning process, something they don't teach you at University.
There have been a few low points this week where I probably haven't done as well as I could have done with prioritising which tasks I need to do next and I've sometimes found myself wishing the pressure to complete work would ease. I have to admit though that I tend to get complacent if I'm not under a bit of pressure to get things finished and I much prefer to have too much on than too little.
I'm a mentor!
Posted by Kate on 04 Nov 05
This week saw the launch day for the Engineering Education Scheme at the University of Birmingham. One of the things that attracted me to Cadbury Schweppes was the commitment to community work and I was very pleased to be asked to be a mentor for an Engineering Education Scheme project.
The scheme runs across the UK and involves small groups of sixth form students in solving an engineering related problem over a 6 month project period. Many different companies are involved and each present an original project brief to the students with a real engineering problem. My line manager and other members of the department were a great help in coming up with an interesting project brief involving transport of cocoa beans.
My role will now involve liasing with the school and students on a regular basis to answer any questions and offer advice or guidance where needed. My first challenge however is to obtain a sack of cocoa beans for the experimentation stage of the project!
The start of a new rotation
Posted by Rachel on 27 Oct 05
Cross-Function Placements
Last week I started my cross-function placement. In the two years that I've been with Cadbury Schweppes I've worked in Manufacturing and Project and Process Engineering. For the last seven days I have been working in Procurement Business Services, discovering that non-engineering work can be interesting too!
Moving Placements
This is my fourth placement and I have had the luxury of being based on the same site (Bournville) for this placement and my last placement. The last two times I moved placements, I moved country and so it was much easier this time not having to worry about unpacking, supermarkets and where the canteen was! The smooth transition was not just down to staying in the same flat, but also due to my colleagues in procurement who have made me welcome and answered my frequent and, what must have seemed at the time, strange, queries.
The Role
Of course, the reason why I'm here is to do a job and I'm really lucky that procurement have created a composite role for me so that I can get a good cross-section of procurement experience, rather than just being in one category. I'm picking up some local responsibilities for fruit and nut purchasing from a colleague who is leaving. Local in this context means UK and Ireland and includes Monkhill Confectionery, based in Pontefract and York, where they make own label sweets and popcorn (or did until the fire that destroyed the popcorn factory). I'm excited about this part of the role as it involves dealing with former colleagues in Sheffield, Somerdale and Ireland and will give me the opportunity to visit the Monkhill factories. I'm learning that there's a lot more fruit and nuts bought in Cadbury's than just those going into Cadbury Dairy Milk! Another aspect of this role is to review the scope and strategy of a central repro project carried out a few years ago - this could take me through the entire strategic sourcing process. The final part of my role is to facilitate the introduction of a print management agency to the Bournville site - a real test of my skills in stakeholder management! So I'm going to be very busy over the next few months and that's without all the training courses - I'm attending Financial Analysis in Paris next week.
Before starting this placement I wondered how I would get on in a new field. However, after seven days I'm really enthusiastic about it - at the moment it's everything I expected and more!
Contacts and projects
Posted by Kate on 26 Oct 05
This week began with a Manufacturing team day at a hotel in Stratford. This proved a great opportunity to gain insight into manufacturing and project engineering across Great Britain, Ireland and beyond. Although meeting so many new people in one day seemed quite daunting, I found everyone was very approachable as well as keen to share ideas and experiences. I made some useful contacts for projects I am working on which I will be following up in the coming weeks.
Next day I travelled up to Sheffield to meet with members of the gum manufacturing department and discuss a new project I am working on. This is my first 'project leader' role so it's a real learning curve for me, but getting out there on the factory floor today and talking to the people who work with the equipment everyday has definitely helped my understanding.
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