Gregg Steiner worked as a Service Parts Planning Co-op at Carestream, where he was responsible for supporting medical equipment by purchasing parts, planning inventory, and working with other teams. He ran various projects to improve processes, including using a Pareto chart to identify parts driving up inventory costs and creating strategies to extend support for legacy products. Through these projects and experiences, he learned how to apply quality tools, communicate effectively with different personalities, and take on leadership roles to drive change.
Orienting Your Employees to Brand AdvocacySocioAdvocacy
In this white paper, you’ll learn the importance of a well-structured onboarding process and how you can build your very own onboarding process for employee advocacy.
Are you a project manager with a discussion on your agenda? Be ready to response a mixture of behavioural and position-based interview questions meant at revealing your management, message, and administrative skills.
The complete guide to project management for startupsSameerShaik43
Starting a business is building the future. Yes! Because you are trying to create something that is not existing. Unknown to most startups, such is often characterized by many different tasks. These tasks include building new products, marketing, dealing with both old and new clients, administrative duties, etc.
https://www.tycoonstory.com/resource/the-complete-guide-to-project-management-for-startups/
Whether you know all about quick start guides or are new to the concept, this guide will help you to develop the knowledge.
From 'What is a quick start guide?' to 'The Make it Clear quick start guide process' and our top 10 tips - this 'How to' will tell you everything you need to know.
If you're looking for more information about quick start guides at Make it Clear, visit our landing page here: https://www.quickstart.makeitclear.co.uk/
For an example of our work, see here: https://makeitclear.co.uk/casestudy/virgin-media-user-guides/
We'd love to hear what you think of our guide, so do leave a comment if you have any feedback or questions!
Orienting Your Employees to Brand AdvocacySocioAdvocacy
In this white paper, you’ll learn the importance of a well-structured onboarding process and how you can build your very own onboarding process for employee advocacy.
Are you a project manager with a discussion on your agenda? Be ready to response a mixture of behavioural and position-based interview questions meant at revealing your management, message, and administrative skills.
The complete guide to project management for startupsSameerShaik43
Starting a business is building the future. Yes! Because you are trying to create something that is not existing. Unknown to most startups, such is often characterized by many different tasks. These tasks include building new products, marketing, dealing with both old and new clients, administrative duties, etc.
https://www.tycoonstory.com/resource/the-complete-guide-to-project-management-for-startups/
Whether you know all about quick start guides or are new to the concept, this guide will help you to develop the knowledge.
From 'What is a quick start guide?' to 'The Make it Clear quick start guide process' and our top 10 tips - this 'How to' will tell you everything you need to know.
If you're looking for more information about quick start guides at Make it Clear, visit our landing page here: https://www.quickstart.makeitclear.co.uk/
For an example of our work, see here: https://makeitclear.co.uk/casestudy/virgin-media-user-guides/
We'd love to hear what you think of our guide, so do leave a comment if you have any feedback or questions!
PROJ430 Advanced Program Management Entire Class
Add to Wallet from here:
http://hwminute.com/downloads/proj430-advanced-program-management-entire-class/
2013 OVCN INNOVATION & ACTION! Conference
'If Demonstrating Impact Seems Boring, You're Doing it Wrong' facilitated by Andrew Taylor of Taylor Newberry Consulting Inc.
http://taylornewberry.ca/
#OVCNaction
The Productivity Cure: How To Diagnose And Treat Your Team’s Key Productivity...MetaCommunications
In this brief, practical deck, you’ll learn about the three most common ailments sapping your creative or marketing team’s productivity and the managerial medicine you need to treat them. Peak team health is just around the corner with The Productivity Cure!
Effective Communication & Presentation Skills™ is an experiential workshop that teaches participants to fully engage their audience by using professional communication and speaking skills. This program focuses on overcoming barriers to communication and using positive communication techniques along with structure, visual and vocals presentation skills.
WORKSHOP BENEFITS
-Work Easily with Differing Personalities
-Eliminate Unproductive Communication
-Master Positive Communication Skills
-Organize Presentations for Impact
-Overcome Nervousness
-Engage Audiences
-Maximize the 5 P’s of Vocal Power
-Highlight Key Points with Gestures
-Convey Confidence with Your Body
Effective Report Writing™ is a dynamic training session that helps participants communicate better in professional business & report writing. Whether you write memos, reports, emails or promotional literature, your writing says a lot about you.
Focusing on key goals of saving time and improving the quality of business writing, this 2 day program includes instruction in a five step professional writing system which produces quality business documents.
BENEFITS OF ATTENDING:
-Improve your writing confidence
-Understand & engage your global audience
-Learn to get started quickly
-Organize messages effectively
-Save time completing writing projects
-Overcome writing obstacles
-Energize your writing with word choice
-Persuade readers to take action
-Understand the power of visuals
-Get handy reference checklists
Contact kris@360bsi.com to register today.
Effective Communication & Presentation Skills & Report Writing 04-07 April 20...360 BSI
Effective Communication & Presentation Skills™ is an experiential workshop that teaches participants to fully engage their audience by using professional communication and speaking skills. This program focuses on overcoming barriers to communication and using positive communication techniques along with structure, visual and vocals presentation skills.
WORKSHOP BENEFITS
-Work Easily with Differing Personalities
-Eliminate Unproductive Communication
-Master Positive Communication Skills
-Organize Presentations for Impact
-Overcome Nervousness
-Engage Audiences
-Maximize the 5 P’s of Vocal Power
-Highlight Key Points with Gestures
-Convey Confidence with Your Body
Effective Report Writing™ is a dynamic training session that helps participants communicate better in professional business & report writing. Whether you write memos, reports, emails or promotional literature, your writing says a lot about you.
Focusing on key goals of saving time and improving the quality of business writing, this 2 day program includes instruction in a five step professional writing system which produces quality business documents.
BENEFITS OF ATTENDING:
-Improve your writing confidence
-Understand & engage your global audience
-Learn to get started quickly
-Organize messages effectively
-Save time completing writing projects
-Overcome writing obstacles
-Energize your writing with word choice
-Persuade readers to take action
-Understand the power of visuals
-Get handy reference checklists
Contact kris@360bsi.com to register today.
Effective Communication & Presentation Skills™ is an experiential workshop that teaches participants to fully engage their audience by using professional communication and speaking skills. This program focuses on overcoming barriers to communication and using positive communication techniques along with structure, visual and vocals presentation skills.
WORKSHOP BENEFITS
-Work Easily with Differing Personalities
-Eliminate Unproductive Communication
-Master Positive Communication Skills
-Organize Presentations for Impact
-Overcome Nervousness
-Engage Audiences
-Maximize the 5 P’s of Vocal Power
-Highlight Key Points with Gestures
-Convey Confidence with Your Body
Effective Report Writing™ is a dynamic training session that helps participants communicate better in professional business & report writing. Whether you write memos, reports, emails or promotional literature, your writing says a lot about you.
Focusing on key goals of saving time and improving the quality of business writing, this 2 day program includes instruction in a five step professional writing system which produces quality business documents.
BENEFITS OF ATTENDING:
-Improve your writing confidence
-Understand & engage your global audience
-Learn to get started quickly
-Organize messages effectively
-Save time completing writing projects
-Overcome writing obstacles
-Energize your writing with word choice
-Persuade readers to take action
-Understand the power of visuals
-Get handy reference checklists
Contact kris@360bsi.com to register today.
Many information security companies struggle with changing their culture. It can be difficult to get an InfoSec team to focus fully on the issues that are important to the long-term health of the business: customer experience and process improvement. This article (part of a series) looks at some methods to implement cultural change at an InfoSec company in ways that will be sustainable and won’t alienate your team members.
In this file, you can ref useful information about annual performance appraisal report such as annual performance appraisal report methods, annual performance appraisal report tips, annual performance appraisal report forms, annual performance appraisal report phrases … If you need more assistant for annual performance appraisal report, please leave your comment at the end of file.
PROJ430 Advanced Program Management Entire Class
Add to Wallet from here:
http://hwminute.com/downloads/proj430-advanced-program-management-entire-class/
2013 OVCN INNOVATION & ACTION! Conference
'If Demonstrating Impact Seems Boring, You're Doing it Wrong' facilitated by Andrew Taylor of Taylor Newberry Consulting Inc.
http://taylornewberry.ca/
#OVCNaction
The Productivity Cure: How To Diagnose And Treat Your Team’s Key Productivity...MetaCommunications
In this brief, practical deck, you’ll learn about the three most common ailments sapping your creative or marketing team’s productivity and the managerial medicine you need to treat them. Peak team health is just around the corner with The Productivity Cure!
Effective Communication & Presentation Skills™ is an experiential workshop that teaches participants to fully engage their audience by using professional communication and speaking skills. This program focuses on overcoming barriers to communication and using positive communication techniques along with structure, visual and vocals presentation skills.
WORKSHOP BENEFITS
-Work Easily with Differing Personalities
-Eliminate Unproductive Communication
-Master Positive Communication Skills
-Organize Presentations for Impact
-Overcome Nervousness
-Engage Audiences
-Maximize the 5 P’s of Vocal Power
-Highlight Key Points with Gestures
-Convey Confidence with Your Body
Effective Report Writing™ is a dynamic training session that helps participants communicate better in professional business & report writing. Whether you write memos, reports, emails or promotional literature, your writing says a lot about you.
Focusing on key goals of saving time and improving the quality of business writing, this 2 day program includes instruction in a five step professional writing system which produces quality business documents.
BENEFITS OF ATTENDING:
-Improve your writing confidence
-Understand & engage your global audience
-Learn to get started quickly
-Organize messages effectively
-Save time completing writing projects
-Overcome writing obstacles
-Energize your writing with word choice
-Persuade readers to take action
-Understand the power of visuals
-Get handy reference checklists
Contact kris@360bsi.com to register today.
Effective Communication & Presentation Skills & Report Writing 04-07 April 20...360 BSI
Effective Communication & Presentation Skills™ is an experiential workshop that teaches participants to fully engage their audience by using professional communication and speaking skills. This program focuses on overcoming barriers to communication and using positive communication techniques along with structure, visual and vocals presentation skills.
WORKSHOP BENEFITS
-Work Easily with Differing Personalities
-Eliminate Unproductive Communication
-Master Positive Communication Skills
-Organize Presentations for Impact
-Overcome Nervousness
-Engage Audiences
-Maximize the 5 P’s of Vocal Power
-Highlight Key Points with Gestures
-Convey Confidence with Your Body
Effective Report Writing™ is a dynamic training session that helps participants communicate better in professional business & report writing. Whether you write memos, reports, emails or promotional literature, your writing says a lot about you.
Focusing on key goals of saving time and improving the quality of business writing, this 2 day program includes instruction in a five step professional writing system which produces quality business documents.
BENEFITS OF ATTENDING:
-Improve your writing confidence
-Understand & engage your global audience
-Learn to get started quickly
-Organize messages effectively
-Save time completing writing projects
-Overcome writing obstacles
-Energize your writing with word choice
-Persuade readers to take action
-Understand the power of visuals
-Get handy reference checklists
Contact kris@360bsi.com to register today.
Effective Communication & Presentation Skills™ is an experiential workshop that teaches participants to fully engage their audience by using professional communication and speaking skills. This program focuses on overcoming barriers to communication and using positive communication techniques along with structure, visual and vocals presentation skills.
WORKSHOP BENEFITS
-Work Easily with Differing Personalities
-Eliminate Unproductive Communication
-Master Positive Communication Skills
-Organize Presentations for Impact
-Overcome Nervousness
-Engage Audiences
-Maximize the 5 P’s of Vocal Power
-Highlight Key Points with Gestures
-Convey Confidence with Your Body
Effective Report Writing™ is a dynamic training session that helps participants communicate better in professional business & report writing. Whether you write memos, reports, emails or promotional literature, your writing says a lot about you.
Focusing on key goals of saving time and improving the quality of business writing, this 2 day program includes instruction in a five step professional writing system which produces quality business documents.
BENEFITS OF ATTENDING:
-Improve your writing confidence
-Understand & engage your global audience
-Learn to get started quickly
-Organize messages effectively
-Save time completing writing projects
-Overcome writing obstacles
-Energize your writing with word choice
-Persuade readers to take action
-Understand the power of visuals
-Get handy reference checklists
Contact kris@360bsi.com to register today.
Many information security companies struggle with changing their culture. It can be difficult to get an InfoSec team to focus fully on the issues that are important to the long-term health of the business: customer experience and process improvement. This article (part of a series) looks at some methods to implement cultural change at an InfoSec company in ways that will be sustainable and won’t alienate your team members.
In this file, you can ref useful information about annual performance appraisal report such as annual performance appraisal report methods, annual performance appraisal report tips, annual performance appraisal report forms, annual performance appraisal report phrases … If you need more assistant for annual performance appraisal report, please leave your comment at the end of file.
In this file, you can ref useful information about performance appraisal sample such as performance appraisal sample methods, performance appraisal sample tips, performance appraisal sample forms, performance appraisal sample phrases … If you need more assistant for performance appraisal sample, please leave your comment at the end of file.
Business Analyst Behavioral Interview QuestionsHireQuotient
In today's competitive job market, hiring managers and recruiters are increasingly relying on behavioral interview questions to assess candidates for business analyst roles. These questions delve into a candidate's past experiences, behaviors, and problem-solving skills to predict their future performance. In this blog post, we will discuss five key behavioral interview questions commonly asked during business analyst interviews, the reasons behind asking them, and provide sample answers to help candidates prepare effectively.
Read the full article here: https://www.hirequotient.com/blog/business-analyst-behavioral-interview-questions
In this file, you can ref useful information about performance appraisal teamwork such as performance appraisal teamwork methods, performance appraisal teamwork tips, performance appraisal teamwork forms, performance appraisal teamwork phrases … If you need more assistant for performance appraisal teamwork, please leave your comment at the end of file.
Running Head Leadership Skills AnalysisSample.docxjeanettehully
Running Head: Leadership Skills Analysis
Sample Paper
Analyzing my Leadership Skills
In this analysis, I will state a few leadership skills that I consider attributes that I possess and often use while in a leadership roles. I will review times these skills have enabled my personal and team goals to be met and how they helped. I will also bring attention to my sub-par leadership skills that should be cultivated so my full leadership potential could be attained. I will also look at the negative effects of where my lacking of abilities thwarted my team from completing their tasks successfully.
Some of my most prolific leadership skills are my ability communicate with my team what needs to be done and what timeline we are anticipating. I try to be clear and concise when giving directions to a team. I try to break down tasking in to multiple smaller goals so they will be easier to understand and accomplish. I believe that this also will give the team multiple moments of fulfillment during the entire process. My mentors in the past have led me to believe that accomplishing small tasks will benefit them and allow them to experience the feeling of marking something off the list
I also tend to articulate my leadership styles in ways that fit well with my team members. This subject is spoken of in the class reading referring to the Path-Goal Leadership Theory (Path-Goal Leadership Theory, n.d.). If it is a technical subject and I know that some of my team members are not experienced in the subject matter, I relate the current task to other tasks that they have previously completed. The more that your team can relate to the subject matter the more prone they are to completing their assigned tasks.
I believe that corresponding with your team is of utmost importance. I try to use technology to my advantage to make the entire process easier. I prefer to talk face to face but if for some reason, I am not physically available during the day I will initiate a group text message or emails throughout the day. I have even made smaller Facebook groups for my teams to communicate through, send out meeting makers, or even group activities after working hours (Social Media for the New Social Leader, 2019). If for some reason, these avenues of communication are not accessible, I will have morning meetings to put out pertinent information.
I enjoy disseminating and receiving constructive criticism to and from my team. If they can give their thought on how to make a job easier the next time or even during the current evolution, I encourage them to speak up and let me know. If it were to be after the fact, we can get together as a team and discuss lessons learned. I feel that this is an important part, especially in during the debriefing process. Feedback is the only thing that will help you evolve as a leader and a team member.
There are things that I can improve on in order to evolve in to a better leader. It is important for a leader to know ...
Original article from the Flevy business blog can be found here:
http://flevy.com/blog/the-highway-of-change-and-a-practical-framework-approach-to-change/
Since Monday, 9 th January 2015, my free Flevy download Practical Framework Approach to Change has been downloaded over 500 times. The document contains just a “snapshot” of my approach, rather than going into any explicit details about the tools and techniques related to each of the framework components. The level of interest shown has spurred me into writing this article to provide a little more “meat on the bone” about the framework.
Aligned with this approach, you may want to pay due respect to some of the many “holistic” change methodologies from the likes of Prosci, Kotter, etc. I have a document on Flevy called A Snapshot Guide to Better Known Change Management Models/Methodologies .
A Short History
Over the last 25-years or so, I have developed and implemented many bespoke Business Change and Transformation Approaches and Strategies for organisations to enable them to drive through change initiatives/programmes and achieve considerable ROI and business benefit.
These bespoke Approaches/Strategies have used as their basis my Practical Framework Approach to Change. This was first developed in 1996, but has been regularly updated and changed based on new learning, acquired knowledge and research through being involved in many diverse change initiatives in a cross-section of different industry sectors between 1996 to present.
First of all, there are two things that you need to know:
1. The framework is modular which means it can be used in its totality or you can “pick and choose” which modules you want to use dependent on the change initiative.
Virtual teams are more common than ever.
They allow companies to expand their reach and provide employees with opportunities they would not have otherwise had. However, managing virtual teams also comes with unique challenges that require special solutions.
In this article, we will discuss all of the necessary steps and strategies a virtual team manager should undertake to successfully lead his or her remote teams without any confusion or frustration.
Running Head The Tools of Quality1The Tools of Quality5.docxagnesdcarey33086
Running Head: The Tools of Quality 1
The Tools of Quality 5
Title
Names
Institution Affiliation
Class discussion
Need for quality improvement
Me: In this present-day business setting it has prompted many of its owners and shareholders to work on quality improvement. This will be an effective means of ensuring that they capture new customers and retain the existence, to ensure the business is profitable. The venture should mainly focus on the client end. Companies should reorganize their systems in an extensive organizational reengineering process.
Comrade: I also think that the only way to outdo the eminent completion posed in the business environment, all enterprises have to form strategic quality assurance procedures. The company should work on modern mechanisms that will help its personnel identify their progress in meeting the industry and international quality control guidelines.
Process Maps
Comrade: I found the information provided in this section very interesting. It has highlighted the importance of making a plan that will guide the team into making a provisional working mechanism. Depending on the complexity of the process maps, there are various symbols assigned to each part to indicate a decision or path followed.
Me: I think the effectiveness of the process maps can be improved through simplification, where they do not include many details. Too much information may lead to unnecessary confusion, and the decision maker may choose an inappropriate action. I find the basic mapping more appropriate for medium businesses. The example on the application for drilling permits shows an extensive process that guides the involved persons to the best conclusion.
Process Data Collection
Me: I find the information provided on check sheets very convincing on its appropriateness in data gathering. This method has options of tabular, schematic, or computer based, thus provides the decision maker with a variety of approaches to the problem. Users can choose an option that best fits their working mechanisms.
Comrade: I support the use of check sheets in keeping track of sources of any arising errors. The example of a check sheet that was worked in copying company has shown its effectiveness in monitoring how the workers will adhere to company`s new procedures. I can thus advise the use of check sheets in analysis and support its allowance on the various presentation procedures.
Presentation on Scatter Diagram
Me: I have found the scatter diagram presentation approach as being very attractive. It fits various business levels, ranging from moderate to complex business activities. The simplicity provided in the presentation allows all concerned parties to decipher the information easily. I would advocate for this method since the spreadsheet packages within Excel provide charting facilities that allow for its easy construction. This two-dimensional plot is simplistic and carries the required information
Comrade: I would.
Running head: IMPROVEMENT OPPORTUNITY 1
IMPROVEMENT OPPORTUNITY 3
Quality Tool Analysis
The supply chain management sphere has an issue when considering a pharmacy facility organization. The problem with the pharmaceutical supply chain operations has resulted from all individuals lacking access to the most noteworthy quality medication and in addition keep up levels in medical care that occurs in the arrangement of supplying medicine, notwithstanding giving the improvement of new knowledge, aptitudes and systems that invigorate the advancement of medicine supply chain management. The quality tool used to recognize these issues is data collection sheet which gathers the essential information to have the capacity to answer any inquiries that may emerge. The quintessence of the data is that the reason for existing is apparent and that the data mirrors the fact of the matter, is anything but difficult to gather and utilize. A quantitative method was used to gather the data. The data collection sheet is being used in the dispersion of factors of the articles delivered, classification of broken things locating of the defects of the pieces, recognizing reasons for deformities and verification check or support undertakings (Awad, 2012).
To arrive at the problem, a questionnaire was utilized together with the data collection sheet. There was a clear framework on how data was to be gathered and with what sort of document will be made and how the gather data ought to be utilized. How the data will be analyzed was additionally sketched out, and the individual who ought to oversee gathering the data was distinguished. For the optimization of data accumulation, Sharp and McDermott (2009) suggest that the data collection be finished by an experienced auditor and in an arbitrary example of the exercises, of the general population and of the groups of the territories that they ought to be observed. The association recognized an experienced auditor was utilized to gather data and examine it since they have a high likelihood of giving precise data.
Stakeholder Analysis
Commonly, as an expert, one needs to think the what before the who when confronting an undertaking. Along these lines, they underscore the deliverables instead of the general population. The principal procedure of the communication knowledge zone, to be executed in the initiation of the task, is to identify the individuals with an interest.
One method for this procedure is partner examination, which a procedure of systematically collecting and investigating quantitative and qualitative data with the end goal to figure out what premiums specific must be considered all through the venture. It permits to recognize the interests, expectations, and impact of the interested individuals and relates them to the motivation behind the underta.
1. Gregg Steiner
CUSB Professional Experience Part 2
12/9/14
Part 2 – A
As a Service Parts Planning Co-op for Carestream, I had both primary work responsibilities and
project work that was both challenging and engaging. I was responsible for supporting a subset of
analog medical equipment that included purchasing parts from different vendors, planning inventory
using master schedules to maximize availability while minimizing inventory, and working with service
engineers and commodity managers to determine alternatives if there was a part issue. In between my
day to day tasks, I ran weekly and monthly metrics reports and was assigned to numerous projects in
order to help internal improvement within Service Parts.
Part 2 - B: Post –Experience Self-Assessment
Experience Description
Throughout my time at Carestream, I played a role in many projects that helped the Service
Parts business. I was both asked to participate in some projects and found opportunities on my own to
help drive internal improvement. Some of those include a Quality Advocate Project and Product
Discontinuance Projects.
After about 2 months of working at Carestream, my supervisor had me take a Quality Advocate
Training class offers multiple time throughout the year, which covered both Lean and Six Sigma quality
tools. In order to receive the certification, you were required to use one of the tools to drive
improvement in your area. At the time, a major focus was on the increasing inventory level of a
particular profit center because it was nearly half a million dollars over the corporate US&C AOP level. I
decided to use a Pareto Chart to display the parts with the largest increase, in dollars, in inventory over
the span of eight weeks (Appendix A). This project was able to identify the problems and propose a
strategy to reduce the inventory by decreasing, pushing out and cancelling purchase orders of specific
parts to operate at lower days of supply, or a more favorable stocking level.
Another series of projects I was involved in were creating Service Parts discontinuance strategies
for certain legacy products. There were requests to extend service support of certain products beyond
the current discontinuance dates because of the associated revenue stream. To do this, I created a CR
Product Discontinuance file that combined the data from our information systems to analyze which
parts were at risk for availability moving towards the newly proposed discontinuance dates (Appendix
B). Using this file, the service engineer, parts planner and I put together a presentation to present our
2. strategy and mitigation plans to support the products until end of life (Appendix C). Now there will be a
quarterly review of these parts to make sure the strategy is consistent with the current status.
Being involved in these projects helped me to understand the ins and outs of the Service Parts
business and how important it is to a Supply Chain and Logistics Department.
Self-Learning
After six months of working in a corporation, you absorb an ample amount of information in
such a short period of time. Every day I would learn a couple things that I didn’t know the day before
from my coworkers, supervisor or the resources Carestream offers its employees. On the other hand, I
also took it upon myself to learn many things on my own and some concepts I learned simply through
my experiences. I was able to learn how to apply the quality tools I was taught to a real world problem
in order to drive improvement, understand how to effectively communicate and interact with different
types of people when working to accomplish a common goal.
In order to complete my Quality Advocate project, I had to decide which tool to use and how it
could benefit the business. Shortly after going through my training notes and identifying the areas I
should seek to improve, it become apparent to me that I could apply nearly every tool to what I was
doing. However, it also opened my eyes to the fact that some tools will provide better information than
others even though all of them will give you some sort of answer. I was able to teach myself which
quality tool I believed to be most telling in order to analyze the information according to my problem
statement. I used a Pareto Chart because it showed the sum of the dollar amount associated with the
parts that had increased in inventory and my problem statement was quantitative. If I was more
concerned with the qualitative reason as to why inventory was increasing, then I would’ve been smarter
to use a root cause analysis or 5 whys. Learning how to use these tools on my own has given me a
desire to receive my black belt certification in quality because I know how effective and efficient they
can be when trying to diagnose and solve issues.
For the Discontinuance Strategy projects, I worked in a team of three that included a middle-
aged, female service engineer, two on the edge of retirement, male parts planners and me. It was truly
a diverse team with many differences not only in demographics, but also in the way we approached the
task at hand. Maureen, the service engineer, was more hands on and controlling worker while Dave and
Eric, the parts planners, were more laid-back and relied on his prior knowledge and experiences to
deliver a solution. And then there’s me; a young co-op with little experience, but an immense amount
of excel and data analysis skills. I learned that I had to let Maureen control the meetings and trust Dave
and Eric’s recommendations when it came to the parts that he had been planning for last decade. I
could communicate easier with Maureen via email, while it was more effective to speak with Dave and
Eric in person. Being aware of how people act and communicate its key to maximizing productivity in
meetings and utilizing their strengths with yours to achieve the goal. Furthermore, it taught me to come
to meetings prepared and leave everyone with specific action items for the next encounter.
It’s important to maintain your professional skills after graduation because, first and foremost,
you will use these abilities at almost every job you have and they will help you build your career. Having
3. great people skills is crucial to forming trust, enabling teamwork and achieving common goals. As a
manager, you need to be aware of how the people who work for you act and operate. This
consciousness can drive employee satisfaction, thus increasing productivity. More specifically in a
Supply Chain career, having the ability to use the lean and six sigma quality tools can increase your
efficiency at work. Continuing to build your skill set and resume by obtaining certifications such as green
belt and black belt can sky rocket your career. In my opinion, you shouldn’t simply maintain your skills,
but seek to enhance them.
Leadership
There were several instances where I was given the opportunity to lead such as when I was able
to drive change from my Pareto Chart results by setting short term goals in order to incrementally drop
inventory and administrating a bi-weekly trouble parts meeting. Each of these chances helped me build
confidence and learn through experience.
After the results from the Pareto Chart were seen by my supervisor and the rest of the team, my
supervisor asked me to see the project through. I began to dig deeper into detail on a part by part level
by examining forecasts, past demand, and current purchase orders. Once I learned more information, I
was able to recommend strategies for how they should go about decreasing the inventory by year end
and the potential savings associated with them. (Appendix D). This put me in the driver’s seat to enable
change and monitor it over time. I was able to lead the group on how we were going to lower inventory
in order to meet the expected corporate levels. Then, I continued to check the trend of the decreases. I
forecasted where we would be at year end with the current and future reductions and set incremental
goals for the team and each planner. These goals were by product and were monthly goals. Since the
end of the year number was the major emphasis, it was easy to get my coworkers on board with
breaking down the goal into a more incremental method instead of trying to make it all go away at once.
I had to be careful, though, to not make it sound like I was telling people how to do their job. A good
leader is aware of how to drive change without driving a work relationship into the ground.
Another chance I had to lead came when I was put in charge of managing a bi-weekly trouble
parts meeting. The meeting included my supervisor, the planners and service engineers involved to
discuss part issues that were identified as either currently affecting the team or might be future
problems. I administered the meeting by taking notes in a trouble parts log each time we got together.
During the two weeks in between meetings, I was expected to follow up on the action items given from
the prior meeting and make sure they were being met by the specified dates. When my supervisor
wasn’t able to be at the meeting due to a schedule conflict, I basically ran the meeting. These meetings
were great learning experiences because they taught me how to approach different types of issues
through certain ways of communication, who all needs to be involved and when to set clear, cut
deadlines. It became visible that many people were needed to be involved for even what seemed like
small issues. Most of the time, many people were required to be involved because of the mandatory
processes that everyone had to follow. As the leader of the group, you must be aware of all of the
processes involved because not having that knowledge could lead to a major miscommunication
throughout the different businesses.
4. Teamwork
In the Service Parts area, the culture is incredibly cohesive and is truly a team atmosphere. The
planners are divided between three different product lines, with some overlapping on two or all three.
We have team meetings for each of these product lines on a weekly basis and with the entire group on a
monthly basis. I worked within a team, basically, throughout my whole experience and the environment
encouraged collaboration. By being a part of the discontinuance strategy projects, as mentioned above,
I was able to work in a team that had to work together in order to achieve a common goal that had both
team contributions and team conflict.
I worked in a team made up of a planner, a service engineer and myself, like I shared in the ‘Self-
Learning’ section. With such a diverse group, you can imagine that there would be some conflict. I was
responsible for gathering the data and creating an analysis spreadsheet to manipulate the data to
provide the information we need to make strategic decisions. The data was pulled directly from reports
ran out of both SAP and our planning software called Xelus. I used this data and the given forecasts to
identify parts that would be at risk for availability before the proposed service discontinuance date. The
planner is used to working with this type of data every day, but the engineer is not and wasn’t too
trusting of the numbers at first and this brought upon some conflict because the way Maureen, the
engineer, interpreted the data was different than the planner and me. We managed this conflict by
educating her on the way the system worked and where the numbers were coming from. I was using
the forecasts and current inventory reports to calculate how many parts would be needed to fill the
required demand until the service discontinuance date. Then, Maureen was able to understand the
formulas I was creating and trusted my analysis. Once we got into a groove and started diving deeper
into the project, the group was able to stir conflict in a positive matter. We would bring in our work for
the action items given out at the previous meetings and go over it together. If one person didn’t agree
with something, then they were able to respectfully disagree and provide them perspective on the
subject. This questioning lead to many great ideas and identification of mistakes that most likely
wouldn’t have been found if everyone simply agreed with each other. We held each other accountable
by inquiring on one another’s work and collaboratively brainstormed when forced to think outside the
box on several issues. The team was able to use each other’s strengths to divvy up the workload, which
helped everyone trust each other to do good work because we were doing what we were good at.
Throughout my experience, I was involved in a team environment and was constantly working
with my coworkers to solve problems. It’s essential to use your coworkers as resources because
everyone has had different work experience and roles and you never know when their background could
be informative.
Service
From my co-op experience, I think it’s important to provide service to your university in order to
provide a channel for others from your alma mater to have the opportunities that you did. I was able to
get an interview at Carestream because I sold Clarkson’s School of Business legitimacy to the recruiting
director. Until me, the only school that Carestream recruited from was Penn State because of their well
5. known business school and prolific supply chain program. However, that doesn’t mean there isn’t great
young talent at other schools. Now, Carestream is making their co-op position available to Clarkson
students and even called one of them in for an interview. When I heard that Rick, the recruitment
director, was bringing in a Clarkson student for an interview, I was just as happy as when I was informed
about mine. Being able to create a connection for my school is an amazing feeling, especially when the
only other school Carestream recruits from is Penn State. I’m opening doors for future Clarkson
students and helping bring recognition to the School of Business and the Supply Chain program. It
instills a huge sense of pride within myself for my university and makes me grateful that I’m a part of a
great institution. Providing credibility to your university is important for not only yourself, but also for
the eighteen year old kids that will start their journey at the Clarkson School of Business just like I did.
The advisors, professors and mentors I’ve had are the reason I had the confidence to apply for and get
hired at this job. It’s important to pay it forward and provide service to the university.