Frito Lay: Week 10

Today was my last day of the internship! This summer went by really fast and I learned a lot! This week they flew all of the interns to Dallas and we were able to network with leaders in the company and we did our presentations. The CEO of Frito Lay also spoke to us, this was really exciting! He shared that when he first came to the company about 5 years ago he thought it was not going to work out, he thought he was going to get fired in the first year. He rented a place because he thought it wasn’t going to work out. Now he is the CEO, this shows that he worked hard! I thought this was really interesting and shows that he really cares about the company. This summer was a great learning experience and I really enjoyed it!

Mondelez week 9

Week 9 at Mondelez was a good week. Hard to believe my internship is almost over. This week I was able to work a little on two different territories and really get to see and compare the differences in sales reps. I worked Monday and Tuesday for Leanne in Cadillac and Cedar Springs. She runs her stores exactly how I would: organized. She writes relatively small orders, where most everything goes onto the shelf or on the display. Her back stock (extra product) is very small, organized, and easy to find what you need. She orders only what you need on the shelf and displays. Her personality is not the best, but she does her job really well. And as someone who merchandises for her, her practices make my job really easy and much more enjoyable.

The rest of the week, I worked with Alan in Grand Rapids. He is quite the opposite: unorganized, has a full and messy back stock, and orders way too much product every week. He only focuses on numbers and not organization, which makes working for him really tough sometimes. Working in his stores will add time to you schedule and will make your cases per hour go down.

From what I’ve seen between the differences between sales reps, I see how important standardization is across merchandisers and reps. If we all did it the exact same, we would get better at that way and not have to learn different ways of doing things in every store. Our numbers would be more consistent and the work would be more enjoyable. From the start of the job – training and on- Mondelez should have consistency in all their training and ways of doing things.

As I finish up my last two weeks, I will make sure to let my boss know (in a professional way) my suggestions for the company. I want to help out the company in any way I can before the summer is over.

General Mills – Week 10

Week 10 is finally here! Even though my internship is a 12-week internship, I had to give my final presentation this week. My presentation had to do with competitive information for the trade team. Gathering competitive information is an essential business activity. Competitive information that is acquired legally allows for the trade team to optimize their trade spend by seeing where they could be over spending and under spending. By leveraging competitive insights, the trade team can benchmark their strategies to ensure that they are getting the highest return on their dollar.

 

Throughout the course of my project, I made many calls to our field sales representatives, held conversations with our trade team, and conversed with the sales communication and analytics team. Through these conversations, I found 3 key insights. The most important insight was that we do not have a process to gather, store, and utilize competitive insights. This brought a shift to my summer project. Before, I was in charge of building insights across key competitors but since we did not have a process to do this, I switched my focus to create one.

 

Ultimately, I collaborated with the sales communication and analytics team to integrate the trade team into their current process. I also made recommendations on how we can strengthen this process overall to ensure that we are maximizing our efficiency with gathering competitive insights. This included centralizing all of our information, which was not currently being done at this time.

Overall, the trade team was very pleased with my findings and called my project a success. I have been so grateful to work on this team and I am so fortunate to be given the opportunity to grow as a leader with General Mills. I really enjoyed my time this summer with the company and I want to continue with General Mills next year as a full time employee. I will find out next week if I am offered a full time position. I feel very good about my situation and I really believe in this company and their products. I am looking forward to taking my experiences back to MSU and graduate with a degree in Food Industry Management. I am very proud of all my accomplishments and I am looking forward to what the future has planned for me.

Week 10 at USE

As if it were yesterday I remember nervous, but excitedly walking into the building. Now tomorrow, it is my last. This past week comprised of having a Q&A with CEO Danny Meyer, an intern dinner at Blue Smoke, Michilin star barbecue restaurant. Today, I sat in on a managers meeting, one that usually takes place once a week. They discussed the profits and losses over the past quarter, what affected the numbers, and what we, as a company, can do to fix issues, if any. Tomorrow I will present my project in front of many of the higher up executives. The project is a Standard Operating Procedure outline. I am essentially outlining how to do my boss’ job, the USE Manager of Venue Hospitality at Citi Field. Detailing paperwork, how to use certain web applications, who to send what information to whom, as well as other day to day activities. Also, I will be sitting in on a company meeting, discussing with all the different manager heads about anything new in their respective divisions. Then is a farewell activity. I do not know much but the entire staff will be split into teams and compete in certain activities. I believe i learned alot this summer, and will miss all the good times.

Week Ten Target

As I close my internship with Target, I have a lot to reflect on.

First, I want to thank this company for giving me a great opportunity to prove myself in a new environment. It was not easy work running a shift of 25-30 people on a daily basis. But, I have learned a lot about myself and how to communicate with people. I have learned never to be complacent with the amount of knowledge you have at that current moment. I now know to continuously improve yourself and never settle at the current state of knowledge you are in.

Second, I know that these ten weeks have changed my life for the better. Whether or not I walk out of this internship with a job offer or not, I will be more confident in my life. I have been placed in multiple situations where I had to make a decision on the fly and it was going to impact a lot of people. I now know how to contemplate a decision and make the best one for the collective good of the group. I also am now more confident to talk to anyone about given topics. This could be in a group setting for a project or asking someone a simple question about a homework assignment.

Finally, I want to thank my outbound team for being incredibly supportive in my journey at Target. The feedback that I received in my time there was helpful in allowing me to reach my full potential. I know that walking away from this I really learned something impactful every day on the job. If anyone has the opportunity to do this internship, I highly recommend it. It was a chance to push myself out of my comfort zone and learn how to adapt in a hectic warehouse.

ADM Week 10

Wrapping up the summer internship has been bittersweet. This summer has been one of many challenges but also many victories. Overall, it was a great learning experience and I got a lot out of working for ADM. I was out doing yield checks most of the week whilst building customer relations. We visited somewhere around 60 fields and took readings from various spots in order to get more accurate results. The lack of rain in Ohio during the summer has really hindered the crops’ growth. However, yield numbers were not looking too bad. Farmers are very concerned about prices this year as crop ratings are unusually high due to exceptional crops out west in addition to lots of supply from last year still in the bins.

One of my trucking projects is actually taking shape now as headquarters is sending out teams for quoting total costs to build a container yard. The location will benefit from the increased revenue whilst extending the ADM trucking presence out to this easternmost point of the United States. It has been unreal to see my plans on paper actually taking form. I also had my final review this past week and was offered a full time position with ADM whenever I graduate college. My manager was very pleased with my work as well as my work ethic and the skills I bring to the workplace. I was very grateful to hear all of the comments and to hear that the VPs are also all impressed with my work at the Columbus location. I can certainly say I would accept a full time offer with ADM after graduation. The company is very welcoming and the employees treat you like family and can teach you many things if you are willing to work hard and be motivated.

Week 8: Mondelez

Week 8 at Mondelez was great. I filled in for our order writer, Brad (in the Grand Rapids area), who was filling in for our rep Alan. I will be doing this route again next week as well. I worked Tuesday-Saturday (unfortunately Saturday) and put in some overtime! My main job was to go into stores, worked deliveries, work back stock, set up and maintain displays, and then write orders for deliveries. On Tuesday, I wrote orders for 2 different Meijers for Thursday and then one for Walmart. I did the same on Thursday for the Saturday delivery. I worked numerous loads and lots of back stock.

I am beginning to learn why organization is such a key to professional development. Our back stock, which is the back room at our stores where we keep extra product, has been a nightmare recently. There are many, many boxes overflowing in all of them with no organization. Some stores have so much that it takes hours just to dig everything out to see what we have. This is pointless in my opinion. When ordering product, we need to order just what is needed to fill the shelf. When the delivery comes, most if not all the product should go on the shelf, and the FEW extra cases should go in back stock. Also some extra items that may be on sale. This is such a big problem for many sales reps, and I’m starting to see that they are not very organized people. It makes me excited to think that one day i may be running a sales route and I could make sure it is organized and smooth – way smoother than some of them are now!

Next week will be similar to this past week, filling in for Brad. Looking forward to school starting soon – 3 weeks left on the job!

Tanimura and Antle: Week 10

This week has been a very hectic one. We just got back up and running transplanting after a week of our seeding line being broke down and nothing getting planted. Now that we did start transplanting again we have to make up for the acres we didn’t plant last week. We have thirteen total plantings this week which ranged fro from 10-20 acres a piece. This means that we were forced to be stretched thin so that we could have multiple crews running in multiple locations. This week I was given a lot more responsibility because we were stretched so thin. I was tasked with managing a crew that was working at a remote location. I was responsible for getting there every day around 4am to make sure that the equipment and plants were delivered to the right field and that the ground preparation was sufficient. I then had to make sure that the crew understands the field map and where to plant each variety. Then as they start to plant I needed to help make sure the planter was adjusted correctly for the proper depth and spacing to work with different soil conditions which would vary from field to field. Throughout the day I had to stay with and oversee the crew helping to assist with minor issues as they came up. I also would be sure that variety changes were recorded and marked in the field. At the end of the day I would assist the crews in washing and sterilizing the machine and make any minor repairs and adjustment that were needed. I then would have to scope out tomorrows planting and ensure the equipment was parked at the right field for the morning. Though it might of not seem like much but to me it really showed that my supervisors trusted me to plant thousands of dollars worth of lettuce without any direct supervision.

Week 10: General Mills, Buffalo Plant

Wow this summer went by too fast. I leave for Minneapolis on Sunday to visit the General Mills World headquarters. I give my final intern project presentation on Monday to a group of HQ logistics employees. I am nervous but more excited about the whole trip. My presentation is solid and I can’t wait to show it to everyone. I also can’t wait to see what the GMI headquarters looks like. I know it is going to seem luxury compared to my dusty warehouse in Buffalo.

Overall I am very proud and happy with my internship. I was able to learn a lot about the manufacturing side of the food chain that I did not know before. I made a very positive impact on the warehouse in Buffalo that I know will last a long time after I am gone. It feels good to be leaving a mini legacy behind. I hope I can work for General Mills after college. They are a very good company and my values align with a lot of theirs. I also hope I can get some experience working with a different platform other than cereal. Overall great expereience and I hope it is not my last with this company.

Week 9: Frito Lay

I can’t believe the internship is almost done! This week we had an intern event with the Mid-America Region and we went to the Tigers game. This was a lot of fun to see the other interns and we even got to go on the field!  This week I also did my presentation of my projects for my zone, I was kind of nervous for this but I think it went well. The presentations are about our summer experiences and our projects. They gave me a lot of great advice. Today all of the Mid-America Region interns presented at the region office which is in Plymouth, this was really helpful and I got some more helpful advice. Next week all of the sales interns are going to headquarters which is in Plano, Texas to present. I am really excited because we also get to network with people from headquarters and I hope we get a tour of headquarters.