This week I focused on my capstone project. The goal for our capstone project is to develop a plan to help acquire and retain talent for the flex program. Flex associates are individuals who are unable to work a consistent schedule. This program offers more flexibility for these individuals by posting open shifts on an app. Individuals are then able to select the shifts that work best with their schedules. I composed a schedule and set goals we wish to accomplish before we have to present our project at the capstone event. We are trying to determine our target market is for this assignment. I had a meeting with an individual on our marketing team as well as our HR manager. I also interviewed one of our flex associates and got some positive feedback on the program as well as ideas that could make the program more efficient. This project is challenging due to the fact that I do not have experience in HR. I know this will be difficult, but it will be a great learning experience. I have had the opportunity to speak with individuals within our company that I do not usually see or speak to as an operations intern. Next week I will be working closely with my boss to experience the functional side of the operations manager position.
Monthly Archives: June 2019
Advance Auto Parts – week 6
This week I shadowed Commercial Account Managers Tuesday-Thursday. Two of those days were spent with someone called a Heavy Duty sales rep. This position rides along on sales calls with Commercial account managers, but rather than trying to make traditional sales calls, they inform customers about Advance Auto Parts Heavy duty parts availability offerings. On Wednesday we made a number of sales calls to customers with mixed fleets. We had one customer who was a follow up for a scan tool, which is a tool to read codes/errors on the vehicles computer. This call took a number of hours because the customer had a number of objections and issues with figuring out how to use the scanner. This customer was not very tech savvy but with our help we got him very comfortable with the tool and we left thinking that he was very inclined to purchase. This is not a typical sales call but with a high dollar item such as a scanner, it is ok to spend more time with the client to show off the product and help close the sale.
The other sales calls we made that day were very beneficial because we hit clients with high potential for HD sales. One customer we hit was a construction company, who has been doing business with advance auto parts for a number of years. He has never had contact with an advance sales person before so it was beneficial we got out to him to see his shop, show him our heavy duty offerings, and to make sure we were able to fulfil his parts needs.
The rest of the week was spent with my District manager going over issues affecting the district and some of the responsibility’s of his job. Overall I think it was a good week and I really liked making sales calls.
Linn And Associates Week 7
This week at Linn & Associates was a lot more exciting than last week. The USDA released its quarterly crop estimates this week and the results were very unexpected. The USDA claimed that 92 million acres of corn had been planted so far which was 5 million more acres than what our analysts were predicting. They also lowered soybean acres to 80 million which was 6 million less acres than what our analysts predicted. This caused both markets to move drastically. The corn market fell 25 cents and the soybean market grew by 20 cents after the report was released. After the report was released the USDA reported that the data they released may not have been an accurate account of how many acres had actually been planted because they had used data that they surveyed on June 1. Many farmers in the U.S. had not yet planted a majority of their crops at that time which would explain why the acreage numbers were such a surprise. The USDA is planning on updating the acreage numbers before the August crop report.
This week I spent the majority of my time working on creating charts for our weekly report on the state of agriculture. I created several charts that illustrated how corn and soybean yields are effected in years where there was a very wet spring. What I learned is that yields are negatively effected when there is too much rain in the spring. The crops become waterlogged and have a hard time growing to their potential because there is too much water in the soil. I also wrote several wires about the state of the corn market and what trades our customers should execute. I also met with a journalist at Bloomberg and had the opportunity to ask him about his opinion on what is happening this year in agriculture. Next week I will be spending most of my time working on updating our quotes system so we can get market prices at a faster rate.
Helena – Week 6
On Monday I scouted fields and met with customers with a sales representative. I also delivered some products to growers in the southern part of the state. On Tuesday I soil sampled over 300 acres of fields to test them for nitrogen. Then I came back to the branch and scouted some fields in the area. On Wednesday I went on a few deliveries then had a meeting with our branch manager and sales representatives. We talked about my final project and the steps that I needed to complete to complete the project on time. We also talked about yeildchasers and what I had left to do for the project. On Thursday I drove one of the warehouse employees down to pick up a prowler to side dress fields. When I got back I made some calls to growers about yeildchasers and set up appointments. On Friday I worked a lot with the scale as trucks came in and out. I also got a lot of work done for my final project. At the end of the day I went south and scouted some fields with a sales representative and met with some growers. I found corn bore in one of the fields that we were scouting.
MSU Landscape Services – Week 6
This week at Landscape Services was a busy one. On Monday I was commissioned to write an article about Landscape Services’ autonomous mower. This article will be published in the upcoming July Facilities Focus and will go out to many departments across MSU’s campus. I was pretty excited to take on this project. I went around and interviewed 4 different people who work with the autonomous mower (Snowbot/Mowbot) and wrote my article. It was my first time writing an article for an audience this big. I had my supervisor and the GIS Analyst who oversees the Snowbot give their approval before I submitted my article to be published. I am excited to see it in the July edition soon.
On Friday I went to Promapp training over at the IPF main building. Promapp is a Business Process Management software that IPF just contracted out for the whole university. My supervisor thought it would be a good thing for me to learn how to use this software and I could start helping the Landscape Services department create some business process mapping of their own. Promapp is also planned to be used collaboratively across campus departments to bring efficiency in the way things are done across campus. On Monday I will go back for another two hours of training.
Week 5: Jewel Osco
On Monday, I started to work in the Dairy department. I helped Jose, the Dairy Manager stock the shelves. The dairy department is very small at my store. The rest of the day was a back and forth between Grocery and Dairy. After lunch, I helped with some grocery restocking. When Jose was free again, I learned about Dairy Distress and ordering for Dairy. The shipments for Dairy come in on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. Jose is a good teacher so he explained the computer work for this very well. The day wrapped up with James, one of the Grocery Managers who was ordering so I ordered some products.
On Tuesday, I helped Jose with resetting his end caps. On Wednesdays, the new sales ad comes out so it’s important to set up displays for the new ad on Tuesday. I set up the display and then restocked eggs, yogurt, and juice. I attended the staff meeting which took place in the Staff Office. There was a review of numbers reached for Quarter 1 which is the first completed quarter at my store as it opened in March. There was a discussion on the focus of Quarter 2 which just started. I learned a lot about the goals of my store through this meeting. After the meeting, it was time for my thirty-minute lunch break. Next, I worked on Frozen load. I restocked a bunch of items. I ran into an issue on the second frozen load. The load was taller than me so I had to call for help a few times.
On Wednesday, I worked on Dairy and Frozen. The morning was full of stocking frozen foods in the three aisles of coolers. This job requires a coat and strong hands. The frozen load had a lot of meals, appetizers, vegetables, fruit, and ice cream. After completing the ice cream load, I had to have hot soup for lunch because I was so cold from all the ice cream restocking. When my lunch was over, I worked with Dairy. The day was full of restocking which left me exhausted.
On Friday, I assisted in Dairy for the few hours I was at the store. Then, I went to the internship meeting up north at another intern’s store. We discussed our recommendations that we will suggest in our final presentation on August 2nd. I love the idea that they take interns ideas into consideration. I can’t wait to see if they will add my idea of education about their own brands through the module. My internship is multi-dimensional which definitely keeps things interesting. I experience a balance of customer interaction, education on grocery industry and project work.
On Saturday, I came in and immediately went to help Jose with Dairy. I worked on eggs and juice that were both items on display. In the early afternoon, I switched to Frozen with a grocery associate Malik. The ice cream is flying off the shelves because it’s $1.99 for Dean’s and Signature Select (Jewel Osco Own Brand). I had lunch later than normal due to the sale. I wrote down the answers to questions like what responsibilities and food safety procedures in Frozen and Dairy. By the time I finished those questions, I met with the Frozen Manager, Kevin to complete my education in Frozen. Overall, I liked working in Dairy more than Frozen. Working in dairy requires a lot of tasks but I think I see myself as being capable of this. This internship has been an eye-opening experience as I never saw grocery to be a hard job. I have learned from the associates and leadership at my job. Most of them are dedicated to their jobs.Two employees celebrated thirty years working for Jewel and another celebrated forty-five years.
Week 6 MAC
On Monday I started out working outside running a sweep auger as it cleaned out a bin. I had to “babysit” the auger since we were finishing up loading the train and we didn’t want to overfill the cars. On Tuesday, myself and another worker got inside that bin and swept it clean preparing it to be filled with wheat once we pick up our wheat pile and start with wheat harvest. On Wednesday I worked in the office weighing in trucks and testing some non-gmo soybeans that we were milling and loading an overhead in preparation for some loads to be hauled out. Thursday I ran the scale by myself and weighed in and graded some corn trucks and non-gmo soybean trucks. The corn trucks had to be tested for vomatoxins since they were going for feed. The soybean trucks had to be tested for gmo’s since they were for chicken feed and the other was for food grade. On Friday I weighed-in and graded corn trucks that were hauling corn to a feed plant and to an ethanol plant. I also cleaned up around the office and fixed a sign that the letters had fallen off of. Also on Friday the USDA released its acreage report which states how many acres of corn, soybeans, wheat, and cotton were planted this year so far. Contrary to what is known the USDA stated that more corn acres have been planted this year than last year. Although around 85-90% of the corn acres in Michigan have been planted, in the Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois area many acres are much too wet to plant. This caused the price of corn to drop by 20 cents in a matter of minutes. Although 20 cents doesn’t seem that significant, a farmer selling 10,000 bushels of corn that’s a $2,000 change in a few minutes.
Week 6: Cooperative Elevator Co.
This week was busy. With a very productive weather break a lot of dry beans were being planted and a lot of product was moved. As for myself, I had a lot of tissue samples on sugar beets and corn to collect for growers. I also had some nitrate sampling to complete before growers could side dress corn. On Wednesday Winfield United and Cooperative Elevator Co. put on a plot day which we had to set up for. Thursday the plot day took place and we had representatives from Bayer, BASF, Winfield United, and Michigan Sugar Company. The turn out was down from previous years due to the lack of productive planting days and the great weather that was offered this week. There were some great presentations put together addressing nitrogen loss due to the ample amounts of rain and the importance of utilizing fungicides at tassling. Then there was a presentation concerning varieties of soybeans on the market and the use of products to control resistant weeds. Lastly, an overview of the sugar beet crop and important application times for leaf spot and new products available to growers. It was a good experience and opportunity to be apart of.
To cap off the work week it rained Friday morning which made for a long slower day. Not a whole lot was going on so we cleaned up around the plant and delivered some product to growers that were getting ready to spray beans with herbicide. Next week looks like slight chances of rain every day so hopefully the weather cooperates enough for some applications on beans. The weeds could get out of hand quickly with the heat and rain we’ve been receiving lately.
Week 6
This week was a laid-back week for me at work. We had the MSU Ag Bio Research boss stop by to check in and see how things were going. We had our debriefs with him and explained to him how all of the research projects were going. We discussed lab results as well as talked about methods to improve and become more efficient at the work we have been doing. We started preparing fields to be worked for late season potato planting as well as started getting some equipment around and ready to go for the upcoming weeks. After getting all set for the upcoming planting work, we’ve just been cleaning and getting the grounds ready and in good shape for expected visitors. We have a state senator and her husband who was a former state senator coming to visit next week and are trying to make the place look nice. We have concluded our fecal sample research along with our pre and post grazing forage research so now we are mostly grazing cattle herds and recording data on their weight, amount of forage taken from pastures, and taking health records. I did lots of busy work such as mowing the lawn, trimming trees, cleaning up roadways and passages. One interesting thing that did happen was when we were testing bulls, we had one jump over the 8 foot tall gate and it was a pretty serious hassle trying to round him back up and throw him back into the pen. Next week we are switching up grazing practices and going to be seeing if incorporating more moves on will increase, decrease, or not change the amount of grass and forage consumed by the cattle. Currently we are thinking that increasing the amount of daily moves will increase the amount of grass that they consume.
WEEK 5: ADM
I’m continuing to learn more about ADM and the grain markets each week that I continue further into my internship and it is going by so quickly! This week started out with a trip to Fostoria, Ohio to visit one of ADM’s soybean processing plants, which is in a picture below. I went with one of my mentors, Adre, and we met with an intern from our Columbus office and one of her mentors, which provided a great networking opportunity. After going on the tour of the plant we all went out to lunch where the other intern, Halee, and I got to discuss ADM and how our mentors had gotten into their positions and what they felt was important about their jobs. Later on in the week I was given a new project by my manager about creating an analysis of grain market share for the counties that the Toledo and Ottawa Lake locations purchase grain from, and then when I’m finished he would like me to write up my own recommendations about what counties I think we should focus more or less on, and how I think we could be more efficient with our grain origination program. On Friday the USDA released a Stocks and Acreage report that caused a huge shift in the markets due to higher than expected corn acreage planted and lower than expected soybean acreage causing corn prices to plummet and bean prices to rise. Looking into the coming week there should be more news of how meetings between President Trump and President Xi of China went at the G-20 Summit this past weekend in Japan. On Wednesday next week I have a farm visit scheduled and I’m excited to gain more out of the office experience. It’s amazing to me how much I’ve been able to learn in such a short amount of time.
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