Alright...Continuing to catch up on my blog entries...
On Monday I continued to send out my two weekly OTD (On-Time Delivery) reports, and as part of my responsibilities to the OTD task force I met with Diane Zundel to learn how to compile the weekly OTD Top Offenders reports, which will be distributed amongst the members of the task force, and then the appropriate account owners within CORE. While meeting with Diane I alsoe took the time to show her my LTL (Less than full-truck load) analysis for the first time and explain to her how the analysis is compiled. I alsoe asked her for her opinion on the analysis and whether or not she thought it could be a valuable tool for account owners, and whether or not there were any changes she would make. She let me know that she thought the analysis looked great and that I should continue to use it.
After meeting with Diane I met with Catheirne a little bit later in the day to discuss where we stood on the the data file match with our J&J international affiliate Hemishperica. Together we reviewed our most recent emails to and from our contact at Hemispherica and we decided what our next steps would be. In addition to the file match Catherine and I checked to see if I was able to succesfully log into Walmart's retail link system. Retail link is an online order management system used for Walmart and Sam's Club orders. It is something that Catherine uses to track the status of some of our Sam's Club orders, which is something that she will have me do occasionally also.
On Tuesday I continued to work on putting together a powerpoint presentation on my LTL analysis for Wednesday's weekly OTD task force meeting. In the morning I called Gabe on the phone (because he was out of the office) to walk him through my power point to see if he had any suggestions for me. He suggested making a few changes to the content of my presentation and the order of a couple of my slides, and offered me some great advice on things to consider when creating a visual for a presentation. Later in the day after making the changes to my powerpoint and completing it for tomorrow's meeting I had to attend our teams weekly tactical meeting with all of the other members of my team as well as our team business leader Jamie. This is a meeting we try to and hold every week as long as Jamie and a majority of the team is available. At this meeting we discuss any problems anyone maybe currently experiencing with any of the club accounts, or any promotions or problems anyone may forsee in the near future.
On Wednesday with the exception with the exception of checking my email in the morning, working on the rough draft of my powerpoint for my mid co-op presentation, and our weekly OTD task force meeting later in the day everyone in CORE spent a majority of the day at an offsite event held by our departments director Sid Kirkpatrick. The plan for this meeting was to discuss the Vice President of the North American Supply chain's "customer first" initiative, and our departments/ companies customer service performance. All 100+ members of CORE were split into random groups for the day and each group was responsible for answering a group of focus questions related to J&J's/ CORE's customer serivce. Some of the questions for example were; how do we feel we are doing on custoemr service as an organization/company?, How do we feel our customers perceive J&J's customer service? What do we feel we currently do well? Define good cutomer service. List the things we felt we could change to improve our customer service, and which of those we felt we would be able to take on immediately or at some point this year, and which of those we felt would be too much to take on in addition to our top priorities for 2008. Towards the end of the meeting one member of each table/group had to present the groups answers/ideas in front of everyone, managers, business leaders, and every other member of CORE. My group picked me to present our findings. I'm not going to lie, I was nervous. I don't consider myself the best public speaker, and I was still new to the organization and only knew a handful of people in the room, and certainly had never spoken in fornt of so many people (100-115 people). As hesitant as I was at first, I ended up standing up there and presenting, and I survived. I'll be the first to admit I was nervous and I am sure most people in the room could tell I was, and for that reason as well as a few others I believe I could have done better. All and all though I touched on everything we wanted to, and it was a great chance for me to practice my public speaking, which I continue to improve on while on my co-op. Initially I didn't know what to expect from this event and was worried I wouldn't be able to contribute much at all to the group because I was still relatively new. When it was all said and done though I felt that I managed to not only contribute to the group by presenting, and writing everything we had to say down and organizing our thoughts, but I was alsoe able to contribute to answering of the focus questions, and brought a slightly different perspective to the table as a new hire. At the end of the day I as well as most of the people involved felt that it was a great experience. I was able to meet a bunch of new people withing the organization, and experience a type of brainstoriming I have never been a part of.
Afte the offsite event I returned to Skillman to attend our weekly OTD task force meeting and present my analysis to the group. My presentation was not only another great oppurtunity for me to practice presenting but it was a great oppurtunity for me to show the taks force my analysis and to answer any questions anyone had on it.
On Thursday I started my day by meeting with Catherine to show her my mid co-op presentation to see if she had any suggestions for me. After meeting with Catherine and making a few changes to my powerpoint I had to attend our bi-weekly co-op round table meeting. This was the first round table meeting that was held by co-op's as opposed to the co-op mentors. From here on out two co-ops would be paired up and responsible for running a round table meeting and presenting on a chosen topic and educating the group. The topics for the first meeting were Minitab (a computer program similar to Microsoft Excel), and proper email ettiquette. I would be resposible for presenting at our next meeting in two weeks and I was presenting on resume building/writing. Later in the day I attended town hall meeting by the supply chain's VP, where our 2007 performance as well as our 2008 goals were dicussed. Beofre the end of the day Catherine and I met with Amanda to further discuss our Hemispherica file match and to discuss our next steps.
Friday I spent the entire day along with the rest of the co-ops in our first day of PE (Process Excellence aka six sigma) Lite training. This "Lite" training is a condensed 2 day training session on the same material covered in greater detail for the required one weeks training to become green belt certified. We covered the basics of PE and what it is and how we can apply it to our current or future project work, as well as how the project charter process works for becoming PE certified. After learning a little bit about Six Sigma and Process Excellence in the class room it was nice to learn more about it and how it can be applied. Through out the day we went through examples of the necessary steps to take towards chartering a PE project in order to become PE certified and how we can apply it to our projects even if we don't plan on using it to become ceterified. Given that I will be hopefully be working more and more on my LTL Anlysis project I felt the training was a great oppurtunity to learn how and where I could improve my analysis process and what PE tools I could use to analyze the process steps of my analysis.
Monday, April 7, 2008
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Week 6 (2/18/08 - 2/22/08)
I started off the week on Monday by continuing to send out my two weekly OTD reports which I spent a majority of my day working on. Then Tuesday was another realitvely light day for me.
Catherine showed me what Sam's Retail Link and CoManaged looked like and briefly explained what she uses it for. She then had me contact someone to receive access to the system, which would take a week or so. Aside from going over the Sam's Retail link system we had our bi weekly one on one meeting where we are able to step away from our work and check in with each other and make sure that I don't have too much work, but at the same time making sure I have enough work to keep me busy. this meeting also just allows me to aske her any questions I may have and get feedback from her on how I'm doing. Wednesday made out to be a much busier day for me. I Met with Donna Smiley to go over my LTL analysis, and answer questions for her. After going over the analysis I had compiled for a few accounts on her team she gave me three other accounts to do some analysis for. I was glad to hear from an actual account owner that they felt that the anlysis would be very useful for them, and glad that I was given the oppurtunity to continue on with the analysis.
After meeting with Donna and getting a start on the LTL analysis for the three accounts she gave me, I met with Chris Milano who is a Business leader and has worked for J&J for 7 years. Chris is a younger guy who I felt I was easy to talk to and was able to share some insight on graduate school which was nice. Chris is currently attending Rutgers persuing his MBA while working and I was able to ask him some questions I had about persuing an MBA which was great. Aside form that our meeting was a good oppurtunity to just introduce myself to Chris and let him know what I have been working on in the time I have been with J&J. Chris also let me know that he was part of the recruiting team within CORE and was abke to answer some questions pertaining to the possibility of continuing to work for J&J on a summer internship, which if given the oppurtunity I would love to do. At the end of the day we had our weekly OTD Task Force meeting. I found out that both Diane Zundel and Andy Thomas would like me to give a presentation my LTL analysis at the next task Force meeting on 2/27 and as usual we reviewed our OTD performance YTD and for the previous week.
Thursday, we had our Team M performance reviews where as an entire team we discussed the performance and problematic areas for all of the accounts we handle. I was asked to go over the weekly and YTD OTD performance for 2008 for all of our accounts and Cheonette and I both answered questions from our team members in regards to the OTD task force and top offenders report that I send out.
Friday, the Skillman campus was closed due to bad weather and I worked from home. Luckily everyone at J&J has a laptop that they are required to take home with them every day for reasons exactly like this, whether its a snow day or your car is broken down and you can't get into work, we have access to the J&J network remotely and for the most part can do everything we do in the office at home. I was able to work on my LTL Analysis presentation for next week, my Mid-cop presentation that isn't until 3/27 but we have practice sessions starting on 3/7 , and my resume building presentation for our 3/12 co-op round table meeting. Aside from that I updated the Sam's Club OTD tracker and stayed on top of my email throughout the day. It was nice to see that I could keep myself busy for the entire day, and get my work done from home, and it made me realize how important a business continuity plan like J&J's is to a big corporation.
Catherine showed me what Sam's Retail Link and CoManaged looked like and briefly explained what she uses it for. She then had me contact someone to receive access to the system, which would take a week or so. Aside from going over the Sam's Retail link system we had our bi weekly one on one meeting where we are able to step away from our work and check in with each other and make sure that I don't have too much work, but at the same time making sure I have enough work to keep me busy. this meeting also just allows me to aske her any questions I may have and get feedback from her on how I'm doing. Wednesday made out to be a much busier day for me. I Met with Donna Smiley to go over my LTL analysis, and answer questions for her. After going over the analysis I had compiled for a few accounts on her team she gave me three other accounts to do some analysis for. I was glad to hear from an actual account owner that they felt that the anlysis would be very useful for them, and glad that I was given the oppurtunity to continue on with the analysis.
After meeting with Donna and getting a start on the LTL analysis for the three accounts she gave me, I met with Chris Milano who is a Business leader and has worked for J&J for 7 years. Chris is a younger guy who I felt I was easy to talk to and was able to share some insight on graduate school which was nice. Chris is currently attending Rutgers persuing his MBA while working and I was able to ask him some questions I had about persuing an MBA which was great. Aside form that our meeting was a good oppurtunity to just introduce myself to Chris and let him know what I have been working on in the time I have been with J&J. Chris also let me know that he was part of the recruiting team within CORE and was abke to answer some questions pertaining to the possibility of continuing to work for J&J on a summer internship, which if given the oppurtunity I would love to do. At the end of the day we had our weekly OTD Task Force meeting. I found out that both Diane Zundel and Andy Thomas would like me to give a presentation my LTL analysis at the next task Force meeting on 2/27 and as usual we reviewed our OTD performance YTD and for the previous week.
Thursday, we had our Team M performance reviews where as an entire team we discussed the performance and problematic areas for all of the accounts we handle. I was asked to go over the weekly and YTD OTD performance for 2008 for all of our accounts and Cheonette and I both answered questions from our team members in regards to the OTD task force and top offenders report that I send out.
Friday, the Skillman campus was closed due to bad weather and I worked from home. Luckily everyone at J&J has a laptop that they are required to take home with them every day for reasons exactly like this, whether its a snow day or your car is broken down and you can't get into work, we have access to the J&J network remotely and for the most part can do everything we do in the office at home. I was able to work on my LTL Analysis presentation for next week, my Mid-cop presentation that isn't until 3/27 but we have practice sessions starting on 3/7 , and my resume building presentation for our 3/12 co-op round table meeting. Aside from that I updated the Sam's Club OTD tracker and stayed on top of my email throughout the day. It was nice to see that I could keep myself busy for the entire day, and get my work done from home, and it made me realize how important a business continuity plan like J&J's is to a big corporation.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Week 5 (2/11/08 - 2/15/08)
As the weeks go by I have started to take on more responsibilities at work and on top of that I have had more homework and studying to do for my two classes. So to say the least, I have been very busy and that is why I have fallen a little behind on updating my blog.
Anyways, on Monday we had our monthly Sam's Club Matrix meeting. This meeting happens the second Monday of every month and is designed to discuss any problems we have been having with Sam's Club and discuss our weekly and YTD performance.
After our Sam's Matrix meeting I had a one on one meeting with Jacky Boxman. Jacky is a Business Leader in CORE and has worked for J&J for 8 years. She was able to answer all of my questions about J&J's Process Excellence training. She explained the different parts of the training process, and the different levels of certification and the steps required to become certified. As it turned out Jacky was also very knowledgeable on a program call Diamond that I have been using very frequently to compile my weekly OTD reports and in doing my LTL analysis. She was able to answer some of my questions about the program and offer some helpful tips which was great.
In between meetings I worked on the two OTD reports I have been sending out for a few weeks along with compiling the first week of the OTD top offenders report. However, due to technical difficulties I didn't complete the top offenders report on Monday.
On Tuesday I worked on completing the top offenders report so I could send it to Diane for her to review/revise prior to distributing it to the task force. After sending the Top Offenders report to Diane I Met with Cheonette who is a member of my team and acts as a CLS for our BJ's club account, and is also a member of the OTD task force. We discussed the OTD top offenders report and the OTD task force as a whole and we also discussed her progress on a BJ's file match.
On Wednesday we had a delayed opening for the first time and I was the only one in my area who came into work. Everyone else was either sick or worked from home because of the inclemet weather. I worked on completing my "Get to Know You" presentation for our co-op roundtable meeting which was Friday. This presentation was designed to not only get to know eachother as co-ops but to practice our presentation skills.
On Thursday I met with Gabe again to further review the LTL analysis that I had put together and mainly to call Donna who is a member of his team to walk her through my analysis and explain it to her. After explaining my analysis spreadsheet to Donna over the phone and answering questions for her we decided that she would take a closer look at my data and do some investigating and then get back to us.
Later in the day I had a very important one on one meeting scheduled with the Director of the Sales and Logitics company Sid Kirkpatrick. Although i had been introduced to him during my 2nd week of training this was my first oppurtunity to really sit down and talk with him. I let him know what I have been working on and asked him for any adivce or suggestions he had to offer me. I expressed my interest in learning more about different parts of the supply chain that I will not have direct exposure to in my day to day work and he said he would try and get me on a meeting list for the Phase 3 SAP implementation for J&J's distribution centers which would give me some visibility on the upstream of the supply chain. All and all I felt that the meeting went very well.
On Friday I and the other new hires that I went through training with had training in North Brunswick at the GTO (Global Transportation Organization). This training was designed to introduce us to the people we will eventually be calling and emailing regularly in regards to our cutomers shipments, and learn more about their organization. The training lasted a majority of the day but afterwards I had to come back to Skillman for my co-op roundtable meeting that I had to present my "Get to Know You" presentation.
I got back and we all went through our presentations. I feel that I did a great job making the power point for my presentation but I still have plenty of room for improvement when it comes to the public speaking part of presenting. however I am confident that with more practice over the 6 months I am here at J&J I will drastically improve my presentation skills.
Until next time....
Anyways, on Monday we had our monthly Sam's Club Matrix meeting. This meeting happens the second Monday of every month and is designed to discuss any problems we have been having with Sam's Club and discuss our weekly and YTD performance.
After our Sam's Matrix meeting I had a one on one meeting with Jacky Boxman. Jacky is a Business Leader in CORE and has worked for J&J for 8 years. She was able to answer all of my questions about J&J's Process Excellence training. She explained the different parts of the training process, and the different levels of certification and the steps required to become certified. As it turned out Jacky was also very knowledgeable on a program call Diamond that I have been using very frequently to compile my weekly OTD reports and in doing my LTL analysis. She was able to answer some of my questions about the program and offer some helpful tips which was great.
In between meetings I worked on the two OTD reports I have been sending out for a few weeks along with compiling the first week of the OTD top offenders report. However, due to technical difficulties I didn't complete the top offenders report on Monday.
On Tuesday I worked on completing the top offenders report so I could send it to Diane for her to review/revise prior to distributing it to the task force. After sending the Top Offenders report to Diane I Met with Cheonette who is a member of my team and acts as a CLS for our BJ's club account, and is also a member of the OTD task force. We discussed the OTD top offenders report and the OTD task force as a whole and we also discussed her progress on a BJ's file match.
On Wednesday we had a delayed opening for the first time and I was the only one in my area who came into work. Everyone else was either sick or worked from home because of the inclemet weather. I worked on completing my "Get to Know You" presentation for our co-op roundtable meeting which was Friday. This presentation was designed to not only get to know eachother as co-ops but to practice our presentation skills.
On Thursday I met with Gabe again to further review the LTL analysis that I had put together and mainly to call Donna who is a member of his team to walk her through my analysis and explain it to her. After explaining my analysis spreadsheet to Donna over the phone and answering questions for her we decided that she would take a closer look at my data and do some investigating and then get back to us.
Later in the day I had a very important one on one meeting scheduled with the Director of the Sales and Logitics company Sid Kirkpatrick. Although i had been introduced to him during my 2nd week of training this was my first oppurtunity to really sit down and talk with him. I let him know what I have been working on and asked him for any adivce or suggestions he had to offer me. I expressed my interest in learning more about different parts of the supply chain that I will not have direct exposure to in my day to day work and he said he would try and get me on a meeting list for the Phase 3 SAP implementation for J&J's distribution centers which would give me some visibility on the upstream of the supply chain. All and all I felt that the meeting went very well.
On Friday I and the other new hires that I went through training with had training in North Brunswick at the GTO (Global Transportation Organization). This training was designed to introduce us to the people we will eventually be calling and emailing regularly in regards to our cutomers shipments, and learn more about their organization. The training lasted a majority of the day but afterwards I had to come back to Skillman for my co-op roundtable meeting that I had to present my "Get to Know You" presentation.
I got back and we all went through our presentations. I feel that I did a great job making the power point for my presentation but I still have plenty of room for improvement when it comes to the public speaking part of presenting. however I am confident that with more practice over the 6 months I am here at J&J I will drastically improve my presentation skills.
Until next time....
Friday, February 8, 2008
Week 4 (2/4/08 - 2/8/08)
I am now in the middle of my fifth week of my Co-op but I wanted to take some time to reflect on my fourth week. On Monday morning I had Operations Microsoft Excel training. We reviewed some functions of Excel that I was already familiar with and others that I have little to no experience with and will need to use somewhat regularly over the next five months. I never would have guessed how much I would be using excel in my work but by the end of my six month co-op here at J&J I should be an expert.
Tuesday, I had my first one on one meeting with my mentor Catherine. We will be having these every other week and although our desks are right next to eachother this will be a time where we can step away from our everyday work and I will be able to ask her any questions or voice any concerns I may have and she can do the same. During this meeting Catherine let me know that I should start to schedule time with different business leaders, my other mentor Drew, and my manager Sharon. This one on one time would be to introduce myself to those who I haven't already met, and talk to them about their positions and experiences they have had while they have been working for J&J, and allow them to make any reccomendations or offer any tips they may have for me.
When time allowed, I worked on my power point for my "Get to Know You" presentation at our next Co-op roundtable meeting on Friday, February 15th. This will just be a short 3-5 slide powerpoint presentation that every co-op will give about themselves and what they have been working on so far while at J&J. The three co-op mentors and my peers will then critique my power point and presentation skills. I consider myself very good at making power point presentations, however one of my major weaknesses is definitely public speaking and giving presentations. As prepared as I may be, I just get nervous. One of my major goals over my next 5 months at J&J is to improve at public speaking and become much more comfortable infront of groups of people. I will report back on how my presentation on the 15th goes!
Later on on Tuesday I met with Gabe and showed him my refined LTL (Less Than Full Truckload) data analysis. He let me know that I had done a great job, which I was glad to hear. We discussed what we could possibly do with the analysis I came up with and what our next steps would be. He told me to setup some time next week with himself and a woman who is a member of his team (Donna Smiley) who is responsible for some of the accounts I analized. This meeting would allow us to discuss how we have to go about trying to fix some of the problems I discovered. Aside from that Gabe wanted me to try and refine my data even more if possible and to start thinking about how I could develop a SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) or template for others to use for LTL analysis on their own accounts. Once I have met with Gabe and his co-worker and further refined my processes he wants me to put together a presentation on my work to present to my manager Sharon. This will be a project I will be working on outside of my day to day work and because OTD for LTL shipments has never been a part of our performance assesesment a process for LTL analysis has never been developed and this could be a great oppurtunity for me to offer some valuable help to the orginization.
On Wednesday I had my first one on one with Kim marino who is a Business leader within CORE. She told me about her 8 years working for J&J and offered some very helpful advice. After meeting with Kim I was asked to be a part of a newly developed "OTD Task Force." They had asked me kind of last minute because we had our first meeting only a few minutes later. I was made responsible for sending out another weekly OTD report named the OTD Top Offenders Report.
On Thursday I had 3 one on one meetings scheduled. First I met with my manager Sharon (refer to notes), then I met with Diane Zundel (another OTD Task Force representative) for her to breif me on the OTD top offenders report and show me which query I will be using to pull the data used to compile the report. After meeting with Diane, we had our weekly Team M meeting with Jamie Feltre our Business Leader. This weekly team meeting is a rather informal meeting that allows us to discuss any issues we have had and how we should address them. I then met with Drew my other co-op mentor and he breifly showed me what it is that he does on a daily basis as a account planner for Kmart. Before the end of the day Thursday I sat down with Catheirne to go over the PDP (Performance & Development Planning) goals that she had come up with and run by Jamie. These goals are subject to change over the next few months but they will be the basis of judging/rating my performance over the course of my co-op. I think the goals will offer a challenge for me but a challenge I am looking forward to taking on.
I will report back on week 5 sometime next week.
Tuesday, I had my first one on one meeting with my mentor Catherine. We will be having these every other week and although our desks are right next to eachother this will be a time where we can step away from our everyday work and I will be able to ask her any questions or voice any concerns I may have and she can do the same. During this meeting Catherine let me know that I should start to schedule time with different business leaders, my other mentor Drew, and my manager Sharon. This one on one time would be to introduce myself to those who I haven't already met, and talk to them about their positions and experiences they have had while they have been working for J&J, and allow them to make any reccomendations or offer any tips they may have for me.
When time allowed, I worked on my power point for my "Get to Know You" presentation at our next Co-op roundtable meeting on Friday, February 15th. This will just be a short 3-5 slide powerpoint presentation that every co-op will give about themselves and what they have been working on so far while at J&J. The three co-op mentors and my peers will then critique my power point and presentation skills. I consider myself very good at making power point presentations, however one of my major weaknesses is definitely public speaking and giving presentations. As prepared as I may be, I just get nervous. One of my major goals over my next 5 months at J&J is to improve at public speaking and become much more comfortable infront of groups of people. I will report back on how my presentation on the 15th goes!
Later on on Tuesday I met with Gabe and showed him my refined LTL (Less Than Full Truckload) data analysis. He let me know that I had done a great job, which I was glad to hear. We discussed what we could possibly do with the analysis I came up with and what our next steps would be. He told me to setup some time next week with himself and a woman who is a member of his team (Donna Smiley) who is responsible for some of the accounts I analized. This meeting would allow us to discuss how we have to go about trying to fix some of the problems I discovered. Aside from that Gabe wanted me to try and refine my data even more if possible and to start thinking about how I could develop a SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) or template for others to use for LTL analysis on their own accounts. Once I have met with Gabe and his co-worker and further refined my processes he wants me to put together a presentation on my work to present to my manager Sharon. This will be a project I will be working on outside of my day to day work and because OTD for LTL shipments has never been a part of our performance assesesment a process for LTL analysis has never been developed and this could be a great oppurtunity for me to offer some valuable help to the orginization.
On Wednesday I had my first one on one with Kim marino who is a Business leader within CORE. She told me about her 8 years working for J&J and offered some very helpful advice. After meeting with Kim I was asked to be a part of a newly developed "OTD Task Force." They had asked me kind of last minute because we had our first meeting only a few minutes later. I was made responsible for sending out another weekly OTD report named the OTD Top Offenders Report.
On Thursday I had 3 one on one meetings scheduled. First I met with my manager Sharon (refer to notes), then I met with Diane Zundel (another OTD Task Force representative) for her to breif me on the OTD top offenders report and show me which query I will be using to pull the data used to compile the report. After meeting with Diane, we had our weekly Team M meeting with Jamie Feltre our Business Leader. This weekly team meeting is a rather informal meeting that allows us to discuss any issues we have had and how we should address them. I then met with Drew my other co-op mentor and he breifly showed me what it is that he does on a daily basis as a account planner for Kmart. Before the end of the day Thursday I sat down with Catheirne to go over the PDP (Performance & Development Planning) goals that she had come up with and run by Jamie. These goals are subject to change over the next few months but they will be the basis of judging/rating my performance over the course of my co-op. I think the goals will offer a challenge for me but a challenge I am looking forward to taking on.
I will report back on week 5 sometime next week.
Friday, February 1, 2008
My Third Week (1/28/08 - 2/1/08)
Things certainly do move quickly around here and with work and school I have certainly been very busy, but I feel as if I am adjusting to the work load and the long days quite well. During my third week I began doing one on one account specific training with my mentor Catherine. Catherine acts as a Customer Logistics Specialist for the Sam's Club account and manages all of our International accounts.
Catherine has been having a data accuracy issue with one of our customers based out of Peurto Rico. So on Monday we met with another CLS within CORE who designed a file match template and an SOP (standard operating procedure) for the file matching process. She educated us on how the file match process works and after meeting with her I sent an email to our contact at this company to coordinate a file match. I included a template designed to assist us in completing the file match of our internal data (product codes) with their data. The overall purpose of this process is to improve data accuracy and our order processing efficiency. Our contact replied with some very positive feedback and I am currently just waiting to hear back from her.
On Monday I also sent out my first weekly OTD Reports which I will be responsible for sending out every Monday. There are two reports, one of which tracks weekly and YTD OTD performance for our top 25 accounts and the other tracks OTD performance for our top ten accounts broken down by distribution center.
On Tuedsay I met with Gabe Ayd, the business leader for Team E which handles Specialty accounts, and discussed a project he would like to give me analyzing LTL (Less than Full Truck Load) shipments for his top 5 accounts. I then spent part of Tuesday and a good portion of Wednesday building and running data queries for each of the accounts he gave me in a program we use called Diamond and then analyzed each ship to's that buys products in divisions that Gabe handles. After doing some analysis and meeting with him a second time, he told me a few things he wanted me to change and we decided that we would setup a time to meet next week.
In summary, my third week was the first week I was able to reach out to someone from another part of CORE and do some unsupervised work. I learned how to process Sam's Club orders, and I coordinated a file match with one of our International customers. I am still learning many new things everyday and although I am very tired by the end of the week I am really enjoying myself.
Until next time...
Catherine has been having a data accuracy issue with one of our customers based out of Peurto Rico. So on Monday we met with another CLS within CORE who designed a file match template and an SOP (standard operating procedure) for the file matching process. She educated us on how the file match process works and after meeting with her I sent an email to our contact at this company to coordinate a file match. I included a template designed to assist us in completing the file match of our internal data (product codes) with their data. The overall purpose of this process is to improve data accuracy and our order processing efficiency. Our contact replied with some very positive feedback and I am currently just waiting to hear back from her.
On Monday I also sent out my first weekly OTD Reports which I will be responsible for sending out every Monday. There are two reports, one of which tracks weekly and YTD OTD performance for our top 25 accounts and the other tracks OTD performance for our top ten accounts broken down by distribution center.
On Tuedsay I met with Gabe Ayd, the business leader for Team E which handles Specialty accounts, and discussed a project he would like to give me analyzing LTL (Less than Full Truck Load) shipments for his top 5 accounts. I then spent part of Tuesday and a good portion of Wednesday building and running data queries for each of the accounts he gave me in a program we use called Diamond and then analyzed each ship to's that buys products in divisions that Gabe handles. After doing some analysis and meeting with him a second time, he told me a few things he wanted me to change and we decided that we would setup a time to meet next week.
Aside from coordinating the file match, sending out my first OTD reports, and working on LTL analysis I continued to help Catherine with the Sam's Club account. I helped update our excel spreedsheets which we use on a daily basis to track our orders and on Wedneday I started to process Sam's Club orders with her. Throughout the remainder of my co-op one of my main responsibilities will be processing Sam's orders on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays.
On Thursday we had our first co-op round table meeting. The round table meeting is an hour long meeting I will be attending every other week with other co-ops and co-op mentors where we can all discuss what we have been working on, work on our presentations skills, and prepare for our mid and final presentations as co-ops. For our next roundtable meeting we will all have to give "Get to Know You" presentations to the group, which will allow us to get to know eachother a little better and critique aeachothers presentations.In summary, my third week was the first week I was able to reach out to someone from another part of CORE and do some unsupervised work. I learned how to process Sam's Club orders, and I coordinated a file match with one of our International customers. I am still learning many new things everyday and although I am very tired by the end of the week I am really enjoying myself.
Until next time...
Thursday, January 31, 2008
My Second Week (1/21/08 - 1/25/08)
Alright well today is actually the last day of my third week at J&J but between my two night classes starting last week which made for a very busy schedule, and getting sick towards the end of last week I just didn't find the time to update my blog. So I figured I would take this time to recap my second week of my co-op before I discussed my third week.
The second week of training was my last week of group training with the other new full time hires and co-op. As opposed to the first week of training which was more general and applied to all new hires and co-op's working in the SLC (Sales & Logistics Company), the second week was more focused on training for our positions as CLS's (Customer Logistics Specialists). We started by walking through a day in the life of a CLS and then spent a majority of the week in training meetings learning how to use different computer programs that we will be using on a daily basis while processing and reviewing orders for the account(s) we will be responsible for or in my case as a co-op, helping out with.
Outside of training I continued to help my mentor Catherine with updating the spreedsheets that we use on a daily basis to track our previous weeks and current weeks orders throughout the order cycle. As a CLS, we handle the Order side of our account(s) meaning we are responsible for our customers orders from the time the order is placed in our system to the time until the order is delivered. We constantly strive to improve our customers order cycle by reducing the amount of errors on their orders through direct communication with the customer, reducing the total number of days in a customers order cycle (date order is placed-date of delivery), and one of our most important metrics that we are measured on as CLS's and something that I will most likely spend a lot of my time while on co-op trying to improve for not only our Sam's Club account but other club accounts within my team like Costco and BJ's is our OTD% (On Time Delivery). An OTD is when a shipment is delivered to the customers distibution center on the customers requested arrival date. For some customers our OTD% isn't really an issue, but for others there are many oppurtunities for improvement.
In summary, I learned a lot more about the order cycle and its different steps, gained a better understanding of what my role as a CLS will entail, and started to become much more familiar with the different programs I will be using on a daily basis.
I will try and recap my third week here at J&J sometime this weekend if not the begining of this coming week.
The second week of training was my last week of group training with the other new full time hires and co-op. As opposed to the first week of training which was more general and applied to all new hires and co-op's working in the SLC (Sales & Logistics Company), the second week was more focused on training for our positions as CLS's (Customer Logistics Specialists). We started by walking through a day in the life of a CLS and then spent a majority of the week in training meetings learning how to use different computer programs that we will be using on a daily basis while processing and reviewing orders for the account(s) we will be responsible for or in my case as a co-op, helping out with.
Outside of training I continued to help my mentor Catherine with updating the spreedsheets that we use on a daily basis to track our previous weeks and current weeks orders throughout the order cycle. As a CLS, we handle the Order side of our account(s) meaning we are responsible for our customers orders from the time the order is placed in our system to the time until the order is delivered. We constantly strive to improve our customers order cycle by reducing the amount of errors on their orders through direct communication with the customer, reducing the total number of days in a customers order cycle (date order is placed-date of delivery), and one of our most important metrics that we are measured on as CLS's and something that I will most likely spend a lot of my time while on co-op trying to improve for not only our Sam's Club account but other club accounts within my team like Costco and BJ's is our OTD% (On Time Delivery). An OTD is when a shipment is delivered to the customers distibution center on the customers requested arrival date. For some customers our OTD% isn't really an issue, but for others there are many oppurtunities for improvement.
In summary, I learned a lot more about the order cycle and its different steps, gained a better understanding of what my role as a CLS will entail, and started to become much more familiar with the different programs I will be using on a daily basis.
I will try and recap my third week here at J&J sometime this weekend if not the begining of this coming week.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
My First Week (1/14/08 - 1/18/08)
Well I survived my first week of my Co-op!
I met a lot of new people and learned a lot about the structure of Johnson & Johnson's consumer products supply chain.
Throughout the week I went to many presentations which covered organizational overview, BTSI's (Business Team Success Indicators), team information, supply chain organizational overviews, and CORE (Customer Order & Revenue Efficiency) systems, tools and process overview. In these presentations we discussed a few topics that I have already learned about in the classroom at Rider, such as reverse distribution and Sarbanes Oxley compliance.
In my free time my mentor Catherine introduced me to a few different programs and tools that I will eventually be using on a daily basis.
In summary, my first week went rather smoothly and mainly consisted of a general overview of the Sales and Logistics company and CORE division I will be working within, roles and responsibilities, and the many many acronyms that J&J uses.
My next post I will discuss what I have learned during my Customer Logistics Specialist Training during my second week at J&J and what i have learned.
Until next time...
I met a lot of new people and learned a lot about the structure of Johnson & Johnson's consumer products supply chain.
Throughout the week I went to many presentations which covered organizational overview, BTSI's (Business Team Success Indicators), team information, supply chain organizational overviews, and CORE (Customer Order & Revenue Efficiency) systems, tools and process overview. In these presentations we discussed a few topics that I have already learned about in the classroom at Rider, such as reverse distribution and Sarbanes Oxley compliance.
In my free time my mentor Catherine introduced me to a few different programs and tools that I will eventually be using on a daily basis.
In summary, my first week went rather smoothly and mainly consisted of a general overview of the Sales and Logistics company and CORE division I will be working within, roles and responsibilities, and the many many acronyms that J&J uses.
My next post I will discuss what I have learned during my Customer Logistics Specialist Training during my second week at J&J and what i have learned.
Until next time...
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