Sunny Choi '11
Week 8
My second project at shipping department was also done on last week. It means that all the projects which were assigned to me are done, finally. I can't believe that I just have three more days to go. It is my first time to work at real company in my life. I believe that this is going to be one of the unforgettable memories of my life. I have learned a lot and I'm still learning. The biggest lesson that I have learned from this internship is the importance of communication skills. There are a lot of meetings for just one day. And, people work a lot with their emails and phones. Also, people discuss a lot with their co-workers regarding their works. Therefore, accurate and efficient communication skill is very essential requirement at workplace. Personally, this internship became a wake up call to me. I realized that I have a very long way to go to have good communication skills and I have to make a lot of effort at that.
Another big lesson that I have learned from this internship is the responsibility of my own duty. If I don't complete my duty at school, it is my problem. I can get F or fail my class. But, it doesn't affect other people. On the other hand, if I don't do my duty at company, it definitely affects to other people's life. So, I realized that when each person completes their own duties with serious responsibility and when each duty adds together, well, people can achieve the final goal of business which is making high profit in an honest way by producing good quality products for customers.
It was amazing two months. I worked at great company and I met many amazing people who were willing to give me their hands every time. I'm very happy to have had this opportunity. The best thing of this internship is that I feel I have grown up because of this experience.
Week 7
This week was pretty busy due to my second project that I have been working on and preparation for my final internship presentation. All of Quaker interns have to report their projects and experiences in front of senior managers, managers and supervisors at the final week of the internship. As one of the interns' last days to work was this week Friday, we set up our presentation day on Friday. There were four other interns at Quaker including me. Since we had been working at different departments, it was very interesting to hear other interns' experiences and their projects. My presentation went very well. I showed people the pictures of sensor and repeater to help people understand my project and also showed them my all excel tables that I made for my project. As people don't know about my project, I did not go to the detailed information. On Wednesday, all interns met together and ran through our presentations. We also had the time for exchanging feedback regarding each other's presentation with the human resources staff. It was very helpful meeting for my better presentation.
My second project, which is shipping discrepancy, has been going well. I ran shipment reports and receipt reports out of SAP and exported to excel to find out any discrepancy between two reports. We don't know the exact reason of these discrepancies. But, this work would help to make possible assumptions and possible scenarios of shipping discrepancy. Jim Hunt, Shipping department manager, will discuss with customers the discrepancy data that I am working on.
Week 6
Time does fly. It’s already August. My ending date of this internship is 20th and I just have two more weeks to go. Finally, we got two new repeaters in advance out of eight on last week Friday. Since 6th floor package and D-mill areas has been showing bad readings when we heat the factory up, my supervisor and I decided to install them to 6th floor package and D-mill. The rest of the six repeaters are in the process of being ordered. As soon as we get repeaters, we are going to install right away. I’m very looking forward to seeing better heat result on the next heating up day.
I started the new project at the shipping department. I ran shipment history reports for Cedar Rapids Plant, which is our factory, and receipt history reports for our destination out of SAP and WMS and exported to Excel to make a list for this project. On the both reports, there are many numbers for just one batch of product, such as item number, material number, production number and delivery number, of course with shipped and received quantities. I have to identify any differences between shipment reports and receipt reports. I marked all the differences with different colors. Also, I made comments if there is anything to report. We don’t know the exact reason for this shipping discrepancy. But, this project would help to make possible assumptions and possible scenario of discrepancy. It is all about computer work. So, it was little hard to me to sit all day in my office.
I have the summer internship presentation on this Friday in front of senior managers, managers and supervisors. I’m already nervous about it. There are four summer interns at Quaker in different departments. We are going to present our summer projects that we have been working on and share our experiences to people. This week will be very busy one as I prepare this presentation.
Week 5
I am done with my first project at QA department. So I started a new project at the shipping department. I think it is a very good opportunity to work with two different projects at different departments. There are some shipping discrepancies between shipped quantities from Cedar Rapids Plant and received quantities to destination. Even if both of places have the computer system which automatically traces the paths of shipping and receiving quantities with barcode system, there may always be big or small quantity discrepancies. So, my work is to run reports out of SAP and export to Excel to determine source of discrepancy between shipped quantities versus received quantities at destination.
I went to shipping department to meet Jim Hunter, a Shipping department manager. He showed me the whole shipping process and briefly explained several possibilities of discrepancy to be able to happen. I learned how to access SAP database on Pepsico website and wms, which is the database site for shipped reports and received reports. At the first glance, using new computer operating systems seemed to be very complicated. I wrote down every step for running reports and followed the instructions step by step. After I played with these two systems for several hours, I could run the first shipping report. I exported it to excel to save it and compared shipped reports and received reports to find out any differences between two.
I have the discrepancy data which are occurred for one week. I have to summarize this data into one table and make a comment for each discrepancy. I am still working it out, though I hope to be done within next week.
Week 4
During this week, I worked with our heating monitoring system called Promis. There were several questions regarding system software. When we collect the heat data from sensors, we want to get the data as Fahrenheit degrees. However, temperature data are not the same conversion for different sensors. Even some that are labeled as Fahrenheit still read in odd reading numbers. So, I was confused that whether this error occurred because the conversion is wrong or because the sensor is problem. I studied about this system with user manual and changed system unit parameters.
My supervisor has been working on this heat optimization project for a long time in order to obtain funding approval from the company. Finally, this project got approved and a Quaker engineer ordered eight new repeaters. New repeaters are going to arrive within next week. Final week of this month is our next heating up day. we heat the whole factory up once a month in order to kill insects and bugs in the factory. I am going to install eight new repeaters to the areas where I decided to be the best place in the factory. Therefore, I am really looking forward to seeing the result of next heating up after adding new repeaters.
From next week, I will work on the new project for shipping department. Fortunately, I am going to stay in my room which is located within QA(Quality Assurance) department. It’s been a month already. I passed the half way point of this internship. At first, I was afraid of working at real company and meeting new people. However, I have been learning many valuable things and meeting great people. I am very happy for having this opportunity.
Week 3
Posted on July 13, 2010
This week was somewhat slow. As the whole factory was shut down during this week and many employees made their vacation during this week, the whole company was pretty much quiet. I completed making a new list of repeater locations. Based on the list I made, I started to mark the location of each repeater on the PDF file. The next step for the heating optimization project was to determine where we are going to put additional repeaters. I needed to test to make a final decision for that. I brought a working-sensor to the areas where heating signals usually have not been reading well. I started to operate central heating pc and observed heat data coming out. Some sensors in the specific areas responded right away as soon as I put the repeater. They started to read pretty well. This is the right place for adding repeaters.
But, there were two kinds of repeaters which made me very confused. My supervisor and I figured it out by communicating with the person who sold these repeaters. There is one repeater which gets 418MHz from the sensors and broadcasts as 900MHz. Our central receiver gets only 900MHz. The problem was 900/900MHz repeater which gets only 900MHz and broadcasts only 900MHz. Our sensors only works with 418MHz, so 900/900MHz repeater doesn’t communicate with the heating sensors. My supervisor and I decided to add more 418/900MHz repeaters. During this week, I finally identified 10 proper areas for putting additional repeaters.
Although this week was shut down week, most of my department people came to office. On Friday, one of my great co-worker prepared awesome homemade lunch for people. We ate lunch together in the conference room and had a good time. It was an amazing experience. Many people have been working at Quaker for a very long time. Therefore, they looks like big family and this atmosphere makes me feel comfortable. My fourth week is coming already. I’m sure that next week would be also good.
Factory exploration- the second week at Quaker Oats.
Posted on July 6, 2010
Time is flying. Since I have started this internship, I think every day that time is flying. Last week, my all tasks needed to work with computer. So, I was stuck in my little office called as ‘cube’ to analyze heat reports all day. On this Monday, I completed analyzing each sensor’s information and identified which sensor was working or not. This process was conducted by the graphs which are showing the bunch of factory temperature at each time. If the sensor is working, the graph of temperatures has to show a specific shape like a mountain ridge. Most of the sensors’ graphs showed the right shape though, some sensors’ graphs showed very various odd shapes. So, it was little bit hard to make a decision that this sensor is working or not. So. I made names for odd graphs with my supervisor such as flat shape, convex shape, concave, stair etc.. Based on this analysis of the sensors, eventually we are going to remove all non working sensors in the factory. The information of heat reports was huge. Therefore, I was so happy for completing this task.
From the next day, I worked for verifying heat repeaters which are boosting sensors’ heat signals to central heating pc. The heat information of some areas of factory was barely sent to the central heating pc. There can be two reasons. First, sensors are not working. Second, repeaters are not working. The problem was that there is no exact information regarding repeaters. We didn’t know how many repeaters were located in the factory and where they were. So, I started to verify a list of the repeaters. There were old repeater maps. I made one repeater map by adding up all locations from each repeater map. I walked through all of the factory to verify repeaters’ location physically. As there were three different types of repeaters, I had to be careful not to miss different types of repeaters.
Exploring all factory areas while holding map was fun. I went to almost all areas of the factory and I watched all processes of Quaker oat products, such as milling and packaging, etc.. Some areas were very hot and others were very cool. All factory was filled with corn smell. Quaker Oats factory is huge. This place is the biggest oatmeal factory in the world. I got lost many times in the factory. whenever I was confused with where I should go and where I am, many factory workers gave me help and escorted to right places. Everyone at Quaker was very nice and were willing to give this clumsy intern help every time. I found twenty repeaters in the factory. I marked all twenty repeaters on the new map. My supervisor and I drew the line connecting each repeaters and measure the distance to the central heating pc. next week, we are going to decide which areas need more repeaters.
During next week, the factory is going to be shut down for break. Nevertheless, my work is not going to be shut down. I have to take care of new task for next week. Next week also seems like it will be busy.
The first week of my internship at Quaker Oats
Posted on June 30, 2010
I can't believe that my first week of the internship at Quaker Oats already passed by. As I had to get a lot of information during this week, it was little crazy. But at the same time, as I met many good people here, it was very happy week. Last Monday was my first day at Quaker Oats. I arrived at Quaker Oats at 8:15am. The initial orientation for internship was conducted by Human Resources supervisor, Dara Hickman in the morning. I took a little lecture about the history of Quaker Oats and PepsiCo. Pepsico is the parent company of Quaker Oats. Quaker Oats is the most well-known oatmeal cereal company in America, Quaker Oats at Cedar Rapids has the biggest oatmeal factory in the world. Also, I was educated for company values, safety training and benefit overview. I’m a supply chain intern. Among many departments regarding supply chain management, I am supposed to work with QA(Quality Assurance) department. After finishing the orientation, I met the QA supervisor, Matt Thornton.
After I had a lunch with him and several other QA department members, I was introduced to the rest of the department people and got a little room with my own computer. It made me excited. Matt explained the project which is that I have to work with him. My summer project is the heating optimization process. Quaker Oats is a food company. Therefore, maintaining clean environment for factory is very important. Once a month, the whole factory heats it up to maximum 150F to kill bugs and insects because they are bad for raw materials such as sugar,oatmeal and flour, etc. He is working on this project to find out the best optimal temperature. The heat is controlled by the facility temperature monitoring system. There are approximately 250 sensors which measure the temperature of all of the factory areas and about 20 repeaters which amplify the signals. A heating monitoring pc receives all the information.
My duties in this project are to analyze each sensor’s heat information and reporting the trends and any variables. It was huge amount of information. I draw each sensor’s graph to check out trends or variables. Also, I had to look through heat reports to identify which sensors failed for working and at what time during the heat-up that they failed. It was all computer work. So, my eyes were very tired during this week. This Friday was heating up day. I spent time with my supervisor to check out heating monitoring system and heating pc.
Some sensors information showed very unrealistic numbers and odd graphs. Also, there were some problems on repeaters regarding dealing with heat signals. My another duty is to verify repeaters availability. I used heat maps to identify a list of where repeaters are located and their availability. I’m walking through the factory to verify each repeaters and this work seems like to be done within next week.
Quaker Oats’s R&D lab is located within my department. It is very interesting to watch the lab technicians are testing oatmeal products. I met great people in my department. Not only my supervisor but also, senior manager of my department, lab technicians and each team member are all great people. I am very happy for having this great opportunity at great company. all of people in office work very hard. I hope I can contribute to this company through my summer work even if it is a small portion.