Full Time Internship Over

   So tired last night, so the weekly summary was only few words. This week Didier was not in the office until Thursday, but my job needs his instant feedback, if any action is taken without his instant feedback, once mistake detected, rework will take much more time than initial work. Until now, my assignments are almost done, after next week, new assignments may be given. Pang will not be there in the next week. She will take care of her Baoyan things. Baoyan is a popular program in many universities in China, senior undergraduate students don't have to take the national exam, if they have an excellent academy record during the first three years in college, and they can enter the master school directly without any further tests. Similar program also exists for doctorate study.

 

   Review of what I have done/experienced/learned during these two months in Vlaeo:

 

1. Filing

 

  This is the main assignment. Its essence is simple, even a primary school student can do that, but the pre-condition is all the rules and detail instructions are given explicitly. I still remember the first day when I was in the office, my boss Didier gave me some docs to read, I finished in no more than three hours, but actually I didn't get much of the meaning, I just scanned through those simple words and made a general understanding. After that, my boss started to give me assignments, he talked for about 2 hours and wrote the main points on a A4 paper (I put it in my internship report). Those 2 hours were the most terrible hours in my life, I was still not used to Didier's accent and there were so many glossary terms in his talk, I thought I could understand what he said from that A4 paper, but I was wrong, his hand writing was also a big trouble for me, if you can see the scan of that paper in my internship report, and you are a Chinese, you will understand. My boss was always busy, when I have a question, I may hesitate before asking him, I doubt if he would shout at me when bothered. The fact is he is very nice and never shouted at me, but he would ask me to try to solve the problem by myself first, if I'm not capable to handle, he is right beside me.

Ok, though there is absolutely no idea in my mind how I can get my job finished, work have to be done. My boss's only rule is the filing system has to be standard and known to everybody use this system. That reminds me of the information management system in MIS class, my team built a library information management system using Access, to build a system like that, we have to first understand how the system works, the process of the whole operation and files could be used at each stage or procedure. In the first week, I did nothing but asking questions and read materials in those messy folders, the purpose is to understand the procedure of purchasing. Valeo is a big group corporation, there is no way you can understand a function department without understanding the group structure and culture first. After asking hundreds of questions and reading or skim through all the files, I started to make proposals, of course the first few proposals are crappy and pathetic or even stupid, but after improving again and again, finally I made a feasible optimal one. The following work is just make sure everybody deal with docs and file according to the system standard or rules I established, the first time I do it myself, the second time I do it my self, the third time I do it with others., the forth time I do it with others, the fifth time others do it by themselves, that's the way how it works, Didier told me yesterday, it's a hundred percent right.

After dealing with files and documents for almost two months, I learned that no matter how messy things are, if we just keep do it, keep improving, any problem will eventually be solved. Doing is much more valuable than hesitating about how to do. Initiative is a good thing, try to solve problem first by yourself, if you are not capable to do that, never hesitate to make your problem everybody's problem, don't forget to say thank you after other's help. 

 

2. Training in SVES

 

Shanghai Valeo Electrical System, Co. LTD. Twenty minutes from the office, at the end of metro line No.2, in there, I experienced a zero distance view of mass production/ industry age/ total quality management/ quality culture/ logistics management, any theory learned in classroom about industry engineering can find a match of practical application there. There were so many to learn, but only one week's training was arranged, it's a pity.

Valeo use QRQC tool to implement total quality management, and force their suppliers implement QRQC, with the same quality management system, Valeo take efforts to control defective PPM within one figure. There are lots of aspects with quality, I don't want to mention it here, it's not interesting if you are not a quality engineer.

 

3. Business visit to Valeo suppliers

 

I have two colleagues from Brazil division, they will be in China for half a year to solve some quality and productivity problems with Chinese supplier. I accompany them visit several suppliers in Shanghai. When visiting a supplier, we may do a quality evaluation with supplier if necessary, there are 8 aspects to assess, each aspect we have several index. After doing a evaluation, we get a comprehensive knowing of the situation in our supplier and decide if we can develop new business/hold current business or not. Our suppliers' quality level are mostly in low level, usually inspection department have more workers than machine operator. But quality anyway has to be guaranteed, that's why we are pushing our suppliers to buy new equipments and instruments.