I’ve been organizing table tennis tournaments in school time among the clubs in the district as a part of organizing a committee for up to 150 contestants. There I understood (obviously not fully aware that this is management) that certain disciplines have to work together to make the event successful. During my engineering, throughout 4 years, I was actively involved in organizing “SUMMIT” a national level event with over 5500 participants. I observed the work and cross functioning of different committees such as playgrounds, sponsorship, trophies, registration committees and so on. I reached to the conclusion that for an organization to succeed, it needs to have smooth and synchronized working between various departments.
As part of my Mechanical Sandwich Engineering, I had to do an internship for one full year. During my internship in Pune; I requested to be given an opportunity in two different departments. Considering my insistence I was assigned a major project, to test my capabilities. The first was to plan, schedule and implement the Preventive Maintenance (PM) activities of shop-floor equipment in SAP.
The first project was a challenge in itself for me. The main aspects of the project for which I found the project challenging were:
- No prior experience related to project
- Responsible without commensurate authority as an intern
- Short timeline for a given volume of a project (1200 plus equipment in 6 months)
- Working with all levels of hierarchy
Action plan:
- Prepare timeline for self. Study & review the existing structure
- Revise and assign new codes with logic building
- Study current scheduling, review previous year’s breakdowns and revised as required.
- Get the work done from IT team by emphasizing the need, urgency of implementation and the benefits to the organization
- Identified specific segments and processed in parallel to meet the timeline
- Thorough trials were taken before implementation
- Conceptualized separate training modules. Training imparted from technicians to General Manager
After evaluating the completion and implementation of this project in record time, another important project was given in the department of Safety to incorporate the OHSAS practices in online software from third party organization “mySetu”
Objectives and requirement:
- Hard copy of records of incidents reported its investigation, analysis, taking countermeasures were being maintained.
- This made the job of tracking of such incidents and related records difficult.
- Monthly reports required were prepared manual which required a certain amount of time.
- Incorporating the “mySetu” system would have made easy and live tracking of incidents, automatic reports generation.
- Also this made the process paperless as another initiative to establish an eco-friendly system.
Action plan:
- Study of ISO standards – OHSAS (18001)
- Understand the requirement of reports and data usually monitored to ensure quick and user-friendly access. At the same time ensure that other detailing reports and data is made available in a systematic and organized manner.
- Understand the requirement of the system/ software to be implemented
- Defining and preparing different modules as per safety standards like “HIRA, Walk Thro Audits, IRIS (Incident Reporting Investigation System)”, etc. along with their workflow and hierarchy.
- Defining access to the modules and their roles based on their organizational hierarchy.
- Conceptualizing training modules as different roles defined.
- Coordinating and imparting training to all departments from technicians to General Managers.
Takeaways:
- Effective communication
- Being assertive without being abrasive
- Inter-departmental and inter-organizational nature of work
During my internship, I realized the importance of formal education under experienced and reputed faculty. I followed up after graduating to check the status of the implemented system and was delighted to note its satisfactory working. Keeping in mind to gain a holistic view of the working of the organization I changed my department from maintenance to safety though I knew that, had I continued in maintenance for a full year, I would have got a pre-placement offer. The take away from my internship: no gains without calculated risks.
Even during my 32 months of work experience after of my graduation, I looked for the opportunity to change my department and switched from quality assurance to sourcing. As my internship company and campus placement organization were of different industry sector, I’ve got exposure to different nature of inter-disciplinary work.
To conclude, I believe, we all are learning management in some or the other form; be it time between our activities, resources, people, etc. Our priorities and thoughts change with times but as long as we are clear on our objective, we can always manage everything. After all “We manage things that are precious to us – business, family, children, wealth, etc. – Sadhguru”