My Industry Experience

I had a question about how my experience as a scheduling analyst might have led me to or prepared me for LGO.  To be honest, it didn't have that much to do with me coming to LGO, as I was placed in that position after I had already gone through the application process.  However, I think it really did help me once I got here to be able to look at more of the big picture.

As a Manufacturing Engineer, I was more concerned with the day-to-day operations of the engine facility that I worked at - in a nutshell finding problems and fixing them.  I really enjoyed this job, as I was able to see the tangible benefit of what I was doing, build relationships with a lot of different people on both the shop floor and in management, and really get my hands dirty working to find real solutions to problems - although my wife didn't always appreciate it when I would come home smelling like diesel fuel.  However, the problems I was able to solve were, for the most part, local to my specific part of the assembly line.  At times I would get frustrated because I wanted to have an impact on the "big picture" for the organization, but that was really outside of the scope of my position.  So while I liked what I was doing, I wanted to be able to do more, and LGO was the perfect program for me to prepare to do so.

When I became a scheduling analyst, my day-to-day drastically changed.  I no longer wore safety glasses and steel-toed shoes to work, I worked on my computer essentially all day long, and no longer came home smelling like a tractor.  This position posed a whole new set of challenges for me, and I think it really did help me to prepare for LGO.  I had to learn all of the different scheduling and database systems that we used in my department, monitor and report on inventory levels, work with forecasting, and find and fix any scheduling problems that I came across.  While I no longer worked with factory operations per se, my actions had direct and important impact on the operations of the facility.  If we messed up the schedule we would either have too much inventory or miss orders, both of which could cause major problems.  As well, I was able to see and understand the operations of the business from a different point in the supply-chain, one that gave me visibility to both our suppliers and our customers, as well as our own position.  It really helped me to get a grasp on the scope of what we were doing, and how seemingly small improvements in a supply chain can have dramatic effects to the bottom-line of an organization.  I've reflected on my experience in this position often in my coursework, and it has helped to solidify my understanding of operations and supply chains.

I hope I answered the question, but yes, working in scheduling for me was very relevant experience to operations and LGO.