Quality Trainee Review

My Placement at Triumph Motorcycles Ltd. started with mostly Inductions, greetings and learning. I felt like I wanted to dive straight in as soon as I got there, but now I realise I could not have done that. After the first month, my responsibilities grew exponentially, and I started to get a good name in the team. I realised that all I had learnt in the first month or so was vital for performance through the rest of the year. I thoroughly enjoyed working on engineering problems and investigations and all that followed from them. Everybody as the company is very helpful and friendly, something I quickly learnt as a nervous newcomer.

From early on in my placement, I felt like part of the team. I was addressed as a member of the team, not just by my department, but by other departments. I was given a lot of responsibility (especially in the latter half of my year out), and the positivity given to me by my team helped my confidence and motivation in the tasks I was given. Whenever I had an issue or was inexperienced in a task, my colleagues would drop there task where they could and help me out.

The team I worked with were possibly the best in the company, so many different personalities, all with a strong work ethic to their job and to helping me when I had difficulties. My team leader was exceptionally helpful, having given me an insight into the recruitment process, allowing me to cast my opinion on the next years placement student by looking at CV's and going to interviews. CV development was also a part of my university module for my year out, and my team leader gave me invaluable advice on what makes a good CV. My team leader also organised my time at the company and what tasks I would be carrying out, sometimes (where time permitted) he would give me a task and then help me with that task until I got the feel for it, enough to complete it on my own.

In the first half of my placement, I was tasked mostly by my team and team leader. This kept me busy throughout the week, especially when I was given development projects which required me to learn advanced excel and excel coding. To aid with these projects I was given the opportunity to go on an advanced excel training course, which was thoroughly valued and will be for years to come. I eventually reached a stage where I was fully trained and able to do most of the tasks required of me. For the tasks I couldn't do, I had the knowledge to seek out how to complete them. I was choosing my tasks, still having my own responsibilities within the department. I was given the task of introducing and managing the new placement student, and I feel this was a great experience for management and to show that I had reached a good level within the company and the department as a placement student.

My responsibility started of at zero whilst learning about the company, departments and processes. But not long afterwards, I was given the large responsibility of looking after a whole branch of audits, which I developed over my time. I was also give the responsibility of managing the new placement student when he arrived as I said above. Track stops were a large concern when dealing with investigations of parts on line cover, finding out where the concern lies, inspecting the parts, finding good stock to keep the track running, raising the concern with the supplier and purchasing, and sorting log term countermeasures, all whilst against the clock to stop a track stop from occurring. This I felt was a large responsibility. I was also attending meetings for projects, giving my input into the development of the projects. I was truly a member of the team early on.

The tasks I have learnt at Triumph will not only help me for my university degree but also for the rest of my career. I have gained valuable soft skills from working here as well as a lot of valuable hard skills (although some of them of unique to the company). Namely, my excel experience and training will be very useful for my final year and for my masters (if I do one) as data analysis is key in my course. I have learnt a lot by means of recruitment, applications and CV's which is invaluable for the future. Engineering investigations will help with similar tasks at university and liaising with different departments all over the factor and other factory's has greatly improved my confidence. the work ethic of the employees at Triumph is second to none, and I think I will miss this most of all when I go back to university.

The office I worked in was open planned, so different departments were together and could communicate easily. Every department was approachable and they all had great senses of humour to lighten up the place. My department were all very experienced and aided each other where they could. I truly felt at home when sitting at my desk surrounded by my colleagues.

At the start I felt like there was very minimal organisation, as my team leader and mentor was out to a supplier for my first week. But saying this, he did leave a folder of information to learn including standards, work instructions and systems. It also included my training monitor which outlined what I would be doing and when. Apart from the first week, I feel it was very organised. When I was unsure of the systems in the department I was given tasks to learn then and gain experience so that I could eventually complete and assign tasks on my own.

I completed a number of courses including an advanced excel training course. This was given to me as I was required to complete some development projects using excel and my knowledge of excel wasn't large enough to complete the tasks. I also gained help in learning the recruitment process by my team leader as well as learning different company systems with different members of the team. I was also given the responsibility to be the department representative at a supplier audit.

I believe I have learnt a lot at Triumph, being hard skills and soft skills as well as personal development. But I believe my future is in another sector, completing my university degree and then doing a masters will set me up for a totally different role in a different sector of engineering. If I had completed my a degree in the relevant sector, I would be striving for a career at Triumph. The opportunities with them are brilliant and the company will support you every step of the way.

As I have said, all of the employees at Triumph were very friendly and I gelled with most of them very well. I have befriended colleagues in full time work (Triumph veterans) as well as fellow placement students. I have also met a lot of people, being in the department I am in, I travel around the different departments a lot and liaise with other factories allowing my international relations to improve greatly.

With the site I worked at being a stones throw away, I decided to stay in my university City with university friends during my year out. Although a lot of my colleagues do live in the area meaning socialising was more difficult but I was still able to do it. Living in the area would be more beneficial.

As I didn't live in the area I worked I wasn't able to experience the nightlife in the area. Opportunities were given to socialise but with time constraints in other life commitments and with living further away I was unable to most of the time.

The company pushed team building activities. The team were not only colleagues but friends also. During my year due to complications I decided not to organise anything and not many activities were organised also. I believe this could be improved but there is difficulty in doing this with the wide variance of age ranges in the company.