Asset and Reliability Engineer Review

I enjoyed my placement for the most part, as it allowed me to finally apply what I had learned in university to the workplace. It was an interesting environment that was constantly changing, meaing that there were only a few times, near the start, where I didn't have any work.

My welcome to the company was fairly standard, however over time, I have become a proper member of my team. Around the plant, people are generally respectful of you, and are extremely helpful. Very rarely do people treat you as if you are "just" an intern doing a placement year.

Unfortunately, this is where the company falls down a bit, in my opinion. When coming into the plant, because people are busy a lot of the time, it means that you get given tasks which are just to read through things, but they don't really develop your knowledge. It took me a good few months until I was taught how to raise orders, which is a key part of my job.

At the start, before I got any training, or proper tasks, work was fairly scarce and led to mainly working with Excel Sheets. However, as time went on, I started becoming more and more involved in what my team was doing, and by the end, I was able to work away on some individual projects, whilst working on everyday tasks.

Much like the level of work, the level of responsibility slowly increased over time, up to the point where I had many of the responsibilities that the rest of my team had. It would be better if the placement were longer, as I wasn't able to fully complete some of tasks I was given towards the end of my placement.

I feel as if I would have had a bit more of a benefit if I had spent a bit of time in the other half of my department doing Control Engineering. Nonetheless, I have still gained a lot of experience and insight into the Manufacturing Industry, during my placement.

I was based in a large office consisting of numerous departments, and it created a nice, open atmosphere. The office itself was clean and open, with good access to the rest of the plant. The plant in general is also a very clean, aesthetic place to work, with constant work going on to upgrade the facilities.

As I was the first intern for my department, the process was a little clunky, but this was partly due to HR. Upon applying for the placement, the start date was vague, and HR were adamnt on me postponing my last few nexams. After having phone call with my manager, he was happy to postpone the start of my placement, to favour my exams, yet HR insisted I had to postpone them. This led to a lot of grief and time spent revising for them the next year.

At BMW Hams Hall, English interns have one year placements, whereas German interns only have 6 month placements. Because of this it feels like interns are only hired to quickly fill in any gaps in a team, before swapping them for different one later. It feels more like, `What can you do at BMW`, rather than the company investing in you as an employee.

In certain departments, the employment prospects are very good. Logistics for example has a plethora of grad schemes to get onto, which offer proper training. Maintenance on the other hand, doesn't really have any, and with the current limits on budget and headcount, it seems unlikely that there will be any future prospects.

A lot of the wekeends will either be someone's birthday or leaving do, and on top of that, there are always some events happening in and Birmingham which people can attend. Normally, as all the interns sit together at lunch, it means that meals out and events can be arranged quite easily. A few times, some interns have arranged to go away to Cornwall/Scotland for the weekend,

The cost of living is fairly average, with rent around the £400-£500 mark. Food isn't too expensive either, and being near Birmingham, you've got plenty of options to choose from. Overall, prices are fairly average.

The nearest town to Plant Hams Hall is Coleshill, which has a few pubs and restaurants, but nothing in the way of nightclubs. The better nightclubs can be found in Birmingham, espcially Snobes, which is at most only a 25 minute train away.

There were very few opportunities arranged by work, however, the interns as a group were able to arrange numerous activities outside of work, such as cinema trips, weekend trips away to different parts of the country, or a meal together. The only opportunities arranged by work were charity events, such a mountain climbs, or football tournaments.