Manufacturing Supply Chain Placement Review

I was working as part of a team based onsite to investigate opportunties throughout the manufacturing process with the aim to identify possible process improvements. Daily tasks included morning meetings for project updates and following up on meeting actions. Interactions with many employees across various different departments was required on a day-to-day basis to enable a deep investigaiton into process faults and to aid in carrying out optimal fault finding. I was responsible for this kind of investigation and was based both in the factory and at the office.

A lot of skills that were first acquired from work carried out at university were certaintly strengthened throughout my time on placement. Both technical skills in line with the manufacturing process as well as soft skills were used consistantly whilst working at Pepsico. In addition, I was also put through training for a software programme that was new to site which allowed for easier data collection, interpretation and analysis. Once fully trained, I was able to use this software to aid in my daily tasks for each project I was part of.

I was definately given a lot of responsibility throughout my placement which was shown in the work I was given and project teams I was part of. From day 1, I was treated like a full-time employee who received tasks as part of important projects. Such tasks were tracked and monitored by management who were always on hand to help in an way if required. Depending on the project, milestones were tracked by each team member through the use of daily, weekly and monthly meetings which I was required to attend.

From the beginning of my placement I was introduced to everyone onsite as well as everyone that I would be working alongside and their roles and duties explained to me. I was told that I could anyone for help and guidance throughout my time on placement. Every employee from management to the process operators were extremely helpful and gave such a knowledgable insight into the manufucturing process as well as the industy as a whole. The support given to me whilst on placement was amazing.

The culture at Pepsico was very much fun and friendly which made me feel very comfortable at work from the very beginning of my placement. They like to focus on involvement and making sure everyone feel included which, being a young person coming in to learn as much as possible to aid in my studies at University, made this much easier as I felt very involved within the company. The general atmosphere througout the office and onsite were both very postive and friendly.

I really enjoyed my time on placement with Pepsico. The work that was given to me and projects that I was apart of were very much in line with the theory and work I had been studying at University and it was enjoyable being able to pracitce this theory in an industrial setting as well as for such a huge organisation such as Pepsico. As a result, it was so rewarding being able to see process improvements on real capital projects from changes and decisions that I had made.

Yes

I would definately encourage other to apply for roles within Pepsico as I am very happy that I did, it is an amazing company to work for. There are also many opportunities within the organisation from social activities to extra learning opportunities for your own personal development and they are open to all so I would advice further applicants to take every opportunity they had and they will get the best out of their time at Pepsico.