Snow in October

WEEK 20 (October 24-30)

On Monday I take a step back in time (well, to two months ago) and create a compliance plan for Switzerland’s DSP-5 license. It's kind of neat to go back through my template and be able to quickly punch out a compliance plan that used to take me twice as long.

Tuesday morning is filled with meetings.

I start the day over in Building 42 for an 8:00am meeting with a supply chain sub-section manager. You see, he has several PM Council action items attributed to him and my cube mate and I wanted to offer our assistance in anything he needs. We review the overall PM Council pitch and promise to get him some additional materials. 

After the meeting I don’t have long to get back to my building before a 9:00am meeting with my boss to discuss a new project for me. He gives me a run-down of what B & P means (it’s bids and proposals, by the way). He explains that for each proposal that has not yet been started or completed, there has been money set aside to use for the process (printing books, help from engineering, etc.) and that he has to track our monthly expenditures to make sure we aren’t overspending. He now wants me to be in charge of updating his slides. Yes! I love having tasks that involve a consistent stream of work (no, really, I do!).

After that I run over to Building 29 for an hour-and-a-half tour of the plant that assembles and tests the T700, CT7 and CF34 engine lines. It’s a great tour and the guide makes sure we all understand the components. I learn that the 'T' in T700 stands for military while the 'C' of the CF34 means it's a commercial engine. We even get to go into a test cell! 

Right after the tour it’s off to a Northeastern University Co-op speed networking event. Lunch is provided as each intern spends five minutes each chatting with Northeastern alumni now working across GE Aviation. When all is said and done I ‘network’ with about 10 new people.

That night I get an invite from my friend working at Hasbro to attend an ARF and Research Now Thought Leader Series called "Beyond the Traditional, How are you Measuring Online Advertising Effectiveness" taking place on November 16^th. I’m super excited to hear from experts about a field of marketing that I'm (obviously) invested in with my past work with virtual admissions fairs and what not.

I don't have long to get excited about my pending lecture series because I have to make my way to campus for another interview with a first-year student about my GE Aviation residency. Luckily, I already know the student so conversation is easy. Plus, I've already had a bit of experience chatting about my day job with other firs-years so I feel like I'm getting better at it.

Starting Wednesday my boss (and about half of the GE office!) will be participating in an event in Washington D.C. I hope that this opportunity to be relatively alone in the office will allow me to knock out a bunch of action items.

I start my day with some help from a Northeastern Finance co-op as he helps me with an Excel issue I’m having. You see, despite my best efforts at online training modules I cannot seem to master V-Lookups. In about 30 seconds he completes what I spent a good couple of hours trying to learn. But at least it’s done! I can now send off the spreadsheet which details which F414 engine parts are listed on a Bill of Materials (parts list) and which are not. We needed to determine this to see which parts we would be able to request for purchase for engine testing for an international campaign.

After that I start work on updating that Bids and Proposals (B&P) pitch my boss will present at the next Ops Council. This task entails me tracking down the most current CFD costs for the month and quarter and tracking how they compared to our estimates for the year. I actually quite enjoy this task as it involved me getting some inputs from another Northeastern Finance co-op up in the TSTP department. I am beginning to realize I will leave GE completely indebted to every undergrad finance co-op in my office. They're just so darn clever!

Next it’s on to updating a combined action item list that I based off my department's most recent international proposal. The job required a ton of work, starting several weeks ago with going through months of action item lists and removing redundancies, standardizing the statements and formatting them into a appealing ‘check list’. I’m hoping that this will become part of my Green Belt Project (which I’m continuing even without my official Six Sigma course).

Thursday morning I set about comparing and removing redundancies on a newly added list of parts for that procurement project I’ve been working on. The list is for an additional altitude test that will occur as far out as 16 months after the project starts. Fortunately, there are many duplicates which is good for GE because that means there are fewer parts we have to worry about buying or borrowing. 

During lunch I partake in an informative manager luncheon session (just one of many put on by the co-op committee at GE). We spend more than an hour getting a great overview of the engine lines produced by GE, where they are being used around the world and the business strategy behind them.

After lunch its right back to a meeting for the Project Management Council. We have a new PM Council leader and so she reviews where we are as a group regarding our attempts at improving process defects and we begin our discussion of where to go from here.

I also learn about the potential for a field trip to the Global Research Center of GE in New York! The day trip would take students into an facility that is creating the most high-tech and modern innovations at GE! Few people ever get to see this research and development center so I really hope I can attend.

Thursday night it’s time for class. But before I get to listen to our guest speaker it’s off to the grad lounge to hash out some final edits to my group's Market Research consulting project proposal and my 4^th meeting with a first year student to discuss my co-op experience.

Class that night is great! We have an employee from Communispace come in and present on what her company does (community monitoring and creating, by the way). It touches upon my interests in social media so I definitely take away quite a bit from the session. After she leaves, it comes time to get our draft questionnaires reviewed by our classmates. I hope to get some valuable feedback.

Friday morning the posters I've spent several weeks working on for the PM Council are delivered! Now I’m tasked with getting them placed in the five conference rooms in my department so that people can review them when preparing for a 650.10 Review (a financial review) or when working on introducing a new product.

Later that day, I get proposed to work on a new project with one of the team leads of the PM Council. It would entail taking a newly minted reclamation process proposal and creating a flow process/checklist to help ensure that everyone is in line with requirements and to make the sometimes convoluted legal document easier to understand.

Next it's on to deliverables for other members of my department. First up: creating a manual for the PBL (Performance Based Logistics) Contract Matrix I have put together during the past several months. The Senior Financial Analyst whom I created it for wants a manual that can be handed over to the next co-op so that they can keep updating it in the same manner I have. How cool! I even upload my manual onto the GE library.

I spend the rest of the day diligently sending out deliverables to my boss. Included in these mass e-mails is a proposal folder map to help better organize the material needed for compiling a bid.

Snow on a car - IN OCTOBER!

 The weekend (despite being 'Halloween Weekend') is relatively dull - and I love it! I feel like I've been so busy lately that I haven't had time to catch up on life, homework, etc. so that's exactly what I do. As a little spice (or ice?) to my Saturday Boston sees its first snow of the season! Snow? in October? Love it! 

*The views expressed in this blog are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of GE Aviation, Northeastern University, nor their staff, employees or affiliates.