I'm usually at my desk at 8.30am and I'll spend the first hour or so making my way through the emails that have come in overnight. I'll spend most of my day attending meetings either face to face with the local teams, on teleconferences to my counterparts on other sites or to the vendors that I work with. With my current project I've an earlier than normal start one day a week to review data with our counterparts in Singapore. I aim to leave work a little earlier that day, some times I manage to, other times I don't but that's ok.
I have set amount of time each week that I dedicate to design work and I'll work through the design requests at that time, work with the development teams and get the designs approved for manufacture with the vendor. Given the variety of work I do - program management and design work for R&D, I have to be good at my time management and I've learnt to say no to non value added work.
Depending on the day of the week I'll usually finish up between 5pm and 6pm. I try to meet up with friends outside of work at least once a week to have lunch together and catch up. I just manage my daily schedule around that for that day.
What's not so cool?
7am teleconferences! I need alot of coffee for these meetings.
What's cool?
Working in Supply Chain gives you a very broad prespective of the business and you get exposure to many other business models through working with vendors. You get to see the whole supply chain team working together in two key roles to the business, as a service provider to the manufacturing teams and also as a customer of the manufacturing teams. The materials engineering role gives great opportunities for travel as you visit the vendors that you have responsbility for, completing audits, dealing with quality issues, qualifying new vendors. For me, the travel is one of the fun parts of the job and I've been to places I would never have had the opportunity to see otherwise.
What are the main challenges?
The main challenge for me is managing expectations,
expectations of management on project scope and deliveries and
team expectations.
In any program it's important to ensure that everyone involved stays aligned to the same goal and delivery. This process can take a lot of time and energy. You have to be 'on your toes' at all times and minimise divergent ideas as much as possible.
How did you go about getting your current job?
I applied for a job with HP while I worked with Sola ADC lenses. I wanted to get some experience in another multinational business and wanted to move back to Dublin. After 4 hours of interviews and a few weeks wait I eventually got the call offering me the job as a Specialist Level Engineer in Supply Chain.
After 2 years, I got a promotion to Senior Member of Technical Staff and with that an increased expectation to deliver more to the business. I trained in design work at this time as well. My current job has evolved from the experience that I have gained over the years working with the various HP teams around the world and the network of people that I built up through various projects that I've worked on. It's a very dynamic situation and continually changing so I rarely get the chance to be bored.
What are the main tasks and responsibilities?
My main responsibilities include:
Program management - Working with program teams to resolve issues and problem solving
Communicating with management on program progress & issues
Change management - managing program integration with other site priorities liaising with suppliers and dealing with quality issues.
Working with Suppliers to ensure their technology continues to meet HP needs.
Supporting manufacturing and R&D teams
What particular skills do you bring to your workplace?
My suppliers always tell me I'm very data driven, I like to have data to support the decisions I make. I'm very focussed on delivery but am realistic.
I'm very adaptable and am willing to take on work outside my comfort zone. I see it as an opportunity to extend my knowledge and skills.
I'm easy to get on with so I can get one with people at all levels in the organisation.
