Internship Course Experience
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The economy is changing daily, and with it, skills, talents, and experience need to be a component of that growth cycle too. In today’s job market, competition is very high, and often that forms a hard curve for both continuing students and recent graduates. It is one of the significant reasons why internship opportunities and applied learning has become a crucial part of the college experience for all students (Tepper & Holt, 2015). The essential element of an internship is that it blends theory and classroom experience with practical application and skills acquired in a community or professional setting. Internship brings a wealth of advantages to students both when completing degree studies and when looking for a career path after graduation (Tepper & Holt, 2015). In this paper, I will examine my internship course experience and the learning objectives achieved during the course.
My operations management degree program has offered a wide range of knowledge on performance and how to link people and workflow processes to maintain optimal efficiency for a company or an organization. Among the skills acquired in my classroom course work include an understanding of the core tools and concepts of operational management. Among these concepts include Planning, supervising, organizing, and leading coordinated operational tasks in a manner that supports the strategic goals of an organization. These class concepts have, therefore, helped in promoting a personal understanding of the effective integration of operations across an organization (Khanna, 2015). Knowledge of these concepts is essential in keeping customers satisfied. These skills also offer sufficient understanding of other related professional fields such as procurement, operations, revenue, and performance excellence.
My main objective of being in an internship program was to explore operation management as a profession. While I had an idea about what the job is like, Being in the real work was the best way to know if operations management was what I thought it is, evaluate the already gained training, and also ascertain if it is something I like. As an operations intern, I learned a lot about management techniques to lead others and supervise, hence gaining experience as an unpaid employee in operating management (Olsen & Tomlin, 2020). I helped implement and manage production plans in manufacturing projects and maximized daily functions using leadership techniques and skills to improve work quality. Primary tasks performed include joining meetings with managers to brainstorm on solutions, upgrading products, and product lines, writing and researching detailed logistic reports, and anticipating issues in materials or equipment before the delay arises.
Operations management is a business field that deals with managing the normal operations of the business to maintain efficiency in the implementation of projects (Khanna, 2015). It means that different departmental heads will need to perform various strategic tasks. Knowledge and understanding of Product design form one of the major successes of my internship program. I was able to participate in the process of generating new business ideas or upscaling of currently in progress ideas that lead to the creation of new products. The internship period highly improved my ability to create a great product with a large and clearly defined market. The final products should resolve a real customer problem and offer high differentiation to stay competitive in the market (Homburg et al. 2015). A top customer product must also be defined across technology, consumer, and business before its full implementation. This knowledge of product design is vital to prevent a company or organization from losses that occur due to the implementation of the wrong products. Customers are primarily interested in the quality of the products or services more than their quantity (Homburg et al. 2015).
Participating in supply chain management and delivery management duties was also an essential part of my internship period. While supply chain management deals with the managing of the real production process form raw material to the final product, delivery management involves the timely delivery of the finished products to the customers. A supply chain is managed by maintaining control of the production, inventory management, sales, distribution as sourcing of the potential customers to supply the produced goods at a reasonable price. A proper supply chain and delivery management in the company lead to low overhead costs, efficient production process, and timely delivery of final products. In the course of the program, other team members and I regularly received customers complains about a specific feature of a product. A proper repost of this feedback was then delivered to the relevant authorities.
Among the significant challenges faced during the internship period was the inability to coordinate between different tasks. Operations management involves dealing with various tasks and which in most cases, happen simultaneously (Olsen & Tomlin, 2020). It consists of taking on specific tasks simultaneously and efficiently switch between activities. As a new and inexperienced professional in this field, task coordination posed considerable challenges in how I conducted my routine work. An operational manager should be able to deal with obstacles, interruptions, and crises and efficiently turning back to the normal daily regular functions and prevent further disruption.
The Mountain of reporting also remained a challenge. As an operations management intern, I was highly involved in much of organizational reporting. These tasks included the communication of data to stakeholders and a compilation of performance and financial data. Challenges arise in cases where a company has not kept accurate records. Proper record-keeping on profit and loss, as well as sales goals, are essential to evaluate long-term business viability (Olsen & Tomlin, 2020). For example, I have witnessed the company development team face regular challenges with the marketing department on different decisions and goals.
Unlike in other departments such as finance and marketing departments, where managers bear responsibilities of their unit departments, operations management integrates different departmental roles where a manager is assigned an array of asks across several disciplines. Participating in this kind of work enriched my professional portfolio by offering new work skills. First, the internship opportunity improved my organizational abilities skills. It refers to the ability of the operations manager to pay attention or focus on a variety of projects without the interruption from many processes. Operations managers must plan, implement, and monitor each project without losing focus (Monczka et al. 2015). When a manager is not organized, there is an accumulation of work, essential documents may also get lost, and the majority of work time will be spent looking for these documents (Monczka et al. 2015). Excellent organizational skills improve production efficiency and assist managers to save time.
Secondly, the internship program equipped me with people skills that are essential in the operations management profession. Most of operations management tasks involve interacting with people. It means that I must know how to relate with different people, such as employees, senior management, and other outside stakeholders. For work efficiency, an operational manager should know how to maintain a fine line with other essential stakeholders by knowing how to listen, communicate, and relate to them on personal and professional levels (Thompson, 2015). A work environment consists of people with diverse cultures; as an operations manager, it is, therefore, essential to show understanding and tolerance to other people.
In conclusion, I view my internship program to be successful. The program offered me a great learning opportunity to grow my operations management profession. Although there were few disadvantages, such as being buried under a mountain of reporting, the advantages outweigh them. The internship program did not only offer vital operations management skills but also made me a better employee by improving my self-confidence that is often necessary for the workplace.
References
Tepper, R. J., & Holt, M. P. (2015). Unpaid internships: Free labour or valuable learning experience. BYU Educ. & LJ, 323.
Khanna, R. B. (2015). Production and operations management. PHI Learning Pvt. Ltd.
Olsen, T. L., & Tomlin, B. (2020). Industry 4.0: opportunities and challenges for operations management. Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, 22(1), 113-122.
Homburg, C., Schwemmle, M., & Kuehnl, C. (2015). New product design: Concept, measurement, and consequences. Journal of Marketing, 79(3), 41-56.
Monczka, R. M., Handfield, R. B., Giunipero, L. C., & Patterson, J. L. (2015). Purchasing and supply chain management. Cengage Learning.
Thompson, N. (2015). People skills. Macmillan International Higher Education.