About the project:
My project was titled “Analytics development for production and distribution planning”. I had to come up with a process that would create dashboards, which would capture the risks associated with the production and distribution. Along with this, it also had to have the actionable insights that planners could take so as to mitigate the risks. I was also required to prepare a standard operating procedure for the same so that in future outsourcing could happen. Since this was a live project that Marico intended to implement there was a great deal of importance given. The initial few days went by with the induction into the supply chain department by my guide and other managers. One of the main challenges that I faced was with respect to deciding the scope of the project, since it was a very broad project. Another challenge that I faced was coming up with a solution that would hold true for the complete range of products for Marico.
Experiences/Learnings:
· For someone who is an electronics engineer and then worked in the IT industry for 3 years, supply chain was completely a new experience all together. Right from getting to understand the basic structure of a supply chain to seeing how the production happened (during a plant visit to Dehradun) the whole two months was a sea of change. Understanding all this also proved to be a major challenge that I had to overcome.
· People are always there to help and it is just a matter of asking them for help or guidance. More often than not, the managers would have already faced the same difficulties that you are facing. One should not restrict oneself to just the guide/manager but interact and learn from as many people as one can.
· As an organisation, Marico is extremely flexible in the way it operates. There is no entry time or exit time and even an intern can come and leave the office whenever he or she deems to (but more often than not, there would be enough work to keep one in office for the complete day)
These were my experiences with Marico. It was an unforgettable experience working with Marico and something that I shall value for the rest of my career.
The author is Mr. Nikhil Gopalakrishnan, 2nd year student at SJMSOM, IIT Bombay.
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