On Monday we received our FIMSIM materials. Each team will run a grocery store for sixteen weeks with expansion taking us up to a possible total of four stores. The team with the greatest net income at the end "wins," although it's really the opportunity to learn analysis and strategy and to fail without consequences, that matters - but we still want to win!
After our classes on Monday we took a trip out to City of Industry to visit Heartland Farms, a dairy processing plant owned by Stater Brothers. They put on a nice lunch for us and Scott Gonia, the Director of Plant Operations, took us on a tour of the facility. The plant produces tens of thousands of gallons of milk products and juice each day and it's amazing as you walk around how few people it takes to operate the plant.
Chris Jongko from Kraft dons his hairnet in preparation for the tour.
Jimmy from Costco and me, also in our hairnets.
The receiving dock at Heartland Farms. Each truck brings in 5,500 gallons of milk.
Dawn, Rod, and Jimmy look on in the testing room as a technician explains how they test to ensure there aren't any antibiotics in the incoming milk and what they do if they find any.
A machine on the line boxing the cartons of juice (automation).
The white arm-like thing inside the cage is a robot that picks up the boxed product using suction and palletizes them. Everyone was enthralled by the speed and precision with which it worked.
Here another robotic station shrink wraps the finished pallets before they're sent down the conveyor line to the cooling room.
Below the pick line brings many different products together into various slots where the computer uses a series of gates and conveyors to "pick" the products for each order. Orders of less than a full case are picked by humans. Because of the automation and computer control they can track the fluid in any item all the way back through the plant to the truck that brought it in, and the farm from which it came.
The tour was great and the staff were very knowledgeable and pleased to answer our questions. It's incredibly interesting to see what goes into getting that jug of milk or bottle of juice onto the store shelf.
After class I spent about six hours analyzing the FIMSIM data and building various analytic spreadsheets as well as an operating statement by department to use not only for summarizing our performance, but to project, based on our inputs, what our stores' net income will be. This also allows us to validate our decisions before we finalize them each "week."
After that I did some reading, wrote a paper for Professor Hill about my personality or at least my own perception of it, which should be fairly accurate now that I've spent the last two weeks learning all about myself.
Tuesday we had class until noon and then I spent the afternoon working on various projects, reading, and working with my FIMSIM team to make our first "decision." It was actually a practice decision since Professor Arnold was nice enough to give us the opportunity to take a crack at it without having to live with the consequences. This was great because not only did it give us a chance to get familiar with the simulation, but we were also able to test a strategy and see what happened. I won't tell you all what our team's strategy is, in case any of my classmates are reading this, but I will tell you that we came out within $100 net income of our projection. That's not to say we nailed every component, but overall we were where we thought we'd be.
After that Dawn invited several of us over for meatloaf, mashed red potatoes with kale, and steamed green beans. Eveything was great and it's always a nice event when someone decides to make a home cooked meal!
Wednesday we made our first presentation in the Experiential Learning Center (ELC) where we presented to our small group everything they needed to know about us - specifically our strengths and personality types as defined by the instruments we've taken over the last two weeks. The "fun" part was that we were video taped and then saw the results and received "feedforward" from our groups on what we could do in the future to be even better. My group ran a little long so I didn't get to see myself right then, but my group said I did a great job and that I seemed very comfortable. Feeling well pleased with myself I took the DVD home only to see several glaring things that I need to work on when I watched it. It wasn't a bad start, but I can and will do better.
Thursday was our first accounting quiz. There was a lot of anxiety by most of the class that was only somewhat assuaged when halfway through we were allowed to work in groups and given until the end of the day to complete it. The additional requirements were that there could be no more than three in a group, we were honor bound not to use notes, and we could not talk to any other group until everyone had turned it in. I got myself into a little bit of hot water and picked up a new nickname - "Kobe."
It all started as soon as Professor Davila (a huge Laker's fan) said we could work in groups (and before he'd added the other requirements) and half the class yelled out "Kevin!" I said "Whoa, wait a minute I need to look at the questions and understand them before I can help anyone else." The rest of the class started to talk amongst themselves and the Professor added that once you'd started conversing you were bound to that group. This made it easier for me, but then Professor Davila, seeing that I was still by myself, asked if I was Kobe Bryant and I could do it all on my own - it was good natured, but I don't think he was really joking. I should have either just said yes or explained that I'm an I (Myers-Briggs "Introvert") and need to think about the question and my answers before discussing, but instead I just said no and started working with Chris Jongko who was right next to me. The funny thing was that Chris was more comfortable with the material than most of the others in the class and didn't really need me. I think we did well enough on the quiz so long as we answered the right question. The other thing about Professor Davila is that he seems to prefer to just hand out a fact sheet and then either make up the quiz question on the spot or give you a question that's totally different than the one written on the quiz (if indeed there is a question listed on the quiz), so we'll see.
I kept quiet for the next half hour and by then any tension (that was probably only in my mind in the first place) had blown over.
Friday we came in for a three hour session with Professor Arnold where the Nielsen Company came in and presented what their service does for the industry as well as a Case Study assignment for our class using their data. This was where we picked up our third working group of the week which makes scheduling a lot more difficult. My group's assignment is to represent Kraft's Starbucks coffee to a retailer (Retailer X) as their account team. We're to use the Nielsen data to craft a presentation over the next two weeks to convince the retailer to give us a commitment for an endcap display, including a sampling event, to promote Starbucks special holiday varieties in 12oz bags during the winter holiday promotional window.
What's fun about this project, aside from getting to use real data and reports from Nielsen in a realistic scenario, is that Chris Jongko has represented Kraft's Starbucks, Folgers, and Maxwell House brands (the three brands that all of the presentations relate to) to Walmart for the past two years. This project gives him the opportunity to be the "expert" in our class and although he's not on my team he has graciously offered to help everyone with the Nielsen data and how to use it in analysis.
After the case study assignment presentation we all went to the University Club with the executives from Nielsen and Professor Arnold and had a chance to sit and talk with them about their insights into the grocery industry. They were also very interested in our insights and asked a lot of good questions about our companies and business.
By the end of Friday everyone was just about dizzy. Those who could, left for home to see their families and catch up. About a dozen of us that are staying at Oakwood went to Wharro, a korean barbeque restaurant nearby, for a fun dinner that had us sitting around a table inset with charcoal grills and grilling up our own meat and vegetables. We had a great time and were still able to make it home by 8pm. I then worked on the assigned accounting homework and read some more books before turning in for the night.
Finally a note to all my loyal and supportive readers: I'm going to try going back to posting evey day or two. It's probably more interesting and a better story for you that way and I don't have to think so hard to remember what happened for the whole week. Look for a new post tomorrow!
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