Outbound Logistics Placement Review

Booking cars onto transporters and vessels to depart globally to our dealers around the world, whilst dealing with any damage claims that may have occurred, refining the end of line process including inspections and bagging of cars, sorting ad hoc deliveries such as one-off special Valkrie air-freights. Also the company introduced a brand new ERP system and so I was involved in a lot of testing and systems development for our area.

Managing stress, meeting skills, planning (both planning time and physical planning of car movements), working to deadlines, now proficient using PowerBI and even more proficient in Excel than at the start of the year.

A vast amount of responsibility - perhaps too much especially regarding the new systems testing but in that deep end you quickly learn and I'm grateful for the opportunity. Day-to-day responsibility was the same as everyone on the team which was great, I wasn't just 'the placement student', I really felt like part of the team.

The supply chain HR contact was great and very helpful, the company frequently put on support forums. Management wise was very supportive but there were times I was a little isolated but that is probably more on me as I struggle to ask for help. Overall very supportive and great guidance.

The office is full of like-minded individuals and you can have a laugh with a lot of the office. Being in supply-chain with the current struggles globally not just here, the office is often tense and stressful around you, but amazingly people can always make light of it. We started an office 7 a side football game every other week which was great to relieve some stress after work.

Overall I thoroughly enjoyed my placement, and gained some great experience. There were some extremely difficult times, a couple of months where I felt isolated and under so much pressure, however through hard work I saw the end of that towards the end of the year and I began to enjoy again.

Yes

Go for it, be prepared for a lot of hard work but a thoroughly enjoyable time. Brush up on Excel skills. Learn a bit of a niche whilst you're there, its a great opportunity to teach yourself some new skills whilst applying them to the business, eg learn PowerBI and build dashboards to help your team - you will come across very well.