5000 Miles from Home

The strength of our diverse portfolio at Baker Hughes has allowed me to spend my second assignment on the ASPIRE Development Program in our Flow and Process Technologies valve manufacturing facility in Kariwa, Japan. 

In October 2019, our Supply Chain program manager, Thierry, messaged me asking if the potential role in Japan was still okay. I didn’t hesitate to confirm, but little did I know how much this experience would impact my life. 5000+ miles is a pretty long way and integrating to a culture so distant to all of my previous working experiences has provided learnings that I could not have even imagined I would be exposed to as part of any job.

I arrived in late January, and it’s fair to say that I was a bit lost – no friends or family with me, no apartment, no rental car, and pretty bad Japanese – certainly not fluent enough to organise an apartment or car. I had no real idea on how the next months would play out, but it didn’t take long for this to turn on its head, mainly thanks to the leadership of Neil Mukherji who mapped out exactly what my assignment priorities were. I was extremely fortunate to spend a week with Neil in person, before Teams became the default method for such introductions.

Working in an environment so far detached from the familiar culture of your “home”, presents challenges which simply cannot be found when staying within your own country. Driving change and influencing others without the ability to communicate in one common language has forced me to develop alternative methods of presenting ideas and leading the execution of projects.

I lead initiatives to improve all aspects of our warehouse – capacity, utilisation and efficiency. I implemented a flow layout to simplify the entire material management process, which in turn drove a 40% capacity improvement, without modifying the overall footprint of the area. I consolidated our off-site storage requirements in to one external rooftop and lead the physical set up required for a successful SAP Go-Live which took place this month. Having the support of our internal warehouse team, as well as local and global materials teams made these changes possible and successful.

For implementing a new layout in our "Supermarket" of stocked items, upwards of 30 days’ worth of individual work was achieved in 6 hours with zero lost time. The photograph below captures the project perfectly, showing everyone on the move with material, or supporting each other to reload the racks. This was the most fulfilling day of my career to date - after weeks of individual planning and articulation around the exact layout, a 30-strong team supported flawless execution of all the changes - teamwork at it's best.

I leave Japan a different person to the one who arrived – a more rounded individual ready to take on another new challenge, just slightly closer to home.

My final assignment as an Associate of the ASPIRE program is in Shannon, Ireland where I am leading the Logistics and Shipping department of our multimodal Digital Solutions facility. A big challenge in a fast-paced operations environment with front line leadership of a highly skilled team. It's an opportunity that I’m grabbing with both hands.

#WeAreBakerHughes

Cover photograph taken pre-pandemic.