Classroom to Warehouse: Final Thoughts on my Summer Supply Chain Internship

Introduction and Personal Learning Objectives

Coming into my supply chain internship with Southern Aluminum, I was eager to learn more about the depth of supply chain and experience what it looks like in a daily setting. During my internship, I got to see many different parts of supply chain. My main duties included ordering spandex covers, keeping track of consignment, and doing cycle inventory counts. Although these were my primary responsibilities, I also had many smaller, daily tasks. I created purchase orders for necessary parts and supplies, revised and sent out our daily demand report, and sat in on important vendor and team meetings. I even completed a project of creating a supplier evaluation form that will help with keeping track of the performance of our suppliers. I have learned a lot about the importance of supply chain in business and the importance of supply chain to customer service. As a furniture manufacturing company, the necessary parts and supplies need to be on time and approved for quality standards before we are able to sell products. The supply chain department forecasts to plan ahead so that we can avoid outages and meet satisfactory customer deliveries. There are many aspects that need to be considered to successfully run a company. I have been introduced to a program that helps us keep track of all of our purchases, inventory, and much more, and I have become proficient in utilizing that program. My Microsoft Word and Excel skills have been very useful to me during my internship as well.

Background Review?? ????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Many of my daily tasks and responsibilities were standard and important for maintaining the efficiency of the company. My supplier evaluation form project was one that I created and was implemented in our supply chain department. This project came about because of the importance of continuous monitoring of supplier performance so that customers can continue to be served with the quality furniture they deserve. This can only happen if we are able to rely on suppliers to provide us with the quality parts we need in a timely manner. Before this, we relied on supplier scorecards to keep track of supplier performance. The supplier evaluation form asks questions regarding the initial agreed-upon expectations about a purchase in comparison to what we received. The supplier’s procurement, management, quantity, quality, and delivery are all tracked on the supplier evaluation form. Supplier evaluation forms will be filled out for each supplier’s purchase orders biannually. A supplier evaluation form is a much less broad assessment than supplier scorecards, which are filled out monthly. The supplier evaluation form is an extension of the supplier scorecard procedure that is already in place. With the evaluation form, we will be able to get a firmer grasp on the accuracy of each individual delivery.

Responsibility Details

I had many responsibilities to attend to frequently such as, spandex covers, consignment, cycle inventory counts, purchase orders, and the demand report. Creating purchase orders was a very large part of my job. I would make purchases for supplies that were needed by our team, and also parts that were needed for our inventory. Creating a purchase order is logging a record of what we are buying into our system. Purchase orders contain information such as our supplier, the part(s) being purchased, a quantity, price, and a due date for the part(s) being ordered. We send these purchase orders to our suppliers to let them know that we would like to place an order with them and have them agree to our terms.

Consignment was another daily task of mine. When employees from our warehouse would pull different parts from the shelves to be sent over to the main plant for use, I would keep track of the items so that I could receive replacement parts from our supplier. This ensures that we will never have an outage due to missing parts, and it is also a way for us to track usage and transfers of our parts. I also sent out a daily demand report to our team. This demand report was created by transferring information in our system into an excel spreadsheet to forecast demand so that we would know what parts we needed to purchase to fulfill upcoming orders. On top of these daily tasks, I also had important tasks that were less frequent. Spandex covers can be ordered to put on the bottom of tables for a more custom, cleaner look. Every week, I would refer to our sales orders to see what spandex we needed to purchase and what spandex we already had in excess to fulfill these orders. After this, I would update the excess list as necessary, create the purchase orders for the spandex, send them to our supplier, and fill out the sales order form to show that the spandex had been ordered for that request. Cycle inventory counts were a task that I would do semiweekly. I would take inventory of our paints, boxes, and pallets so that we could put in orders for those if we needed more.

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Conclusion and Personal Evaluation? ??????????

Although some tasks in the supply chain department remain constant, every day looks different. There is also always a task that can be undertaken to improve the department. For this reason, work ethic is important. Sometimes tasks are urgent and need to be prioritized, which requires rearranging your schedule to attend to unexpected problems. Communication and collaboration are also important in this field. Especially with the purchasing aspect of supply chain, it is vital to communicate with your team to ensure parts are being ordered consistently, but not in duplicates. In the supply chain department, we also communicate a lot with production because they rely on us to have the parts that they need to fulfill customer orders. When things do not go as planned, it is crucial that we work together to find a solution because customer satisfaction is the ultimate goal.?

In addition to these revelations about supply chain, I have also experienced personal growth. I have learned to be adaptable and flexible because many unforeseen problems arise in the supply chain department. I have learned to communicate better because communication produces efficiency. I am more comfortable with asking questions because it is important to know background and reasoning before attempting to tackle a problem or task. I have come to understand how important an encouraging work environment is because any challenge can be successfully overcome with the right amount of support. As a Supply Chain Intern at Southern Aluminum, I have learned valuable lessons that will translate both inside and outside of the workplace. I am grateful to have been able to contribute to and experience supply chain in a new depth this summer.