How I optimized the Canadian HP office in my freshman year of college.
A detailed guide on how to advance your internship and improve the effectiveness of the company you’re working for.
Hello! My name is Leo and a year ago I moved from Russia to start studying at Humber College in Toronto. My life has changed tremendously since then and I decided to write this article to share my internship experience at a large Canadian company.
I am currently in my sophomore year of college and during my summer internship, I was able to initiate changes in the system of an entire enterprise with a 40-year history. Everything went according to plan but I sure would have felt more confident if I had a guide like this to read a year ago… That’s why I felt compelled to share my experience and provide tips for others trying to achieve similar goals.
I would “modestly” call my case a good example of going above and beyond, and achieving great results with an internship in a tech company. The internship took place in an official representative company of HP in North America. They specialized in dealing with warranty repair and routine diagnostics of computers.
During the internship, I developed and proposed a plan to implement a system that would optimize the work processes of a company with over 150 employees. After weeks of preparation, the plan was approved by management and is currently being executed in every office across the company.
I am no specialist and by no means a writer, but I tried my best to articulate my first experience working in Canada in such a way as to draw conclusions and provide guidance. I hope that those who plan to study and eventually search for employment in Canada or the USA find this article interesting and insightful.
I’m sure you’re curious how I was able to achieve this, so let’s start from the beginning! Enjoy reading!
Why do an internship?
An internship is an incredibly effective and fast way to get the skills you need to succeed in your field. They help you understand the principles of work and the structure of any company as a whole without long preludes and unnecessary information.
Personally, I wanted to do an internship because I had the desire to work in a large company with strong values and corporate culture. Unfortunately working at such a place temporarily is not easy, so I decided to choose a medium-sized company, HP’s Canadian subsidiary — Memofix.
$ 14 per hour and get started
Let me take you back to April of last year… School ended abruptly, I was bored at home during quarantine and my money was running out. I thought to myself “A summer internship seems like a pretty good idea at this point.” Fortunately, the program I was enrolled in offered optional co-ops. After deciding to pursue it, through an acquaintance I was able to find a full-time internship working as a QA specialist at minimum wage ($14 per hour).
From the very first day, it became clear that the work was not dusty, but routine. My responsibilities included: visual inspection of the external state of the PC, bios testing of components, and checking Windows. After that, the PC had to be wiped, pierced by the barcode in the system, and sent to the next station to prepare for shipment (OBA). I did this on average 50 times a day…
Something about the routine didn’t seem right and it was clear to me that it wasn’t the most effective way of learning. After 1.5 weeks, the routine became exhausting. I had bags under my eyes, constant thoughts before and after work about why I accepted such a position, feelings of frustration, etc. Then I decided to “take the bull by the horns” and figure out what I could do to possibly improve something in the system.
Where to start and where did I start?
Get started by acquainting yourself with the company and its employees. Explore the business from the inside out. The easiest way is to ask your colleagues to arrange a tour for you and briefly tell you how everything works. This step is essential to developing an understanding of how the office functions, and capture the simplest picture of the challenges it is currently facing. For clarity, you can sketch observations.
In my case, after observing my office, I decided to analyze my activities and the work of my colleagues. And this is what I got:
The whole complex works on the principle of a conveyor belt with personal computers (hereinafter referred to as PCs). The main building is divided into 3 zones/areas.
1 — (receiving) PC reception, distribution by repair type, registration in the system.
2 — (repair and QC) computer repair and 3-level quality control.
3 — (shipping) sending the repaired PC back to the owner.
On average, 130 PCs come from and go back to clients every day.
My section (2 — repair and QC) worked like this: Technicians received computers (Repair), repaired them, and sent them to a quality control station (QC), where computers were first checked and then prepared for the next phase (OBA) and moved to the department dispatch.
After examining how your office/company works as a whole, analyze it in detail. Ask yourself questions. “Why am I doing this and not otherwise?”, “What is the purpose of my specific actions?”
After this, you will have a number of questions about your environment which you most likely will not be able to answer yourself so be prepared to identify who and what to ask.
Formulate the questions, ask them first to your colleagues, and then clarify them and ask your immediate supervisor. Your manager will be glad that you are asking questions, it shows them you are interested and take initiative.
After analyzing my workstation and technicians’ stations, I started to have questions.
For example:
Why, after the technician has finished work, he waits until he has 3–4 PCs and only then carries them, and does not bring them right away? Thereby creating downtime at subsequent stations…
Why doesn’t a QA who “stands up all day” go and take the computer from the technician himself? Thus, solving the problem of the irregularity of its loading…
I started by asking questions as such to my team lead and colleagues, then after refining them I posed them to our manager. Occasionally I received comments that justified certain aspects of the processes, but often there were: — “We always do it this way because it works” — It is what it is. From specialist to specialist, such formulations changed and became smoother, but the meaning remained the same.
After 3 weeks, I collected all the meaningful answers and decided to figure out what to do with the unanswered questions. I got ready and went into a “serious” conversation with the manager, who already knew that I was asking a lot of questions. I asked my questions and presented the material I collected. He listened and then talked about what problems are observed in the office from week to week and showed the reporting.
The main problem was the movement of the refurbished PCs from the technicians to the quality control point. This was seen in the performance jumps at the QC station. Which in turn affected the quality of our work. The manager went on to talk more and more about all the existing difficulties because he saw a sincere interest from my side.
After you find the answers to your questions, analyze them. Think about how you can improve what you see? How can you solve the existing problems? And how can you help your colleagues do their work faster and more efficiently?
This is a watershed moment in your internship and will determine its success. Show interest and concerned colleagues will be drawn to you.
Preparation
It is likely that even having the problem defined and collecting answers to your questions you will not know how to improve the work of you and your colleagues. Books and articles are your best friends in this situation.
I had never had such an experience before, so I decided to read something first. How such optimizations are generally carried out.
Here are a few books that I read either before or in parallel with the process, along with my comments:
- Essential Guide to Operations Management (David Bamford & Paul Forrest) — a book full of analyzes of different tactics and methods with examples at the end of each chapter, this is where I found answers to all the basic questions about my project.
- Essential Tools For Operations Management (Simon A. Burtonshow-Gunn) — a kind of managerial vocabulary, however, for people familiar with the basics of management, as well as for me for practical tasks, this book is of little use.
- Management and Supervision for Working Professionals — Volume 1 (Herman Koren) — Tutorial, from the UofT library. Unexpectedly it helps to understand the principles of the hierarchy and the responsibilities of employees in the company.
After reading the first chapters and studying similar projects, I decided to call and consult with an experienced leader, my father. He runs a large company and it turned out to be more difficult to talk to him than my boss at work as my father was very busy. I had to formulate a task, read books, and only after that, I received valuable advice from him on how to do what I planned.
I already understood the problems and tools, he only highlighted the accents and gave me confidence. The advice he gave me on why these problems exist as well as fairly obvious solutions were helpful.
I began to better understand my colleagues and focus not only on what needs to be done but on how to be an asset to my new team. How to treat with care the traditions, the culture of the team, and each employee, not sparing my time and energy, which I had more than the rest.
I highly recommend reading at least 2–3 books on the topic of operational management. This will help you get a basic understanding of how companies operate and how to optimize business processes. After that, try to consult with an experienced leader before starting the transformation, and ask for 2–3 meetings during the course.
The first steps.
Before you start looking for a solution, you need to identify what is causing and/or contributing to the problem. To do this, create a fishbone diagram. The diagram will focus your attention on the key factors that affect the problem and it will help to prioritize.
In my opinion, the main problem with the downtime of PCs at the technicians’ desk was that they did not understand their contribution to the overall result of the work and resisted the most obvious solution — to move the PCs one at a time as they were ready. Some computers are heavy and you need to walk up to 80 feet. For a person who first sits for 2 hours and fixes a PC motionless, taking a heavy box in their hands and carrying it 80 feet on their stomach is not easy.
Besides the inconvenience and severity, it is also unsafe. The carrier cannot even see his legs, and there are often wires from the chargers on the floor. Less obvious, but also significant, is the distribution of tasks. For example, the most highly qualified employees in the office (technicians) were doing the most unskilled work of couriers.
The proposed solution to the problem.
After analyzing the problem, you will likely have identified 2–3 “quick” solutions to it. One of these, most likely, will be the basis for the final version. For the presentation, create a simple pilot with a flow chart and description of each of the main points of the plan. Discuss your fishbone diagram and your suggestions with your supervisor. Together with him, make a plan for the implementation of one of the proposals.
There were several solutions, but the final plan was not to overload the technicians, but rather to remove them from the process of transporting the repaired PCs to the quality control station. For this, a system of lamps on the tables was invented. When a technician finished their work on a computer, he would light a light bulb like the one found at the checkout counters at Walmart. The light would come on and a QC specialist, along with the cart, would then go to pick up the computer.
In addition to light bulbs, we needed a few more solutions and simple devices. For example, the “Rule of 5 minutes” where, if after 5 minutes all QAs were busy, the technician had to transfer the PC himself, as well as a stopwatch to keep the process running smoothly.
The proposed solutions did not seem complicated to me, but I was prepared for the fact that it would be difficult to implement them. To prepare me for this I drew a flow diagram and described how the system should work point by point. I then went to my manager, having passed the team lead, because I did not manage to establish communication with him, and showed my plan.
Looking at my plan, the manager was noticeably confused, I think this was his first time not seeing me as a “child” in the “why” stage. He was clearly impressed and looked at me with surprised eyes saying “Nice”. After that, we were able to discuss the details of the problems and solutions, I was able to show him my knowledge from books and the good understanding I had of our process and team. The manager lit up my ideas, he helped me make a plan and it became ours.
The work plan consisted of 5 points:
- Description of the problem
- Performance measurements
- Analysis of the measurements
- Optimization plan development
- Pilot deployment and post measurements
This is what the basic scheme for solving problems that increase efficiency looks like. Of course, it is in books and articles and in a huge number of variations but this one works, so take note, use it and tell your colleagues about it if they find it difficult ;)
Beginning of work
When the task is clearly defined, proceed to measurements and choose an appropriate method to quantify them. For example, “Activity Sampling Observation”. Before attempting it on your colleagues, try the approach on yourself first. It is important to get honest and complete data from your colleagues, and you must be sure of the format proposed.
Since the problem was already clearly described, the first part (Define) could be skipped and I immediately started measurements.
The measurement task (data collection and analysis) consisted of 2 parts:
Average waiting time among QC specialists (Plot pending hourly workload during QC shifts Mon — Fri).
Hourly productivity for each QA. (Plot KPI hourly output capacity per QC inspector)
It was only necessary to measure the first part since the second part is recorded automatically.
The day after our conversation, I decided to try and measure my downtime using a regular timer on my work PC. As a result of measurements, my downtime was 1 hour 56 minutes (¼ of a working day) considering the fact that I tested 53 computers per day, which is the highest of units done among all QAs. I’d be lying if I said the result didn’t surprise me.
However, this method was not suitable for my colleagues. It was imperative to keep records to have a structure and archive of such a large amount of information, including to be able to conduct an audit. For this, I decided to use Activity Sampling Observation.
A simple table for counting and naming operations is a photo of a working day or Activity Sampling Observation, showing their sequence, the start and end times, and additional comments if necessary. Example.
I learned about this system from a book but never applied it in practice, so I decided this was the perfect time to test it on myself. I began by printing out the form and obsessively filling it out, running from desk to desk nonstop. My colleagues looked at me with suspicion and might have suspected me as a Russian KGB spy.
This method is time-consuming, quickly annoying and sometimes you forget to keep records. Thankfully I had enough motivation, put the sheet in a prominent place, and at some point filling it out was more important than the work itself. As a result, I got 1:36 minutes of downtime and confidence that such a system will work.
Measurements
When measuring the performance of your colleagues, don’t start measuring everyone at once. This will lead to the organization of forms that cannot be monitored, and you’re going to have to do it again. The patience of your colleagues is also important so try to get everything right the first time and remember, when you try to measure a person’s work, they will behave differently!
The following week, I planned to introduce an activity sampling observation sheet for my colleagues and take measurements. It was important to present my initiative correctly because there were no official announcements, and I was the same quality controller as my three colleagues. My colleagues reacted to my initiative with caution, but with approval. In a couple of weeks, I managed to build a fairly good and respectful relationship with them.
I decided to start small and first let only one of my colleagues fill out the form. He worked next to me and we were the same age, so we had a trusting relationship. At the same time, I let everyone else know that measurements were waiting for them as well. I also checked the cleanliness of the form every hour and wasn’t afraid to speak out if something in the form needed to be filled out differently.
It was very important to maintain a friendly tone because otherwise, it could lead to me coming across as “bossy” and just unpleasant. Thus, within a week, I measured the work of each QA specialist one by one. My tactic worked and, according to the results of the week, I received 15 complete, correctly, and honestly completed forms.
After measuring downtime, we additionally measured the percentage of cases where technicians brought in more than one PC at a time. Such situations signaled that computers were idling on the technicians’ desk for too long. This was as important as measuring our downtime.
Analysis
Analyze measurements and make a convenient and understandable schedule. Ask for publicity of your activities from management. It is important to get peer approval for your work. This is especially necessary for those who believe that your activity is incomprehensible, useless, or even harmful to the work.
Measurements showed that, on average, employees spend 1 hour and 30 minutes a day waiting, and computers arrive for inspection about an hour after they were ready and repaired.
The number of cases in which a technician brings in more than one PC at a time has grown by 20% within a week and that is not accidental. When the technicians realized early in the week that they were being measured, they started moving computers more often. Just what I wrote above happened. The technicians knew that I was taking measurements.
At some point, it became clear to my senior colleagues that I would not stop taking measurements until they returned to their original operating mode. I was persistent but friendly and eventually, they got tired of putting in extra, unneeded work. Very soon everything fell into place, almost 50% of all computers were idling and I finally got the numbers I needed.
The whole process of measurements took about 2.5 months. All stages of my work were approved by our manager and every 2 weeks we discussed the results and plans. At some point, our team lead also joined us and helped to involve technicians in the discussion. I also wanted to mention that by the end of the project, my relationship with the team-lead not only returned to normal but became better than it was in the first place.
Results
By executing all of these steps correctly, you will gain incredible experience and knowledge. The results of your activity should be a full-fledged project and a Letter of Reference from your manager confirming the value of your work to the company.
The project does not necessarily have to be implemented and tested (don’t forget that you’re an intern). You just need to prepare the project for implementation or stop at any stage of the plan but do it consciously.
As a result of a conversation with the manager before completing my internship, we came up with the idea that the light bulbs can be transferred to a software solution. For example, a website that takes information from the database and lets the QAs know when the PC is ready based on the status of the computer in the system. I completed the document (you can see it here), which combined a work plan and a report, and handed it over to the manager.
As a result, the final plan was approved by the higher authorities, including the executive director of the company, for implementation. My idea also served as a kind of MVP version of a large product. After testing it, they planned to implement the system for the rest of the company. I got a great Reference and at the end of the day, a wonderful experience!
Conclusion
I hope by learning about my experience, it will help you with your future internships and projects. Make sure to share your internship story in the comments as I’m very interested to know about your experience as well!
Don’t use my advice if your goal isn’t to improve your internship, job, or company as much as you can. If you are indifferent or only think about bonuses for yourself, most likely you will fail the project.
I was planning to fly to Moscow in August to see my family but like many in 2020, I did not fly anywhere. I am now sitting in a new apartment in the Lakeshore area with excellent views of the CN Tower and the lake and eat the money I earned :)
Follow my projects on my social media. Despite the difficult situation in Canada, this year promises to be productive:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leofedoseev/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fedoseev.lev
Email: lev.fedoseev@gmail.com
