Andreas' Blog

Blog index

As my blog has been growing over the past couple of weeks, I decided to do an index, which should facilitate the navigation on my blog.

Alcan related topics

• About my Coach (get to know my coach Bruno)
• My Alcan Days (read about the 2 days I spent with my coach)
• Continuous Improvement (learn about an important Alcan concept)
• Clients & Suppliers (Alcan-internal relations of my coach)
• International  (the international dimensions of working at Alcan)
• Are you innovative? (read about the importance of innovation)
• Team spirit (what do soccer players and relay sprinters have in common?) new!
• Wrap up (summary of my experiences and personal conclusion) new!

Other posts

• About Me (I introduce myself)
• Bad news (I lost my pictures...)  :-(
• Week-end in Lisbon
• Welcome

I hope that you enjoy reading my blog! And come back soon, as some new posts will be published soon.

Wrap up

Dear visitor!

The WE ALL CAN program has almost come to an end L so this will be the last post on my blog. First I’m going to give you a short overview of my coach’s job. In the second part, I’ll wrap up the last three months and tell you about my personal experiences and the conclusions I’ve drawn.

What should you know about my coach’s job?

As you surely know by now, my coach Bruno is in charge of the Continuous Improvement (CI) program of Alcan Automotive Structures in Singen. He works together with many different people, hence social skills and team-work are very important for this job. Together with his teams, Bruno elaborates innovative solutions that permit to improve existing procedures. He deals essentially with CI-projects in Singen, but there are also many international dimensions in his job. But what does all this mean? What exactly does an Alcan manager working for CI do all day long? Spending one and a half day with Bruno, I came to the conclusion that his job is very diversified and interesting. To know more about it, please read the description of my Alcan Day.

  "Bruno, now that the WAC program has come to an end, what is in your opinion the most important thing we students should know about your job? What advice can you give us WAC-participants for our future career path?"

"I believe that there are three fundamental aspects for a manager:

- First: have a broad theoretical background

- Second: learn how to apply theoretical knowledge in real business life

- Third: have enough social competences and determination to make it happen!"

My personal assessment

What started with an online-quiz and an interview became a very enriching experience over the past three months. First of all, I learnt a lot about Alcan, a company I’ve barely heard of before. I’m very glad I do know Alcan know, because it’s a fascinating corporation that is active worldwide and whose staff is truly multi-cultural. What impressed me most about Alcan is its diversity. In this fully vertical integrated company you can find almost everything, ranging from bauxite alumina primary to thousands of semi-finished products, components manufacturing and packaging.

My main goal of participating in the WAC program was to get an understanding of WHAT EXACTLY a manager precisely does. When sitting in university and studying mostly theoretical concepts I always had a hard time, for example when reading job descriptions, to imagine how everyday life at work would be like. Thanks to my Alcan Day I finally got a clear idea about this and furthermore I could observe how the things we learn at university are applied in business practice.

One of the strengths of the WAC program was the perfect organization. Sandrine, Angélique and everybody else involved in organizing WAC did a superb job! Thank you sooooo much! You allowed us to fully concentrate on our Alcan Day and the blogging. At this place I would also like to give a huge thanks to my coach Bruno with whom I spent two unforgettable Alcan Days and who patiently answered all my questions during the last three months (and there were a loooot of them…)

The WAC experience will certainly have an impact on my future career. So far I only knew the banking sector through internships, and I wasn’t very enthusiastic about it. Now I think that working in the industry is a lot more interesting, especially in such a fascinating firm as Alcan. So why not start a career with Alcan?

            

Team spirit

Human beings, being human!

What do volleyball players, tennis doubles teams and relay sprinters have in common?

Team spirit and the pleasure of interacting with each other!

In a soccer team for example, even the best player of the world can’t win a game on his own if he doesn’t interact with his co-players. The key to success is the joint-performance of the players. Without the team (=organization), a single player can’t win the game. Inside the team, the players will specialize; there is no use of having 11 goalkeepers. So some will play in the defense, others are midfielders or strikers, according to his/her abilities. And there is also a playmaker and a captain.

                                     

As in many sports, also in the business world people often depend on each other and are involved in team-work. Everybody is specialized in a certain function and contributes to the final outcome of the project. And the role of the captain is taken by the team-leader, i.e. the person who coordinates the whole game, ehhh… project. And like there are rules for a soccer game, there are rules inside a company (yes yes, if you are not the goalkeeper you are not allowed to touch the ball with your hands…). At Alcan, the tasks of every co-worker (authorizations and duties) are clearly defined, and the flow-charts permit a smooth transfer of working cycles from one employee to the other (as relay sprinters pass on the baton). And what is the ultimate goal? It’s to win the race! Or in Alcan’s terms: to maximize value!

How can we form a good team out of different individuals? I think the following saying gives us an answer to that question: “It’s nice to be important, but it’s more important to be nice!” J... but without losing the target out of sight. Of course the individual skills are important, but the social competence to interact with your team is even more essential. This means that the team members should not put themselves too much in the center, but rather respect the other co-workers’ opinions and make sure that there is a good spirit within the team.

                                       

My coach Bruno is working for CI (Continuous Improvement). How is he involved in team-work? Every week, he attends several team meetings: formalized and prefixed or spontaneously if necessary. There is for example the weekly management team meeting where important subjects are discussed and decisions taken. Then there are also regular reunions with the black belts from his CI-team, which he’s guiding. In this team, the team members are all alpha-people, which results now and then in confrontation and disagreement. In these moments, Bruno has to use all his experience and sensitivity to convince his co-workers to pull on the same side of the rope and to lead the team towards a positive outcome of the assignment.  Sometimes Bruno also temporarily joins a working group, which occupies the role of a task force for a specific project.

For Bruno, team-work is essentially important on a local scale, since he is confronted with it in every day’s work. Nevertheless, Alcan as well judges global team-work a key matter. A couple of weeks ago, Bruno took part in the global Alcan CI-Symposium in the United States. During these kind of events, Alcan-employees from all over the world get to know each other, which permits not only to learn from each other but to create a team spirit also on a global scale.

Last but not least, to further enhance the integration of its employees, Alcan organizes social events (soccer team, biking team, Christmas dinner, etc. to just give a few examples).

To conclude this post, I would like to highlight the importance of good inter-personal relationships in the working environment. Being human is very important for us human beings… Our performance will be a lot better if we feel good at work and have fun doing our job!

Are you innovative?

What do Lego and Meccano have in common???

Everything has to be invented!!! With some basic building blocks you can build very different things. The great feature of Lego and Meccano is that you can let your imagination and creativity a hundred percent liberty. There’s no right or wrong, and the different possibilities are almost unlimited. Furthermore, it can be used over and over again, it’s completely reusable. Playing Lego and Meccano is closely associated with innovation, because every time something new is being created.

Innovation plays a key role in Alcan’s strategy, and it’s the topic I’m going to talk about in this post. Today innovation is considered as the engine of each company and also of the economy as a whole.

First of all, we have to differentiate between product innovation and process innovation. Alcan is innovative in both categories, but I’m going to focus now on the latter, since my coach Bruno is working for CI (Continuous Improvement). CI itself is an innovative idea, because some years ago the combined approach Lean AND Six Sigma was not yet used. People working in the CI departments of Alcan constantly search for innovative ideas. They try to optimize procedures and methods used in production, logistics, procurement, etc. in order to reduce cost, improve quality and become faster. Hence the company is more customer oriented and increases its competitiveness.

Bruno told me that when working for Continuous Improvement you have to use another way of thinking and reflecting on problems. It’s very important to challenge common ideas, to break out of the ordinary. The key word here is to “think out of the box”. What does this mean? Let’s look at an example:

Do YOU think out of the box? Are YOU innovative? Give it a try! Take a piece of paper and draw nine dots on it, just as you can see on the picture below. Now you have to connect these nine dots with four straight lines, and without lifting up your pencil. It might seem impossible at first sight, but it’s not. Remember to think out of the box…

 

Source: http://www.proactive-coach.com/creative/index.htm

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You will find the solution to this riddle by scrolling down

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Stop! Did you try it? Just scroll down if you have made an attempt! Looking at the solution without having tried for at least 2 minutes is a pity…

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Curious???

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OK, so here’s the solution:

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Source: http://www.proactive-coach.com/creative/solution.htm

As you notice, in this brain teaser “thinking out of the box” is meant literally: you have to go outside the mental “box” delimited by the 9 dots.

So are you innovative? Do you challenge the ordinary? If you have other examples for “thinking out of the box”, it would be nice to share them with us.

Welcome!

Welcome on my blog!

I'm happy to welcome you on my blog. For those that are here for the first time, let me explain you quickly what this is all about. First of all, I suggest that you read the edito by Michel Carnec.

 

All right, so now you already have a first idea what the WE ALL CAN program is. But who/what is Alcan? Maybe you haven't heard yet of this company, and even for those who know Alcan already, the blogs are a great and unique opportunity to learn more about this very interesting firm.

I hope that you enjoy reading my blog and please feel free to add some comments, I'll be happy to answer them. Bear in mind though that they should be in English. And take your time to browse around also on the other participants' blogs; they have posted excellent contributions. But make sure to start with my blog ;-) Click here to get to the index.

International

The topic I’m going to present to you this week is „International“. What does internationality mean? Is Alcan a globally operating firm? And in which sense is the job of my coach Bruno international?

Internationality requires open-mindedness and tolerance, because in an international environment we find a lot of diversity. I consider international experience as something very important, and I don’t think just about working abroad, but also about traveling. By visiting different countries we can broaden our horizon and gain very valuable insights into other cultures and habits. Last but not least, there’s also the linguistic dimension, which I regard an important issue when speaking about internationality. Doubtlessly, speaking the language of the country we visit/live in facilitates the integration into this society.

                   

       

On the above maps you can see in which countries Alcan is present, and I think that you will agree that Alcan certainly is a globally operating firm. Present on all five continents and located in more than 60 countries, Alcan is something like a prototype of an international firm. What implications does this have for people working at Alcan?

The best way to find it out is to ask my coach Bruno, so I interviewed him.

In what sense is your job international?

First of all, I think we have to differentiate between Alcan internal work and external interaction topics that are related to Alcan in one way or another. By the latter I think for example about the impact of globalization on our company and how it affects our job.

Can you please tell us how far your job as a responsible for Continuous Improvement (CI) is international?

My job is mainly internally oriented, as I don’t have direct contact to clients or suppliers of Alcan. But CI is business group overlapping, which means that I’m in touch with other CI-responsibles working in other countries and continents. We’re regularly sharing our experiences (best practice sharing), which allows us to align the methods of CI  worldwide within Alcan. Recently I spent three days at an Alcan CI symposium in Atlanta, where 120 CI-Champions, Black Belts and Green Belts and BU presidents from all over the world were taking part. It was very interesting to talk about experiences and trends with people working in the same function, but in other countries.

And how are you concerned with external topics that are related to Alcan?

Even though I’m not in direct touch with our clients, I observe the business environment that Alcan faces. I have been studying the impact of globalization on the aluminum industry and wrote several papers about it. In my opinion, one of the essential tasks of a company is to monitor the development of competition and demand evolution in the international market environment. How should a company act on global markets?  I held a speech at a conference in Rome about the effects of globalization and then was invited by the American aluminum industry to hold another speech at their Extrusion Technology Conference in Orlando. At this occasions you interact automatically on international level.

As I understand, you work with Alcan employees from different countries and continents. What does Alcan do to facilitate this international collaboration?

As soon as there’s somebody present at our site that doesn’t speak German, we all switch to English, since this is the official company language at Alcan. Furthermore, Alcan organizes intercultural workshops, where we learn how to work with our colleagues in different countries with different habits.

I’ve heard some anecdotes about misunderstandings when meeting people from different cultural backgrounds. In Bulgaria for example, nodding with your head means “no” whereas shaking your head from left to right means “yes” – that’s exactly the contrary from what we’re used to. Did you make experience similar things?

Yes. When I was in China, I was surprised to hear the Chinese burp while eating. In Europe this is considered inappropriate, whereas in China it’s a sign of satisfaction with the food. Also, eating everything that’s on your plate means that you’re still hungry, so you should leave some food on the plate. In our culture, eating everything signifies that you really liked the food; it’s a compliment for the cook. There are many more examples like this, and they all underline the importance of tolerance and the willingness to learn about other cultures.

Clients & Suppliers

Hello and welcome on my blog!

From now on, you’ll find every week on this blog a new post with subjects related to my Alcan Days, which I spent together with my coach Bruno Rüttimann. This week's topic deals with the (internal) clients and suppliers of Bruno. Or to put it differently, I will tell you who are the people that work in one way or another together with my coach at Alcan. Some of them can be considered as Bruno's clients, others are his suppliers. But as you will see, it's not evident to draw a line between these two groups, and by discussing this topic with my coach I came to an astonishing conclusion.

Did I arise you interest??? So here we go:

At a macro level, somebody working for Continuous Improvement would probably say that suppliers = clients! WOW! What in the world does that mean? The same person should be supplier and client of Bruno at the same time? I can already hear you shout "Objection! That's not possible!" But let me explain you how I came to this conclusion:

The work of Continuous Improvement (CI) consists in finding solutions to the question on how to improve a certain process, a method or a procedure. Who gives CI this task, i.e. who is the client? At the macro level, we can say that it's the company as a whole (i.e. Alcan). But who is the company? It's every single employee working for Alcan! CI tries to improve the competitiveness of the firm, to make the company better, "fit-for-the-future". And who benefits from this? Everybody working at Alcan does, because if the company is successful in business, the jobs are safe (no risk of lay-offs) and the wages and/or bonus payments increase. In this sense, every employee of Alcan is a client of CI, since the company ( = its employees) asks the people working in this function (like my coach Bruno) to find solutions on how Alcan can progress. But at the same time, the employees can also be considered as suppliers for CI, since they implement the suggestions made by the CI-teams. Hence we can say that all the employees kind of work for CI and can be considered suppliers. I hope that I managed to convince you that my coach's clients are at the same time also his suppliers (at the macro level). Would you agree with that or do you think it's not possible that suppliers = clients?

Now let's quickly have a look at the micro level. Who are the clients of my coach Bruno? First of all, there are the sponsors of the project. These are usually people that occupy a certain leading position and if they have a problem they contact Bruno with the question "How can we (e.g. our department, a certain production process, a logistical procedure, etc.) get better?" The sponsors are also the ones who benefit directly from a CI-project, and the CI-department charges them for this internal consulting service. Furthermore, the management team (Bruno's boss and peers the directors of the different functional departments, i.e. Sales, Procurement and Logistics, Project Management, etc.) can also be considered as Bruno's clients, since it's often them that come up with propositions for new CI-projects. At the same time, the management team is also a supplier for Bruno, because they help him when working on a CI-project by supplying ideas. Moreover, there are the team members of the CI-projects and the Black Belts that are suppliers of Bruno.

What did I learn about all this?

Irrespective of who are the clients and who are the suppliers in a certain project, Alcan's employees work for one final goal: to provide a first-class product/service to the final (external) client!

My Alcan Day

Dear visitor,

Today I’ll share my experiences of my Alcan Days with you. I spent one and a half days with my coach Bruno Rüttimann, he’s working for Alcan Automotive Structures in Singen (Germany). His main task is the Continuous Improvement program (follow this link for more information on Continuous Improvement), which is an important pillar of Alcan’s governing objective to “maximise value”. Before I get lost in details, I’ll give you a short chronological overview of my Alcan Days. And at the end of my report I'll tell you what I saw behind the curtain, i.e. I'll provide you with a short summary of the lessons I learned while spending a day with a manager. Now fasten your seat belts and enjoy reading my blog!

Thursday, 10^th of March

10.00 - 14.00: I travel by train from Lausanne to Singen

14.00 - 16.00: My coach Bruno picks me up and together we visit the Alcan automotive components plants in Gottmadingen. They are located a 15 minutes drive from Singen. The plants there are very modern and there’s a high degree of automation. This site is mainly used for bumper and cockpit carrier production. When entering the plant, I realise that EHS (environment, health & safety) is a very important principle at Alcan, as I am immediately asked to wear special shoes and glasses for protection. I have the occasion to meet several people working at improvement projects Cost improvement is one of the most important tasks to keep the pace of competition.

16.00 - 19.00: We visit Alcan’s Singen site, where two business groups are located: Packaging and Engineered Products. One unit within Engineered Products is Automotive Structures, and in this unit Bruno is responsible for the deployment of Continuous Improvement (CI). I’m impressed by the size of the Singen site; it’s so huge that I consider it almost a town. We have a look at several factories, for example at the extrusion plant, where extruded aluminum sections are produced. Once again, I am struck by the sheer size of machines and buildings; some of the plants cover an area of the size of several soccer fields In the Automotive Engineering Center light weight solutions are conceived. Due to lack of time I didn't have the chance to visit the Alucobond facility. During this afternoon, we meet several people that I’ll see again on the next day. We also quickly stop at Bruno’s office, where he checks his e-mails and explains me a couple of things about Alcan with its several Business Groups and activities as well as Alcan automotive. 

19.00 - 22.30: We have dinner at the restaurant of my hotel. While enjoying the excellent meal, we have very interesting discussions and learn a lot about each other.

Friday, 11^th of March

07.30 - 08.00: Bruno has a meeting with the business unit boss. For confidentiality reasons I can’t attend the meeting. The advantage of this was that I get some more sleep…

08.15: Bruno picks me up at my hotel and we go to his office.

08.30 - 11.00: First thing to do in the morning is to check the diary and to read the new e-mails. Then Bruno has to do a couple of phone calls and we also have a look at letters and other documents that came by mail. Very important is also the personal contact with the employees, and so we go to see two persons involved in the Continuous Improvement program. Unfortunately the news Bruno has to transmit to them are not very good, since they have to postpone the "green belt" training. Afterwards, Bruno works on a presentation he has to hold the week after at the worldwide Alcan CI-conference in Atlanta. Meanwhile, I have the chance to meet some other people that work with Bruno. Discussing with Dieter Höll (Sales director) I learn a lot about Sales. Mr. Höll is directing a team of 7 Key Account Managers. I also have the opportunity to talk to Stefan Ruh (director Procurement and Logistics). Mr. Ruh is handling a purchasing volume of 100 million € per year and when choosing the suppliers he is mainly considering three criteria: price, quality and delivery reliability.

11.00 - 12.30: I accompany Bruno to a meeting with the 3 black belts (Erich Röllin, Reinhard Vogel and Klaus Schuler) working for Alcan Automotive in Singen. They meet once a week to discuss about ongoing projects, problems that have occurred, new ideas, etc. All 3 black belts will be certified soon, since they have coached a certain number of projects.

12.30 - 13.30: Together with the black belts we have lunch at the Alcan personnel restaurant.

13.30 - 14.00: As a result of the news Bruno received from his boss in the morning, he calls for an unscheduled meeting with the responsible engineer for bumper development. One of the black belts is also present as they revise the objective targets and define some guidelines.

14.00 - 15.00: Bruno is writing the minutes of the black belt meeting and doing some phone calls. I seize the opportunity to meet Mr. Raiber, who is a project director. He explained me how project management is implemented at Alcan. The project manager leads a very diverse team that consists of people from engineering, quality management, production, controlling, sales and logistics.

15.00 - 16.00: I discuss with Bruno about all the experiences I made during the last 24 hours. He answers the questions I still have and helps me to link together everything I’ve seen at Alcan Singen. This was a very important session for me, because it made it easier to absorb all my impressions.

16.00: Bruno takes me to the train station where I catch a train back to Lausanne. My wonderful Alcan Days have come to an end. I would like to thank my coach Bruno and Alcan for giving me this great opportunity!

Are you still awake??? Or did I bore you too much with the description of my Alcan Day???

Now comes the most important part, i.e. what has been my main insight of spending a day with an Alcan manager?

I found that there’s quite a large gap between theory and practice! Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that I consider theory useless because it’s too distant from real business life. Far from it! There are three things that are really important for a manager:

First: have a broad theoretical background

Second: learn how to apply theoretical knowledge in real business life

Third: have enough social competence and determination to make it happen

You are welcome to comment on my opinion, be it for approval or in order to challenge it. I think that by exchanging our (diverging) views everybody will benefit from it. So get your hands on the keyboard!  :-)

Continuous Improvement

What is Continuous Improvement (CI) all about?

On the WeAllCan website you can find the following explanation:

“These diplomatic professionals are responsible for tracking excellence wherever it may be found at Alcan. When they find an exemplary practice in some corner of the company,  they propose it as a standard everywhere. CI professionals audit existing processes, identify sources of progress, train teams, set up indicators and measure results. More than a skill, it’s a never-ending strategy.”

At Alcan, CI is based on a principle called “Lean Six Sigma” (LSS). But what is six sigma? Six sigma is a philosophy of doing business with a focus on eliminating defects through fundamental process knowledge.  Six sigma methods integrate principles of business, statistics and engineering to achieve tangible results. Six sigma tools are applicable across every discipline including: Production, Sales, Marketing, Design, Administration and Service. And what does “lean” stand for? Lean manufacturing embraces a philosophy of continually increasing the proportion of value added activity of their business through ongoing waste elimination.  A lean manufacturing approach provides companies with tools to survive in a global market that demands higher quality, faster delivery and lower prices. Alcan’s objective is to be the “best in class”, both in costs and in products. But as cost can’t always be reduced, innovation is also very important. And I think Alcan Engineered Products is very innovative, above all thanks to its Continuous Improvement philosophy.

In order to implement “Lean Six Sigma”, Alcan deploys specially trained employees, the so-called Black Belts and Green Belts. Black belts are the Six Sigma practitioners in the organization. They drive business results through the application of Six Sigma tools on multiple projects. One hierarchy lower are the Green Belts. They are Six Sigma practitioners performing project work and supporting Black Belts on larger projects.

But how do these people tackle a project? They use the Six Sigma approach called DMAIC. This acronym stands for:

Define - What problem needs to be solved? Define the customer, their critical to quality issues, and the core business process involved.

Measure – What do we know about the process? Measure the performance of the core business process involved.

Analyze - When and where do defects occur? Analyze the data collected and process map to determine root causes of defects and opportunities for improvement

Improve - What are the vital factors for the process to be Six Sigma? Improve the target process by designing creative solutions to fix and prevent problems.

Control - What control can be put in place to sustain the gain? Control the improvements to keep the process on the new course.

The whole process shouldn’t last more than six months.

Well, I hope that you’ve got an idea now what CI is all about. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to post a comment, and I’ll be happy to answer.

About my coach

Hello everybody, welcome on my blog!

Now the time has come for you to meet my dear coach Bruno Rüttimann! He’s a very interesting person and I’m sure you’ll agree on that once you’ve read this portrait.

Before joining Alusuisse in 1988, Bruno studied electro engineering at the Politecnico in Milan and then did a MBA at Bocconi University. Through his studies he acquired a deep understanding for technical issues as well as for economic- and business-related subjects. After 17 years of working for Alusuisse and Alcan, Bruno is a full professional in aluminum; he has got a very broad knowledge of all the techniques and markets linked to alu. Today he is Director in Strategy Planning & Continuous Improvement in Alcan Singen (Germany), which is one of the largest Alcan sites worldwide with 3500 employees. In Singen, Bruno is in charge of the Continuous Improvement (CI) program (I’ll tell you more about it when reporting about my Alcan Days) of the business group Alcan Automotive Structures. Furthermore, my coach is coordinating the “fit-for-future” initiative for Alcan Automotive, which goal it is to assure competitiveness of this business group in future. Discussing with him I felt that he has a vast knowledge of aluminum and Alcan, both in theory and practice. Benefiting from his expertise in the aluminum sector, Bruno has written various articles for journals. He was also keynote-speaker at an international congress on globalization, analyzing the future of the aluminum industry in a more and more globalized world.

On the occasion of the dinner we had together, I learned a lot more about my coach. He’s for example interested in sports cars, as probably almost everybody working for Alcan automotive ;-) Reflecting on the effects of globalization is one of Bruno’s major hobbies, he’s currently writing a book on globalization. I’m looking forward to read it! Bruno is still a workaholic (average working hours: 08h30 – 19h30), but he doesn’t take everything deadly serious and likes to joke as well.

I definitely learned a lot about Alcan in general and Continuous Improvement in specific, whilst having a lot of fun with my coach. Thanks a lot, Bruno, for taking the time to show and explain me your work! I spent two unforgettable Alcan Days in Singen!