Valentina's Blog

My last contribution...

Work in progress...

Fourth Topic: Challenge, Performance & Contribution

Challenge is a fundamental element in every organisation since it stimulates continuous improvement in the people who work in it. Performance is the fact that can demonstrate you are working well and support your challenge. It is also fundamental for everyone to give their contribution to that which is the biggest aim of every firm, making profit in the long term. Performance is granted by everyone giving their personal contribution when pursuing their aims.

The values of the company are determinant in this process since they have direct consequences in the behaviour of their employees. E. Schein individuates three levels of the company culture: the artefacts, the explicit values, and the basal assumptions.

I made a short analys to work out what are the value in Alcan and this is the result!

Every Alcan employee carries these values, all around the world! Every plant has its own aims, challenges, performances and gives its own contribution to the company. This is the chain of people ond organisations that permits continuous innovation, cooperation and success.

Third Topic: Innovation

When I first asked my coach what innovation meant for him he immediately answered "SAP!".

The introduction of this famous ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system the R/3 release by SAP was a huge change for all the Alcan Packaging plant workers! The introduction of ERP system is always very hard for the people who work in a plant because it requires a business reenginnering of all the productive processes, the warehouses, the IT systems, so

that everything works together with SAP. R/3 is quite intuitive to use but it takes a lot to adapt to working with it. The pre-existent system was S400, that wasn't integrated. The most advanced feature of SAP R/3 is the complete integration of all the functions of the Porter

Value Chain.

Integration of previously off-line functions into the operational flow is a key enabler for competitive advantage. Once that the R/3 is working properly and the whole

organisation has adapted to it, the advantages it brings are evident.

SAP R/3 opens a whole new branch of business benefits such as:

?     Better decision-making - Access the right information in real time

?     Improved productivity, efficiency, and responsiveness

?     Reduced costs through increased flexibility

?     Adaptability to business change

?     Reduced risk

?     Better financial management and corporate governance

?     Optimized IT spending

?     Faster, higher ROI (return on investments)

?     Higher staff morale and productivity

SAP R/3 is the world's most-used standard business software for client/server computing. R/3 meets the needs of any type of customer and organisation mainly because it is highly customizable using SAP's proprietary programming language, ABAP/4.

The system can support an unlimited number of servers and a variety of hardware configurations and it is based on various hardware and software architectures, running on most types of UNIX, on Windows NT and OS/400. SAP R/3 runs on several databases Oracle, Adabas D, Informix, DB2 for UNIX, DB2/400, Microsoft's SQL Server …

Second topic: International

Alcan = International

"Alcan is a dynamic, multilingual and multicultural organization with approximately 70,000 employees in 55 countries and regions around the globe." (www.alcan.com )

As a multinational firm, Alcan offers to its employees an international environment and it is not so unusual to see people from different countries in a plant. When I went to Lainate I met Stephanie, a French economist who was working in the same office of my coach. Alcan is a company which promotes multicultarality.

What does international mean for my coach?

The job of my coach consists in controlling and reporting the production performances of the Alcan packaging plant in Lainate. Obviously the fist recipient of the output of his work is the management of the Alcan Lainate plant. But his job has also an interantional dimension because, thanks to an information system called Hyperion

(exactly as one of the moons of Saturn), he can make his reports visible to the Alcan HQ in Montreal in real time. Thanks to Hyperion (which is implemented in a LAN) he can type his reports in the intranet and they immediately are at the disposal not only of the top managers at Alcan Canada, but also for the top managers at the Alcan Europe HQ in Paris! Thanks to this IS, for every ad hoc report there is no loss of time for communication. Everything is fast and efficient!

First Topic: Clients-Suppliers of the Finance function

Financial controlling: a very important support process

Finance is a very important funtion in a company. It is necessary for the fuctioning of all the processes (if there were no control on money it would be a disaster). In particular my coach's job is Controlling. Controlling is a support process, not a primary process. This means that it doesn't directly generate value for the final customer.

Clients and suppliers

Flavio told me that he doesn't have a proper supplier because, thanks to SAP R/3, the ERP software, he gets all the information, which is his resource, from all the business fuctions he has to control. All his economic analysises and his financial reports though have a client who is the management of the firm (Alcan food-flexible packaging, Lainate(IT)). Flavio with his job as a controller, gives the management the tools necessary to take strategic decisions!

First Topic: Client-Supplier Chains

An introduction to management by processes (I’m not sure whether this is the correct translation or not…)

In the last two decades the competitive contest for firms has changed a lot. Globalisation, the increased international competitiveness, the diffusion of new technologies such as the internet, the reorganisation of the supply chain, the changing of national regulations have brought to a general rethinking of the management and organisation of companies.

The management by processes approach is an innovative approach to managing and organising business activities that has the aim of:

-         integrating the different activities, giving a vision of the altogether;

-         obtaining global performances (process performances) instead of simple local (functional) optimisations.

The functional/hierarchical structure of a company often doesn’t represent in precisely the effective way in which the company works and “behaves”.

The 9 fundamental principles of the management by processes are:

1) Spreading the “process culture” – It is necessary for all the people who work in the company, especially for the managers, to identify the principal business processes, to get used to evaluating their contribution to value generation, to focus on total performances and to learn how to define the “objectives of the process”.

2) Individuating the process owner – The process owner is a manager of the entire process who takes care of evaluating its effectiveness and efficiency.

3) Balancing pull and push logics – Pull logic implies the production to be activated only when the client requests the output of the process (the production is pulled from the client, as Just in Time). Push logic implies that the activities are all planned in advance (see Materials requirements planning, Master production schedule). Both logics must be used and the proper changing points must be individuated.

4) Decentring support processes and information management processes – It is fundamental for the information to be managed mainly by the persons who work in the primary processes

5) Using ICT to reengineering processes, improve coordination and accelerate problem solving – and not only to reduce the content of the job or to control the behaviour of employees

6) Rejoining the fragmented activities – It is not sufficient to improve the capacity of integration. It is necessary to reduce the need of integration by rejoining excessively fragmented activities (fragmented because done by different organisational units or individuals)

7) Introducing decisional delegation – A certain degree of decisional delegation is necessary because it helps fast problem solving avoiding the continuous asking for permission typical of hierarchy. Delegation is necessary at the individual, group and interfunctional team level.

8) Keeping the organisation “slim” – The organisational structure must be simplified by introducing flat and short structures (horizontal) and reducing staffs.

And….

9) ACTIVATING INTERNAL CLIENT-SUPPLIER CHAINS!

Due to the managing by processes philosophy, it is fundamental to consider the function downstream as a proper client. The unit must be rapid and flexible in serving the internal client and it has to learn to work for the client, not for the function. It is crucial to involve in a partnership also the suppliers upstream.

The activation of internal chains of client-suppliers is based on the principle of deployment that implies the objectives of the final client to be “transformed” into objectives  for the clients of the intermediate processes.

It implies:

-         the organisational units must be treated as clients

-         flexibility and rapidity of reaction

-         working for the client and not for the hierarchical chief

-         extending the idea of the client supplier partnership upstream and downstream

The deployment of the objectives and the activation of client-supplier chains requires:

-         the definition of interface indicators (Quality, Time, Costs…do you remember the KPI I spoke about in my last blog?)

-         advanced specific techniques implemented by interfunctional teams(cross impact analysis, scenario analysis

One of the aims of the activation of internal client-supplier chains is the improvement of the rapidity of reaction to a request. To achieve this it is necessary to:

-         standardise activities, input and capacities upstream

-         minimise the interdependencies between processes due to resource sharing

-         use rapid and automated communication systems

-         Dimensioning a minimum of production extracapacity

My Alcan Day Photo Album

PHOTO ALBUM!

 

The stamping machines (R4-R5)

The SAP effect!

A transpallet!

Flavio and his colleagues!

Last but not least:My Alcan Day!

My Alcan Day!

The arrival

At 14.30 I took my train from Milan to Garbagnate, after 20 minutes traveling, I arrived and my “personal driver” Marcello, was already waiting for me to drive me to the Alcan Plant.

As soon as I entered the gates of the plant I was welcomed by my coach Flavio Pravettoni (I’m sorry for the derby…) He suggested me to go and have a tour of the plant. I was dressed up in a tailleur because I came directly from work and, due to specific security measures, I had to get changed with a blue apron and heavy working shoes, not forgetting to put my “net” on my head to cover my hear not to contaminate the production. I looked really funny!

All ready we started the visit.

The plant

Tha Alcan Food Flexible Packaging Plant is situated in the industrial part of Lainate, a small village near to Rho, where the new permanent exposition fair http://www.nuovosistemafieramilano.it/default_e.shtml designed by lots of famous architects such as Mario Bellini and Massimiliano Fuksas.

The plant is really huge. I visited the production hovel, the finished goods storage hovel and the feedstocks  hovel.

In the production hovel I managed to see all the different machineries that produce the food flexible packaging. When you eat your biscuits in the morning probably their cute coloured packet was produced by Alcan Lainate. There were 5 stamping machines (R2 which is almost “retiring”,R3, R4, R5 directly imported from another European plant, R6 the new one), in particular R6 was the biggest and the newest one. Showing me R4 the chief engineer told me that they have a record in the meters of stamped packaging, over 145 (if I remember it right) meters/minute!

The place I found most interesting was the storage hovel. I’ve studied some logistics and in there there were very sophisticated methods of storing the pallets, the newest ones, all automated. In fact, after the merging with Pechiney, Alcan Lainate has been merged (administratively) with another plant in Lugo di Vicenza and lots of things have changed, including the storaging and the information systems behind logistics. In fact, since 2004 Alcan Lainate has installed SAP/3, the most famous ERP system which controls all the phases of the value chain (ERP - Short for enterprise resource planning, a business management system that integrates all facets of the business, including planning, manufacturing, sales, and marketing. As the ERP methodology has become more popular, software applications have emerged to help business managers implement ERP in business activities such as inventory control, order tracking, customer service, finance and human resources).

In the storage hovel there were plenty TRANSPALLET! I love transpallets (they are the means of transporting and storing the pallets of feedstocks or finished goods, they are used for handling and warehousing). It was a pity I couln’t drive one of them…

The job of the controller

  After taking off my working outfit I went to Flavio’s office and had a chat with his colleagues Stephanie and Paolo. They were very kind to me and I had a nice chat with Stephanie who suggested me some nice universites abroad to go and study (it seems as Finland is student’s paradise!!!).

Flavio is a plant controller, he has to regularily control that everything in the plant is going as scheduled.  The day I had my alcan day he was working on his results comment on the Monthly Business Unit Report. The MBUR is an analysis of the KPI, the key performance indicators of the business unit (the alcan plant is a business unit).

The KPI of Alcan Packaging are: Productivity, Internal Quality, SHE (security and Health)/Personnel,  Sales/orders %, Forecast, External perceptible quality, Reliability/responsiveness.

KPI (Key Performance Indicators) are performance measures of management processes

•A management process is the altogether of activity and decisions, which finalità is the creation of an output –really requested by a client (external or internal)- that the client estimantes to have a well determined value.

Objective of KPI analysis:• controlling the processes that are fundamental for competitiveness

Giving a global vision of the performances –efficiency and effectiveness-> KPI TriangleDownload KPI.ppt

To help the implementation of service dashboards, integrate management accounting reports, integrating balanced score cards.

It was very interesting to see in action things I had already studied at university! And thanx to Flavio I improved my use of excel, he is a master of pivot tables!

I had a nice time!

PS. I have taken several pictures but couldn't post them (all the content was cancelled when I tried)... I'll try another time

About me

Welcome to Valentina’s Blog!

You did the right choice!!! 

Some of my friends and I (I’m the one on the left)

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Let me introduce myself...

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Name: VALENTINA

Surname: CALIGIANA (it has its origin in a small village facing the lake Trasimeno in Umbria)

Birth: I was born on 5th August (same day as Neil Armstrong, the first man on the Moon) 1983 in Perugia ( www.comune.perugia.it ).

Studies: I studied in Perugia until highschool and I then moved to Milan to study Business Engineering at the Politecnico (www.polimi.it). I have two exams left to finish my bachelor (3 years) and right now I am working in a bank for an internship on which I’ll write my thesis: Marketing for private banking. I am learning lots of things about stock exchanges and international markets and it is really interesting!!!

Actual residence: Actually I live in a small apartment in Milan, by myself (I love living by myselfJ).

Spoken languages: Italian, English (my mother is Southafrican and she started speaking to me in English since I was a baby), German (I started only last year…), Spanish (only understand a little).

Peculiar features: a tattoo on my shoulder

Hobbies: I like sports: soccer, tennis, rugby. I practised lots of sports but the one I enjoyed most was kick boxing (after coming to Milan I had to stop)… I can play the piano quite well (I studied for over ten years) and I tried learning how to play the violin (no way)… I love going out with my friends to have a beer or go dancing.

Interests: I love reading, listening to music, travelling, watching movies, paintings, collecting shoes, going shopping…

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AMO…: PEACE, talking, listening, silence, music, reading, movies, books, dawns, sunsets, sleeping ‘til late, cats, thinking, learning and getting to now new things, freedom of thought, the sea, the snow, sushi, buying presents for the people that are important for me, hot tea, design watches, noticing particulars, staring at the stars, chocolate, coffee and cigarette, nice memories, all the very  simple things… and all the complicated ones.

…ET ODIO: WAR, greed, human cruelty, egoism, arrogant people, , meat (I don’t eat meat but I eat fish), trains arriving late, smog, traffic, racism, superficiality, people who don’t have interest in confronting themselves with others and becoming better.

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My favourite things...

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As I already said, I love reading especially when I’m travelling. I tend to get involved with two kinds of books: very long and complicated books or short stories. The funny thing abou me is that I usually forget almost everything about the book I just read with the exception of the feeling I had for it. My favourites could be:

“Siddharta” – H. Hesse

“Q” – Luther Blisseth (www.lutherblisseth.com )

“Poems” – N.Hikmeth (I especially love a poem: “Concert in C minor by J.S.Bach”)

“Crime and punishment” – F. Dostoevskij

“The process”, and “Contemplation” – F. Kafka

Trees

Because we are as trunks in the snow. Apparently they stand on the surface, and only slightly pushing them you could move them away. No, you can’t, they are firmly stuck in the ground. But look, even this is only apparent. [F.Kafka]

“The old man and the sea” – H. Hemingway

“The great Gatsby” – S. Fitzgerald

“Diary of a sentimental killer” – L. Sepulveda

“Aleph” – J.L.Borges

“Tsugumi” – B. Yoshimoto

“The last theorem of Fermat” –  S. Singh

“54” – Wu Ming

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My favourite songs: "Unfinished sympathy" - Massive Attack, "Infidelity" - Skunk Anansie, "With or without you" - U2, "Everybody here wants you" - Jeff Buckley, "Bittersweet symphony" - the Verve, "Jeremy" - Pearl Jam, "Ironic" - Alanis Morrissette, "Daysleeper" - REM, "Never is a promise" - Fiona Apple, "Thinking about you" - Radiohead. My favourite artists:

Alanis Morissette

 

Bjork

Coldplay

Cranberries

Dire Straits

Fiona Apple

Jeff Buckley

Ligabue

Massive Attack

Michael Nyman (classical contemporary composer, have you ever seen “The piano”?)

Nirvana

Pearl Jam

Pink Floyd

Placebo

Pj Harvey

Radiohead

Red Hot Chili Peppers

Rolling Stones

Rem

Skunk Anansie

Smashing Pumkins Download Perfect.mid

Tori Amos

U2

Vasco Rossi

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"I go where the cold wind blows" Kurt Cobain

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My favourite movies:

“Dr. Strangelove” – S. Kubrick (and most of Kubrick films, even if often I feel I don’t understand them…)

“The sky over Berlin” – W. Wenders

“The girl on the bridge” – F. Leconte

“Dogville” – L. Von Trier

“Finalmente domenica” – F. Truffault

“The man who wasn’t there” – Cohen Bros.

“A beautiful mind” – E. Harris

“The fifth element” – L. Besson

“Braveheart” – M. Gibson (maybe because of my Scottish elders…)

“The piano” – J. Campion

“Taxi Driver” – M.Scorsese

“American beauty” – S. Mendes

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Travelling...Since now I’ve been to: Paris (thanx to Alcan!!!), Berlin (I really adore Berlin), Munich, London, Barcelona, Maiorca, Lisbon, South Africa (coast to coast), Seattle. The world is so big!!!

I’d like to visit: CANADA, all European capitals, Brazil, Australia, New Zealand, Japan …

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Photos

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Me and my friends

    

Perugia

 

South Africa   

 

Miscellaneous

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Links

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www.repubblica.it

www.nirvanaclub.com

www.u2.com

www.radiohead.com

www.remhq.com

www.rottentomatoes.com

www.liberliber.net

About my coach

Who was my Alcan Coach?

Flavio Pravettoni!

Date of birth: 17 February 1974

Place of birth: Rho (Milan)

Lives in Lainate with his girlfriend Elena (they have been engaged for seven years!) and his dog Rupi.

Hobbies: Being a fan of Inter team (very demanding, lots of suffering!!!), playing soccer and coaching a team of kids, skiing (when I met his on my Alcan day he had just come back from the mountains and had a nice tan), mountain biking.

Peculiarities: he is building his own house, just the way he wants it to be!

Flavio was my Alcan coach, he guided me through the huge Lainate Alcan Packaging Food-Flexible plant and he taught me how to use the pivot tables in excel (so useful!!!)!

He is a very friendly guy who works as a Plant Controller in Lainate. He started working for Alcan as soon as he finished his military service in 1996. He started working in Administration and Accounting, he used to look after the relationships with the suppliers. He started working as a controller in 1999, his duty is to "control" (that's why he is a controller, of course) that everything concerning the plant is following the plans. He controls the economic status of the alcan plant, the economic results, the expenses and the gainings. Last year was particularily demanding because of the merging with Pechiney and the closure of a plant in Garbagnate. His job requires to be very precise and organised and a lot of computer work!

i had a nice time with him and his colleagues! Thank you all!