10,000!

Hooray!  Thanks to everyone reading this blog, in 11 months, I have reached the 10,000 hit mark!  I hope to continue producing more useful and enjoyable posts and to show even more facets of the LGO experience.  May the next 10,000 come even faster :-)

image from: http://willfulcaboose.wordpress.com/2011/02/22/happy-pegula-day/balloons-in-sky/

Just putting it out there

I find I really do enjoy writing.  I wish I had more time to do it.  When I do make the time, write a post, add some photos and see a response, it's awesome.  Even when I just write for me, it's fun.  I like rereading what I've written later, since often I try and note things I won't necessarily remember about a time, place or situation.  Yes, a picture is worth a thousand words, but sometimes I find that pictures have fewer broad associations whereas with words you can picture an active scene or a 360 degree view or conjure up other related memories more easily.

Sometimes I wonder if I should try and incorporate writing in a more formal way in my career going forward.  I've done technical procedure writing for a job, and enjoyed that, but am also slightly curious about other company writing (PR?), though that takes knowing how to say things correctly and I know more how to say them honestly.  I'm concerned that it would feel very constraining.  There must be other company writing besides procedures and PR.

After thinking about it, and others might certainly disagree with me on this one, I would prefer to be an editor than a PR person.  I've been a tutor and peer editor in many ways, since even middle and high school, and think that I bring a solid command of English language and grammar to a piece that I'm reading.  Now that I've written that sentence, I expect I'll accidentally type a glaring spelling or grammar error, but you get the point.  Hopefully from reading ::ahem:: many ::ahem:: blog posts, you'll get a feel for how I write overall.

Instead, maybe writing is something to keep for my own reference, or at least more casual pursuits.  You reading this now, of course, means it's not just for me, but blogs are in that funny sphere of something that in physical form was usually private, a diary or travelogue or something, becoming more public in it's digital reincarnation.  I'm OK with that.

While I debate sometimes about writing for fun or writing for a job (though you can do both), what I have stuck with for a while is that on my bucket list is being a published author.  Not of a journal or an article (though I suppose those could be good starts depending on where I was headed), but of a real, find at a normal bookstore (or, ok on Amazon :-) book.  Having at least one hardcover or paperback book with my name on the spine would be so cool.  I have never written a long work of fiction, so I don't expect it would come out that way, but a group of essays or non-fiction or a memoir or something I can't even imagine right now would be wonderful to have in the body of my life's work.

This post concerns neither engineering, nor really business and a job only tangentially.  Instead, it's more just learning and thinking about what I would like and like to do in the long run.  I hope you don't mind humoring me.

Product Design and Development...Developments

Today was spent on a road trip to Rhode Island School of Design (in, you guessed it - Rhode Island!).  We went down there to work with our RISD teammates on our product design and development project which is to improve the experience of using a water fountain.  Our goal is to create a faucet/bubbler spout that encourages you to drink tap water from a water fountain versus buying bottled water.

At first we thought about telling you how much money you'd saved from the amount that you drank, but through our process decided that the fact of how much CO2 you saved by not buying bottled water that had been packaged and shipped actually had more impact.  Our aim is to have a final faucet where you know how much CO2 you saved depending on how long the button was held down (roughly equivalent to how much you drank).

While we've tossed around designs for faucets, we actually ended up primarily tackling the issue of how to present the water fountain concept, in a functioning way, without being near a bathroom or faucet.  Today, between work time and an extended trip to home depot, we spent eight hours working on building a cart to hold the water fountain as well as making sure our electronics worked.

It kind of explains itself

We were in the store for probably almost two hours - going over what we needed and verbally iterating our design.  It ended up working out pretty well.

The final faucet form for the review on Tuesday (yes, this Tuesday) is still in process, though we know what we want it to look like.  From our time working at RISD, I snapped a bunch of action shots.  Hope you enjoy.

On a side note, I saw something today when we grabbed a late lunch at Wendy's that was SO COOL.  There was a soda machine with one dispenser and a screen where you could pick many different sodas, but add flavor to them!  I don't know if these versions of the sodas were ever made, but I thought it was awesome to pick almost literally, whatever you wanted.  I had peach Fanta mixed with raspberry Sprite.  Where else could you do that??

The actual dispenser (I have since learned that this thing is called a Coca Cola Freestyle machine)

The soda cup (They called this a medium?!? It was so big!) that listed all the different flavors you could add to the core soda

Open House - the beginning of transition

The '14s have come to campus!  Not for full-time yet, but with the happy knowledge that everyone they saw at this event has also been accepted (January's Interviewfest is kind of an awkward time in that respect).  Even though the afternoon weather last Thursday was not the most cooperative (it turned grey and rainy), we had a good time which continued into Friday.  Open House was my big committee push (people choose all kinds of different committees to get extra involved in) and I really wanted to make sure we gave the most helpful information and made sure the '14s had fun and could confidently make up their minds as to whether they wanted to come to MIT for full time this summer.  I should have taken photos, but unfortunately, I didn't have my camera in my bag.

Things have been ramping up the for the end of the semester.  I'm now less than one month away from finishing three straight semesters of taking more than 54 units of class per term, two straight of 60 or more (business classes usually are nine units each, and engineering classes are 12 units) and I am looking forward to the change of pace the internship with GM will bring.  I have no idea how the work loads will compare, but at least I won't have much homework for GM (though I will be taking notes and thinking about my thesis).  For reference, during undergrad, I took 60 units only one semester of the eight I was at MIT.

Working (or at least printing) in an Athena cluster, one of MIT's computer labs

At the same time, I can't believe that the 2012s will be moving on up and away and won't be here when I come back from internship - they'll have been replaced with the '14s!  Supposedly, each year the character of the class switches back and forth from more single party people to a class with more SOs, kids and stablility.  My class is in the stable relationship part of the pattern and has pretty much lived up to that - not much drama, everything has been pretty good.  At the Open House, rather than all being single and ready to mingle, the 2014s brought a bunch of SOs and kids, so it will be interesting to see if they live up to the every other year trend or start to buck it.

I'm back!

After an April 1st that lasted for 30 hours due to all the time zones I was passing through and not having slept horizontally in a bed since the night of March 31st, I have returned safely home to Cambridge after working on our Lion Team project and then touring companies in Shanghai and Tokyo with the LGO International Plant Trek.

All in all, the trip had four parts, a LGO only benchmarking excursion to Beijing at the beginning of the trip (we wanted to see if another company had similar problems to those that Sandisk wanted us to address), then time in Shanghai with just our Lion Team - the 6 LGOs and 6 CLGOs, time in Shanghai with everyone on International Plant Trek (IPT) and then time with everyone from IPT in Tokyo, Japan.  It was a whirlwind 16 days.

Highlights of the trip included getting to spend a week working closely with six CLGOs on our lion team project for Sandisk.  They were fantastic hosts and translators and very encouraging as they watched me drop many things in my attempts to master chopsticks.  I appreciated getting to have extra one on one time with them because I feel that we were able to get to know each other much better compared to if I had just come for international plant trek.  50 with 50 is much more challenging than 6 with 6.

The Sandisk Lion Team at a classroom in Shanghai Jiao Tong University

We had many types of Chinese food with them.  Just as the US has regional specialties, we tried Hong Kong style food, Shanghai style, Cantonese style, etc. - some were spicier, some were sweeter, but I would say that I found all of them better than American style Chinese food.  I even tried frog and eel which I had never had before.

Our Hot Pot dinner at Little Fat Sheep (English Translation) - two types of broth were boiling in this bowl on our table and we cooked meat and vegetables in them

Between Lion Teams and International Plant Trek I visited six companies - Sandisk, another consumer electronics company for benchmarking (I'm not writing it here since we're not giving the name to Sandisk), Nike, Cisco, Sony and Nissan.  We got to see everything from production to distribution to product showcases.  It was pretty impressive.  I'm glad I chose to both do Lion Teams and International Plant Trek, but have been happy to be back in the US also.  I can't believe it's been a week already since I returned.  More to come!

Happy Pi(e) Day!

Today, Sloan provided goodies over lunch.  Mi Pi was apple and it was pretty tasty.  This was a nice treat near the end of the last week before SIP (Sloan Innovation Period).  Pretty soon I'll be off to China and Japan!

Sloan's poster announcement

The spread - you could choose apple, cherry or blueberry

Mi Pi!

Go Tech!

Tonight MIT made it to the final four of the NCAA Division III Men's Basketball tournament by beating Franklin & Marshall College 69-54.  This is the first time ever that this has happened and it's pretty darn cool.  I know we're Division III and that's not as glamorous as Division I, but it still means something to get this far, especially considering that MIT does no sports recruiting.

In honor of the team's success, I'm posting MIT's cheer.  The only thing you need to know is that Tim (MIT backwards) the beaver is our mascot.  Why the beaver?  It's native to North America, is nature's engineer, is very industrious and is mostly nocturnal.  Without further ado, here it is:

I'm a beaver,
You're a beaver,
We are beavers all!
And when we get together,
We do the beaver call!

E to the u du dx,
E to the x dx!
Cosine secant tangent sine,
3.14159,
Integral, radical, mu, dv!
Slipstick, slide rule, M-I-T!
Go tech!

March - how did we get here already?

Three months from now I will be starting at GM.  It has been a little over nine months since this LGO adventure started and so much has happened.  Most recently, we received more information about internship logistics and thesis writing.  Eeek!  The 2012s are finishing up their theses as I write this and it's hard to believe I'll be filling their shoes a year from now.

In class, my idea to redesign a water fountain made it to the final 12 projects (out of over 100 to start with) in our product design class and so, for the rest of the semester I'll be working with six other people to make that happen.  Outside of class, I worked with another LGO, Jessica Lin, a PhD student from Harvard and an MBA from Babson in a healthcare case competition.  Even though the case competition was not as successful as our Product Design and Development class has been so far, I think I definitely still got a lot out of it.  Case competitions can sometimes be a good way to give yourself a crash course in something.  In our case, it was digital marketing (a company wanted to use these techniques to create a drug launch strategy).

Outside of class, I went to the South Asian C-Function tonight, which was a blast.  There was tasty Indian food, many people wore brightly colored clothes from the region and students danced and sang.  Hey 2014s, can we go to India for next year's International Plant Trek?  I'm not kidding on this one - a bunch of 2013s would like to do it :-)  Speaking of International Plant Trek, between that and my Lion Teams class, I will be in China and Japan for two weeks very soon.  I'm not sure how internet access (and security!) will work over there, so I might be posting about it all after the fact, but, trust me, there will be pictures and travelogues!

Besides March feeling like it came more quickly, it has continued the trend of ridiculously un-winter-y weather.  Today it hit 67 degrees (which is pretty much at if not breaking a record high temperature for this day of the year).  People were extra happy and many had lunch outside or decided to walk between buildings outdoors, rather than inside.  The photo below is real, it's not a "posed to look like we spend time outside" photo.  I can't say it happens regularly, but this is not promotional, people just went out to enjoy the sun.

Hanging out in front of E62, the newest Sloan Building, enjoying the warm weather

I hope the warm trend continues until spring when it's supposed to start getting warmer otherwise these poor flowers are going to be toast.  We've had snow as late as April before in Massachusetts.

Signs that spring has spung - little blue flowers by E62

Finally, in this festive mood I'm in, I'll post a LGO candid because it makes me smile.

Happy March everyone!

Decisions, Decisions

While the potential '14s await an admissions package from LGO, the current first year class, I'm pleased to announce, has received our internship placements.  Those of us who are doing on-cycle internships now know which companies we will be working with for the latter part of 2012.  My assignment?  Here's a hint:

Answer? Working for GM in Pontiac, MI (not Detroit, as the picture of their headquarters above might suggest).  Pontiac is a 30-40 minute drive northwest of Detroit.

I will be working at their Casting, Engine and Transmission Center and besides trying to think of how I'll approach my internship, I have already started a custom google map for what's in the area - groceries, etc.  Housing is provided, but I will need to get/buy/lease a car for that six month period due to an optimistically worded note my project description.  And I quote, "public transportation is not optimal in this area, and will be difficult to rely on...".  I get a kick out of that every time I read it.

Related to internship stuff, this means that when this semester ends, I will be 3/4 done with my classwork for LGO.  Only a few more classes and a thesis after internship and we'll be getting sent off into the world before we know it.  It's very hard to believe that a year ago I was just being told I was admitted...

Back to Academics

Here are the classes that I am taking this semester (at least for now - MIT has a very generous Add/Drop policy and so this could change later in the term).

15.281 - Advanced Communication for Leaders aka Comm II
I get Comm II with the professor I had Comm I with so I feel like I have even more of an opportunity to get some helpful analysis on how I've improved over the past year.  I'm taking this class because Comm I said that in presentations, I've got the info down and it's explained clearly, my energy could just be improved.  Public speaking and presenting is not something that's terribly fun to do, but the more you work on it, the better you get.  I'm taking the class because it will be challenging sometimes, but worth it.  Also, the professor is great.

15.401 - Finance I
Since this is Finance in the spring, the professor knows that the people who are taking it do not plan to go into Finance (when asked if we would, none of us raised our hands).  I think it will still be a lot of work, but won't be quite as intense because of the students who are in the class.  I guess Finance I and II combined used to be one huge (and tough!) Sloan core class.  As LGOs, at a minimum we either need to take Finance or Marketing before graduating.  I was debating what to do - one? both? when? - and my Sloan ocean advisor basically said that you should not be allowed to leave Sloan without taking a finance class.  Hence, this is my choice and I think it will be beneficial in the long run with many applications.

15.847 - Consumer Behavior
Took this class, almost on a whim - my second year "pilot" of our Sloan core team is the TA and I heard that the professor was good.  I'm one of those people who cares equally about the topic as the professor.  Sounded like it would be enjoyable and so far the lectures have lived up to my expectations.

15.900 - Competitive Strategy
Strategy is a half semester class and was noted by Sloan staff as another core-type course that would be good to have exposure to.  It is also a prerequisite for other interesting classes.  I'm taking it so I can fulfill the prerequisite and I also think it's a good balance for some of the more detail focused classes I'm taking.

2.739 - Product Design and Development
This course is jointly offered to LGOs, Mechanical Engineering masters students, MBAs, senior undergrads from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) and other Sloan programs.  It focuses on the holistic approach of product design, from concept development to marketing of a new product.  We will be creating prototypes this semester; this class has produced sale-able products in the past, however, we were reminded that this was not the aim of the class.

ESD.267/268 - Two supply chain half-term courses focused on further developing our knowledge in this subject.
I chose these classes because A) they are required for my engineering masters track and B) to see if I can figure out more of the difference between supply chain and logistics (I took Logistics Systems in the fall).  It seems like there's tons of overlap.  Since supply chain issues were core to many of the internship projects proposed for the '12s, knowing these topics inside and out should be helpful.

and finally...

Lion Teams
Lion Teams is an active learning consulting-type class offered for LGO students to work with their CLGO counterparts.  We help companies either based in or with offices in China work on a problem they are facing.  We will spend time in China conducting meetings and presentations during the week before spring break or at the end of the semester in May.  This semester I am working with one other LGO '13 and three LGO '12s on a project for Sandisk.

So many interviews!

Interview has been the word for this week.

Backstory: what guides your thesis and is the capstone experience of LGO is a six month long internship with a partner company.  This is done during the summer between your first and second years in the program and is a chance to put to use your work experience and lots of what you've learned at MIT.  Sometimes internships lead to full-time offers with companies, but the immediate goal is to make positive change for the company you work for.

Both students and companies have input into this process and matching proceeds much like how medical residents get matched, students rank companies and companies rank students.  The best compromise where everyone gets matched is the goal.  Last year the 12s had many first and second choices, but the fact remains that you could be assigned to any project you rank.

Over the holiday break, internship descriptions began to appear.  During plant trek we had to submit a list of projects we wanted to interview for and finally, after three days this week of meeting with partner companies for 20 minutes at a time for each interview, I managed to complete my 19 interview sessions to learn about 23 on-cycle projects.  Phew!  I thought that the interviews were going to be the hard part, but turns out that ranking, at least in my case, seems to be much more brain wracking.

Besides the inerviews that the '13s went through this past week, on Friday and again on Monday and Tuesday, LGO will be interviewing candidates for the class of 2014.  We've begun InterviewFest and I've had fun speaking with prospectives, sitting in on a panel discussion about the program and then going out to dinner off campus.  Tonight we'll be holding an event of food and fun at an on-campus pub, The Thirsty Ear, which is located in the new Ashdown graduate dormitory.  Should be a good time.

Last but not least part of Plant Trek - Amgen and Puerto Rico

I must say that the previous posts did not cover the entirety of our Plant Trek visits.  One company that I have yet to mention, but who hosted us in lovely Juncos, Puerto Rico was Amgen, one of LGO's partners in the pharma industry.  They hosted us for the whole day and had a well organized set of tours and panels to help us learn more about the company and then get to ask questions about what we had seen.

Over lunch, the VP of Site Operations, Esteban Santos, turned the roles around and asked us what the most high tech company we visited on Plant Trek was.  Many of us said Boeing since their products have to fly or Dell since computers are often what you think of when you think of high tech.  He countered that Amgen was even more high tech than that.  Even though their products are pills or inject-able liquids which are simple to administer, all the processes and development that it takes to get a normal microbial or mammalian cells to produce a specific protein in large enough volumes to make these products is pretty darn high tech when you come to think about it.  He majored in electrical engineering originally, but Amgen was a company that he found to be completely cutting edge.  I hadn't thought about it that way before.  As a visitor you mainly see a lot of tanks and pipes, but don't always think about everything that's going on inside.  Companies that make larger products can seem more impressive because their parts take up so much more space, but Amgen certainly did a lot with their molecules.

Amgen organized tours, Q&A sessions and a quick case study like we often have back at MIT in our weekly Proseminar class and then they had a very nice reception outside for us, complete with food and live music.  It was the end of our trip, the weather was beautiful and we had a wonderful time.  Definitely worth a celebration.

After Plant Trek officially ended, at least three quarters of the class took the opportunity to spend at least a day or two more in Puerto Rico.  Many people rented bigger apartments or houses to split the rent, but other students had their SOs come down so they could have mini vacations together.  We stayed in San Juan (where we had flown into and would fly out of) but took day trips to see all kinds of things.

My two main excursions were to slide down a natural waterslide in the rainforest in Luquillo called Las Paylas (we parked in a man named Carlos's driveway as instructed by the website http://www.puertoricodaytrips.com/las-paylas/) and my other excursion was to kayak in a bioluminescent bay on the northeast side of the island near the town of Fajardo.  When you put your paddle or hand into the water all these plankton would light up at the disturbance of the water and glow blue!  It was windy that evening, so even the little waves breaking from the wind would light up.  Both outings were very cool and I couldn't have the same experiences anywhere else.

All in all, during our trip around the US (and one of its territories!) we missed the snow that fell on Seattle and the snow that fell in Boston.  I came home to a cold but at least not core-chilling day when it wasn't precipitating.  Things worked out well.  Plant trek has now come and gone, but I will still have lots of memories to last with me.  Thanks to all the companies for hosting us, to the Plant Trek committee for planning and executing the trip so well and to the other students for keeping things fun.  Yay!

Domestic Plant Trek - Week 2, Part 1

Day 9 – Amazon in the morning and a free afternoon

We visited Amazon on MLK day, and, despite it being a holiday things were as busy as ever.  That’s most of what I can say though, since they made us sign a NDA to not talk about it for five years.  You can interpret that how you like.  Amazon has the third largest number of LGO alumni.  That I can say.

One thing that amused me though was, as we were in our bus driving away from their fulfillment center, we passed a large building with a Scholastic books label.  I wonder if they work together or if Amazon is working towards putting Scholastic out of business.  I suppose they need books to sell though, so someone has to print them.

Since we were back at the hotel early, my roommate and I spent the afternoon relaxing, reading and reading through the additional internship descriptions that had been posted.  It was nice.  Since we did not have the light rail passes on Monday, I went with a different group of people to a place called Mi Patio, which was close to the hotel.  The waiter there was very nice, and another of their staff chased me down the sidewalk when they found my camera at our table – amazing!  We had a good time and then ended up sitting in the hotel lounge for a while.  I had a new cribbage opponent to play with, someone showed off a magic trick and we just sat around talking about random stuff.

Muy feliz en Mi Patio

Day 10 – Foodie Excursion and travel

With a 2:30 flight out of Phoenix, our morning was left nicely open.  After a quick breakfast, seven of us went off in search of Pizzeria Bianco, listed as one of the top pizza places in the nation.  Needless to say, we were not disappointed.  We shared three different topping combinations on our pizzas (all ones officially listed on the menu) but my favorite was parmesan, red onion, rosemary and ground Arizona pistachios.  So yummy!  None of these had sauce (hence, Pizzeria Bianco), but they were fantastic.  We all walked out of there very happy and would recommend it to future plant trekers if they end up in Phoenix.  The only downfall of the places is that it’s small.  The whole class just could not go there.  We went right when it opened for lunch on our way to the airport, but I read that there can be quite a wait for dinner.

Pizzeria Bianco - mmm

They grow lettuces and rosemary in small garden patches on either side of the front door

The gang in happy anticipation - we stopped here on our way to the airport

With our visit to Arizona, we’ve now stayed in and visited all four time zones in the US.

After we arrived at our hotel in Austin about five small groups of LGOs all independently went to Stubb’s BBQ, which was about a mile away.  Two other members of summer team seven and I split two large plates (totalling three types porks and a beef and three preparations of vegetables and some potatoes) and were good to go.  Since it was Texas, I ordered a sweet tea.  One of my teammates said a shot of BBQ sauce would do for his drink, but didn’t actually go through with it (this was his idea, not a menu option – they had a full sized ketchup squeeze bottle of BBQ sauce on every table).  After dinner, came back to the room and went to bed since Dell would be early the next morning.

Day 11 – Dell and our last evening in Austin

Honestly, I think I did more reading about Dell before our visit than I had any other company on the trip.  My stereotype to be blunt was that they were cheap ubiquitous computers of average quality that were sold back in the day by ads with that strange guy Carrot Top.  While their factory tour was relatively short and sobering (the facility in Round Rock Texas was the last remaining assembly facility in the US - there used to be five I think), I found their strategy for the future and company environmental stance to be more impressive than I expected.  I had no idea Michael Dell was so driven and accomplished from such a young age and didn’t realize how much industry pioneering work Dell had done as a company.  I did not originally have them on my list of internships to interview for, but asked afterwards if I could add it.  We’ll see if that happens.  The internship is focused more on company strategy and since that was the part of the company that I found most compelling, it seemed like it could be good.

Dell had us sign a three year NDA, but I feel like most of the things I am talking about you could find from Dell’s website, Wikipedia or reading the news, so I think I’m doing ok.  We were able to meet Michael Dell himself near the beginning of our day with them and that was pretty cool.  He is still the youngest CEO ever of a Fortune 500 company – crazy!  One of the employees I spoke with over lunch made the point that there’s something unique about founder run companies.  I hadn’t really thought about that specifically before, but I would imagine it’s true.

After a full day with Dell, I went to Allen's Boots with two other people to check out authentic Texan cowboy gear.  Apparently, cowboys make a good living because I did not see any boots for women less than $200.  They came in all kinds of leathers and stitching patterns and most were handmade (other factors that bumped up the price).  A brand with very soft leathers was Luchese - they had boots with ostrich leathers, crocodile leathers, goat leather and regular leather - all kinds of stuff - and to my pleasant surprise, they ran narrow.  However, the pair that I tried on and liked was $550, so it was not exactly an impulse buy.  I enjoyed trying them on, but made no purchase.  Still fun to see and experience though.

Me wearing the boots :-)

Such a big selection!

The pair in the top picture close up - the toe part is crocodile or alligator or something I think

From there we went to dinner at Hula Hut with a bunch of other people and then headed to Sixth Street – basically everyone we met in Austin, and even in the airport leaving asked us if we had been there. It was a happening place with bars and clubs and bars and lots of music. We even saw one of our group’s taxi drivers playing with his band and they were really good! I also played table top shuffle board for the first time ever at Buffalo Billiards and got a perfect score on my first try. Needless to say it was beginner’s luck, but I still felt very proud of myself.

Happy at Hula Hut

The taxi driver's band in a bar we stopped at

My two winning red discs on the board - together they got me seven points which was enough to win the game before the other team even had a chance - woohoo!

Domestic Plant Trek - Week 1 to 2 - Transition to Warmth

Day 7 – Day Off!

Today was our first and only day where nothing was scheduled.  Unlike the day we flew in and the day of our Boeing Tour, both of which were sunny, our day off dawned grey and damp with snow/rain in the forecast. I was lucky enough to have a friend in Seattle, my best friend from high school, and so it was great to spend a day with her and her boyfriend.

With great company in Seattle

We took the monorail into downtown, walked through the Pike Place Market, where we got some of what we had for dinner and got to try chocolate pasta (yes it has chocolate in it, but has enough regular pasta ingredients that it looks and feels like pasta).  Unlike vegetable pasta which I swear is only colored differently and has little flavor difference, you could taste that there was chocolate in the pasta.  We went into a shop called Bavarian Meats, where every product inside was European, mainly German, we went into the original/first Starbucks and had a nice time strolling around even though the weather was rather miserable.

We went back to their apartment to drop off our food purchases then headed out by car around the city to a bunch of the different neighborhoods.  We stopped for lunch at a place called Pie (you could guess what they sold – Liz – if you and Peter come to Seattle – you should go!), and then got warm beverages from another place (so many coffee shops!) in Fremont if I remember correctly.

Some of the view from the roof deck of their apartment building

Finally the sun started to come out.  After lunch we drove past the university, went down to a park on a canal with locks, went to another park that used to be an army base that had nice views of another lake, stopped at a grocery store they often shop at and then an ice cream place called Molly Moon’s which is local to Seattle and everything they use is organic and ideally local.  I tried both the strawberry balsamic and the cardamom ice cream and they were both fantastic.  I would totally go back there.

The biggest treat though was yet to come.  We went back to their place and her boyfriend, who went to culinary school and is currently running a food truck, made us dinner.  We had salmon (fresh from the market) with a cider beurre blanc sauce and orzo cooked with shallots and some black truffle.  It was super tasty and much more enjoyable than going out.  We also watched a bunch of the BBC show Top Gear.  Good times.  I’m sorry I just had the one day off, but maybe that means I’ll have to come back again for another visit.

Day 8 – Flying and warmth

After another free breakfast at the hotel in Seattle, we boarded a bus and headed off to SEA where we would be flying to Phoenix on Southwest.  Things went smoothly, but the plane did have to be de-iced because it was snowing (rather than sleeting like the day before) in Seattle and sticking some on the ground, the plane and all over.  Of all the destinations of the first part of Plant Trek, I did not expect Seattle to be the cold one with snow.  Crazy!

Rainy snowy slushiness at SEA

We landed in Phoenix, AZ mid-afternoon and, rather than charter a bus, all of us took a bus to the light rail station to the hotel.  We ended up in a group of a dozen or so, had no problems getting to the hotel and had the evening to ourselves.  It was refreshing that when the train doors opened on intermediate stops, the air rushing in was not chilling.  Skies were overcast and the air temp was in the 60s.

Warm and dry in Phoenix though!

Since we had an unlimited ride rail/bus day pass in Phoenix, some other folks and I took the light rail to Tempe right by ASU where there were a lot of restaurants and more nightlife. I felt that in Arizona, one had to have Mexican (or almost Mexican anyway) food and so we ended up at a place called Canteen for tacos and margaritas. The tacos were not as filling as they thought they would be so a subset of us went further to a second dinner or snack if you will at In-N-Out Burger. This was instigated by students from the west coast and I went out of curiosity. It was the first time for me to have one of these burgers with a cult following. The burger was good, the price made it even more impressive (<$3!) and the whole adventure added to the fun of the evening. We took the light rail back to the hotel, got in around 10:30 and then went to bed.

The view from the hall on the floor of our hotel

Domestic Plant Trek - Week 1, Part 2

Day 4 – A full day with GM

Woke up at 5AM to drive over an hour north to GM’s Lansing Delta Township Plant.  We saw basically all their facilities on this campus – from stamping to the body shop to general assembly.  This plant makes cross overs.  Everyone there was friendly, excited about their product and enthusiastic about having us there.  They gave us a great set of tours.  They showed us so much that I actually can’t remember all the details.

The facilities even though they were in separate large buildings were connected by tunnels or bridges (tubes) so that the cars could stay climate controller throughout the entire assembly process.  We were also able to see techs driving the vehicles off the line.  One of their union leaders, who was leading another tour group of LGOs let them get in the cars when they drove off the line!  I spoke quite a bit with Kurt Wiese who was in my tour group.  He’s an executive director at GM and, besides finding out more about the company from him; I found out that he went to high school a few streets away from where I lived when I worked in Ann Arbor.

All the exhibits at the North American International Auto Show

Besides seeing GM’s plants, they hosted us with tickets to and a reception at the North American International Auto Show at Cobo Hall in Detroit.  Even though I had lived in metro Detroit, I had never been to the auto show or Cobo Hall.  It was pretty neat seeing all the concept cars, getting to sit in fancy ones and just see what each company was thinking of for the future.  Lots of familiar brands had displays, but there also was a Tesla exhibit, a Maserati exhibit and a car by a brand called Falcon, I think I read that they’re made in Michigan with corvette engines, but I could be mixing things up.  From watching Top Gear, I know that corvette engines actually pop up in a number of different vehicles.

Sitting with Eugene in a Bentley!

The BMW i8 - this concept car was used in Mission Impossible 4: Ghost Protocol

The sporty version of the new Fiat500 - I sat in both this and the Mini and liked the Fiat more

After a super long day at factories and the Auto Show, I got back to my friend’s house around 10PM, called home to wish my sister and dad happy birthday and then went to sleep.

Day 5 – Ford and Flying

Got to sleep in (relatively).  Call for being on the bus was 7:55 instead of 6AM.  We went to the Ford Truck Plant in Dearborn, MI, where they make all the F-150s.  With all the different models and specification choices on these trucks, customers could order any one of 580,000 combinations.  While GM had a number of LGO or Sloan affiliated people at the facility we visited, Ford did not appear to have any at this location.  Henry Ford III, is a Sloan MBA ’10, but I heard he is now working out in California.

It was cool to see Ford and GM back to back so we could have one in mind when we saw the other.  GM’s facility seemed to be more full of levels of equipment and stages of assembly, but I don’t know if that was because they made a greater variety of vehicles or did more manual assembly or what.  Not sure.  Even whether GM did more manual assembly than Ford is just my guess.  At both facilities though, all the tracks and wheels and levels and whirring to move the car pieces around reminded me of a roller coaster and so I really wanted to ride one after those tours.  No luck though.  Cedar Point (park with tons of coasters in Ohio) was too far of a drive.

We spent just a half day at Ford, grabbed lunch in the area and then drove off to DTW, Detroit’s airport.  We took Frontier Airlines, which I had never flown on, to Denver which we called “the windy brotherly emerald apple city of love” and “the lone star state” (we were punchy at this point) and then on to our final destination, Seattle, where we settled in at our hotel (just blocks from the Space Needle) for our Boeing visit the next day.

The Space Needle by night, taken from in front of the Experience Music Project Museum building (designed by Frank Ghery, architect of the Stata Center on MIT's campus) - I know it's a dark photo :-(

The funny thing is that both Frontier planes were Airbus planes, so, thank you Airbus for taking us to Boeing.  We had worried about making our 45 min connection in Denver, but, turns out, the gates were only eight away from each other in the same terminal and I was even able to grab some dinner in between.  Frontier Airlines’ defining feature, other than making people with carry-ons board after everyone else and actually having you measure your bags to those carry-on sizing things, is that they give you chocolate chip cookies midway to late in the flight.  My row did a cookie time dance on our second flight segment.  As I said, we were getting punchy.

Day 6 – Boeing Tour

Boeing involved waking up early, but not extremely early and it was pretty to see the early sky getting brighter around Mt. Rainier in the background.  It turned out to be a sunny day in Seattle which led me to conclude that perhaps we had landed somewhere that just looked a lot like Seattle.  I thought it was supposed to rain all the time!

At Boeing we congregated in their MIC conference room (management information center) and then split into two groups.  My group went to the paint hanger first where we saw a very clean painting operations and learned how manual and time consuming it still was, even with the equipment they did have.  Many paint colors, such as light blue take many coats of paint because they are relatively transparent.  Also, they are hard to match, so if there are any defects, they often have to completely repaint the area with that color.  I forget if it was all the coats of paint, or just one coat, but paint on a plane adds an additional 250-500 pounds of weight!  So, from that perspective, many airlines stick with white bodies and a logo – less weight equals less fuel burn.

From the paint hangar, we went to the flight line, which is kind of like a giant driveway where they park planes when they are ready for customer inspection.  Customers are given as much time as they want to walk through the inside and around the outside of the plane to make sure it meets their specifications.  There was a Lion Air (based in Indonesia) plane that was ready for inspection and so, while they would not let us on the plane, we got to peek in basically any compartment that could open to the outside, as well as the engines and wings where covers had been lifted.  I finally got to see how big a checked luggage compartment was on a 737 and, honestly, it was smaller than I thought.

The flightline was outside and in Seattle that day it was in the mid-30s.  They had told us that since we wouldn’t have the same bus the whole day, we should only bring what we wanted to carry.  Therefore, a bunch of people left their jackets at the hotel.  They didn’t tell us that part of the tour would be outside and so this was a rather unfortunate combination.

The paint hangar and the flight line were basically next to each other, but for the next part of the tour, we took a bus up to their history of flight museum where we would be having lunch.  They had planned for us to arrive at the museum and have lunch pretty quickly, but we arrived early and so were left in a holding pattern of sorts in the lobby only able to explore the gift shop.  They didn’t let us down into the exhibits to help kill time.  We were able to go up to an observation deck and see a 747 take off, but, again, it was cold. :-(

Lunch was excellent though and we ate with many execs from different departments of Boeing.  I forget which one has more alumni, Intel or Boeing, but Boeing is in the top two for number of LGO alumni at a partner company.  This is partly due to their tenure with the program though, they’ve been partners basically since the beginning.

After lunch we went to their manufacturing facilities – we saw 787s and 747s being built and actually got to walk through each of those airplanes that were partially completed.  This was the first time and probably only time for a while (if ever?) that I could go into the cockpit of one of those airplanes.  It was pretty neat.  The building where all this took place is also the world’s largest building by volume and has the world’s largest mural on its side.  An airplane and all the equipment that is necessary to make it, is not small.

Finally, we went to the Boeing Dreamliner Gallery. The Dreamliner is the 787, their newest airplane, and currently four are in use in the world (Japan), and the rest are still being made. I think they said that they have pre-orders for something like 1000 of them. This gallery was built to simplify customer ordering and to show them all the pre-set options for the plane – they can try out seats, walk into restrooms, mock up galley spaces and pick out fabrics and colors. Boeing charges $1M if a customer would like to deviate from their catalog of choices. This facility basically serves as a big showroom for how customers can put together a plane and helps streamline the spec-ing process. After the Dreamliner gallery it was back to our hotel and off to have dinner with a friend who lives in the area.

NOTE: I basically just have photos of the auto show because none of the facilities we visited allowed us to take photos inside them.  Therefore, you will see more of what we did outside of the companies in the photos and have to just read about our plant visits.

Domestic Plant Trek - Week 1, Part 1

Day 1 – Kickoff & Travel

We all arrived at Logan Airport, flew to Chicago Midway and then took a three hour bus ride to Peoria, IL (during which I switched my watch to Central Time).  We checked into the Embassy Suites hotel in Peoria and had about an hour before a presentation from a LGO faculty emeritus – Mr. Shoji Shiba (or, as they would say in Japan, Shiba-san, meaning roughly ‘Mr. Shiba’)  - about how to observe a factory, specifically remembering to look for things that are not there as well as things that are.  He has been affiliated with LGO since 1993 and is deeply dedicated to quality management.  Here’s an article about a prestigious quality award he received ten years ago, which details his expertise but also his general background.

After the presentation about using our three eyes and "unlearning" so we could observe more at the factory, we were treated to a cocktail reception and then dinner with CAT.  We saw some familiar faces – CAT had visited us in June and in the fall - and got to meet a few new ones as well.  It was cool to have the same kind of meetings, but on their “turf.”  We got a quick overview from Denise Johnson ‘97 about her experience with the company and why she joined it and then the rest of the time was dinner and chatting with her and the other CAT employees in attendance.  I didn’t sleep as well as I wanted to that night, but bed was certainly welcome.

Day 2 – Visit to CAT

A cold, misty, frosty morning in Peoria, IL

Monday dawned and we were up early – before 6 AM.  Breakfast started at 6 and we were expected to have packed, eaten and checked out so we could get on the bus at 7AM.  The weather was mostly heavy frost.  We first went to a CAT facility right in Peoria for a factory tour and presentations in a conference room.  In the morning we walked around their track type tractor facility and saw them making these large to giant machines.  CAT makes track-type tractors in sizes D6 to D11 (D11 is the largest – one drove down an aisle while we were touring and the floor shook as it went along).  We also heard about and saw them building the D7E, a smaller size track-type tractor with an electric drive train – it uses, on average 25% less fuel than the normal D7 (though burning fuel is how it generates the electricity).  They also redesigned the cab so the operator could see out even more.

In the afternoon, we went to their demonstration facility where they had simulators for driving most of their equipment.  We were very excited to test these out.  They had the complete set of pedals and steering equipment at each station.  What made us even more excited was what came next.  We went into a room with darkened glass walls and bleacher-type seating.  This was the demonstration area.  As the CAT guide started talking about their products, gymnasium type lights (the ones that take forever to get to full brightness) started turning on, so gradually, we began to see what was behind the glass.

Behind the glass was two acres of dirt enclosed in a building with many of their tractors and other equipment on it.  There was a hill in the back, a hole and a pile of dirt kind of the middle of the arena.  As each piece of equipment was presented, it would either dig or push or level or whatever it was meant to do.  Some of the tools used lasers to grade the land more quickly, so you wouldn’t need as many passes or surveying equipment.  I thought that was very impressive.  They can actively monitor the level of the ground their passing over and adjust the blade height accordingly.

Two acres of dirt under one roof

Finally, to the amazement and little-kid joy of us, they allowed us to go out onto the arena floor and climb on their biggest machines – the D11, a 100-ton capacity dump truck, a loader that could fill that truck in 3-4 scoops, and a number of the other machines we saw earlier.  It was lots of fun and something we definitely could not have done otherwise.  Definitely a memorable experience.

The 100-ton dump truck and corresponding loader

After seeing CAT, that evening we took a three hour bus ride back to Chicago and had then evening out on our own.  In Chicago, I ate deep dish pizza at Lou Malnati’s with about ten other people, including someone’s sister who lives in town.  That was fun and tasty and filling.  For that kind of pizza, when the menu says “serves X”, it means “serves X”.  We ordered three large pizzas for eleven people and could not finish them.  We ate about two-and-a-half pies.  I went back past the hotel with some people and ended up staying in – showering and going through the photos I had taken so far.

Dinner!

Day 3 – Travel day

A day to sleep in a little – the first thing we were required to do was meet up at Union Station in Chicago at 10:30.  This is so we could figure out how to check in as a group with Amtrak and then take the train to Detroit.  Amtrak boarded us, as a group, first, and we actually have our own car, which has been nice.  While on the train, we were behind a freight train for a little while and so went slower for part of our five hour journey than expected.  On the train I taught a fellow classmate, Clayton, how to play the card game cribbage.  It will be easier to play again when we’re not on a train.  It was good that I had the board though, since the train did not have wifi.  Five hours is a long time to be literally chugging along.  We got to be completely casual and it was fun.

Good Morning Union Station!

We arrived at our hotel in Novi around 8PM, (the train got to Detroit 45 minutes late).  Everyone else checked in and I went to stay with a local friend.