This Thursday, I woke up early in the morning in order to catch up with my scheduled interview with the head of the LEAN organization of Lufthansa Technik Philippines. The trip going to the place was very toxic. In the mrt, a lot of people were already jamming up for the line. Whew, I’m already 30 mins late for the appointment and yet I’m still at quezon ave. station. when I arrived at the edsa-taft station, I took the jeepney ride to Nichols and unboarded in front of palmed to wait for the shuttle bus, unfortunately, I wasn't able to catch up with the last trip and so I have to take the taxi to Lufthansa which is inside the villamor airbase (sayang tuloy ang 45 pesos na pinantaxi !). To my relief, I saw my father waiting for me at the front gate of the company. I registered at the gate, and off we went to Mr. Glen's office. My father introduced me to him, and he introduced himself and offered a hand shake. I introduced myself and apologized for being late. He said, "Its ok, upo ka muna dyan pare," pointing towards the other desk inside his office. My father left, since it's already the end of his duty and he still needs to get some rest and sleep at home. Mr. Glen, who appeared to me as a very nice guy, handed me down the CONFIDENTIAL LEAN PROGRAM MANUAL prepared by German lean champions, for me to review. I ask him, "is this originally made by the Germans?” he said, "yes", I asked him again if I can copy some notes and he allowed me. For 2 hours I copied some important notes. After some time, an employee entered, called him sir but sir glen called him "pare", and then I realized his style of leadership. They left the office, I was left alone, then an evil thought came into my mind,” I’ll get my camera and take a picture of every page of the "sacred" manual. For devil's sake, I took a picture of a certain page but I couldn't read it! The letters where blurred, karma nga naman, ang bilis ng dating. When he came back, I’m already done reviewing the manual and taking down notes. I interviewed him, and I learned a lot from it. He then offered me a tour around the company, we went outside, him walking fast, and I trying to keep up with his phase.
Our first stop was in the quality department, we entered into a room which he called "the war room", on the walls of the room were a line of piece of papers, with written activities and their respective time of completion. Then inside the room was a german national busy analysing the activity, the man was exactly the same as how JK Rowling described "Horace Slughorn” (the new professor in Harry potter and the half-blood prince). Sir glen introduced me to him, we shook hands but I couldn't remember his name because of nervousness,napasubo ata ako dito . I introduced myself to him, I said that I am a student conducting a study regarding the lean transformation program of the company. then he started explaining to me what those papers on the walls are for, and all I could comment was "uhm,owkei, hummm, yes and a bunch of nods" because I couldn't understand a thing which he was saying as he points to some formula written on a white board at the opposite side of the wall. then both mr. glen and the man started speaking in English, I was terrified and shocked at first, "anong gagawin ko, magmumukha akong tanga pag hindi ako nagsalita" then a thing came into my mind, i noticed that two papers were aligned at the same column, i asked the German , " are these activities done concurrently?" , he said "ow, yes, they are concurrent now, because we've realized that the mechanic can do both of the activities at the same time so as to reduce the time in completing a job." i added, " so these are inputs from the frontline men?" he said yes and gave me a smile. They further explained what they do at the war room and felt comfortable with the situation. Then off we go, the German offered me again another hand-shake and i took it and said that it was nice meeting him. mr glen then toured me to the sites where lean program is prioritized then we went to the second war room, the room was near the dept where my father works, i also remembered our first company study there with my best buddies,harvi and estong, and missed that time. Anyways, we entered the room and to my surprise i saw the most complicated ISHIKAWA diagram that i have encountered in my life, it was written on a white board and it has lots of stems which depict complexity. I was amazed that here in front of me was a real working FISH-BONE diagram way beyond what i use to know about it in the academe. (nagagamit pala talaga tong mga tools na to sa totoong buhay). in the other side of the wall was a lot of graphs, mr glen explained each to me, and what is the meaning of each graphs, i didn't get most of it though. on the other side, was a flow process diagram, an analysis on certain activities done by the mechanics. he toured me to other places. it was already past 12, and he said that he still have a meeting, he told me that if i want to learn more, I’ll have to wait for him in his office. i said that that was already enough and thank him for his time and effort in mentoring me. he then told me that he is also from MAPUA , batch 1996 IE graduate, we had a chat about certain old professors. after a while, he had to leave and offered me a hand-shake again before he went to his meeting and told me that if i needed more of his help again, i should never hesitate to contact him and gave me his calling card.
whew, that experience for me was great. even better than the "plant visits" that the student council organized at our school. I learned a lot, earned new acquaintances and got connections from the industry. I really would like to share this experience with a friend but sad to say, nobody seems to be interested.
