ASSOCIATE JOURNAL

Monday

I'm up early as usual and into the taxi half asleep to get to the airport. I check in amongst the holiday makers and head through security to the gate, on the plane as fast as possible to catch at least an hour's sleep. We land in Bremen and I go and get coffee while Alex gets the hire car sorted, it's been 6 weeks making this journey now and we've got it down to a fine art. On the way to site we catch up with each other's weekend news and discuss the plan for the week. Alex and I figure out exactly what I need to achieve with my team by the end of the week to be on track to meet our target.

As soon as we arrive on site I head to the team room to see what is new and who is around to update me on the progress from Friday and the morning so far. One of the trials we had planned for Monday afternoon actually went ahead on Sunday and the result was not what we expected so we delve into the details to find out what happened and understand what went on.

I catch up with each of the team members to find out what how they are doing with their actions and then prepare for the afternoon team meeting.  After the meeting I spend the rest of the afternoon working on the problem tree with one of the process engineers to figure out what we need to do next to get to the bottom of the quality problem we were suffering last week.  I continue to talk it through at the end of the day with Alex to keep ahead of the team so that I can steer them in the right direction tomorrow.

Tuesday

At our morning meeting the team make a short presentation to the management team to show our progress and our next steps. It all takes a bit longer than we intended as the management team have so many questions and are really intrigued to see what we've found - it reminds us how important quality is to the business.  I spend time with one of the operators and process engineers to work out the details of the trials we need to carry out this week. A couple of hours later, surrounded by process drawings we have a huge table drawn out on a flip chart planning out how to control each of the key process variables and how, where and when to take samples. When the rest of the team return for our afternoon update they are intrigued and we explain the plan and what help we need for the trial tomorrow. One of the guys sets off to write up a flip chart in the control room to let the shifts know why, how and when we are doing the trial tomorrow. By the end of the day I feel shattered but it's been a good one, really getting into the detail of how it all works and I'm happy that we've got a solid plan to carry out tomorrow. Alex and I leave site and go for a swim at the local leisure centre for a few lengths before our usual Tuesday trip to the Italian for a pizza.

Wednesday

Back on site at 8am I make my plan for the day and run through the plans with one of the operators on our team. At 9am the rest of the team arrives for our morning meeting, we run through the actions for the day and everyone sets off. I head up to the control room with two of the team and another one of the guys heads out to the plant ready to take samples. We spend a lot of the day running the trials, taking measurements, recording data. It's a really enjoyable day and I really feel like we've worked together well to get the results we really needed to understand the process better and be able to have better control. As one of the team reflects - "it's the first time we've run trials on the plant in years".

The samples are sent off to the lab and we'll have to wait until tomorrow to get the results. After we leave site there's time to go for a run before I meet Alex for dinner. We haven't seen each other all day and he's keen to find out how the trials are going. When I say that we won't have the lab analysis back until tomorrow midmorning, he's straight onto asking about how we can help speed up that too!