The Louvre
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Mini Cooper plant
Sorry about the long delay of blogs for about a week - we traveled to Paris for a long weekend and I wasn’t able to write one for Wednesday and Thursday before we left. However, that is a different story and I will discuss it in my next blog.
Wednesday brought loads of excitement since it was the day we were able to tour the ONLY Mini-Cooper manufacturer in the world. This spot is their “bread and butter”. They bring all the parts together here and use a series of conveyor belts with excellent supply chain management to bring a just-in-time process to their company. We arrived at the plant around 1 o’clock, after our morning class. They showed us to the entrance room where we put on our protective jackets, similar to that of Neo’s in the movie The Matrix, as well as headsets so we could hear our tour guide throughout the tour. After we were ready, we took a tour of their “mini” Mini-Cooper museum, as they called it. The museum consisted of various famous Mini-Coopers, such as the Austin Powers Mini Coop, one of the Mini Cooper’s in The Italian Job, their pride and joy one millionth Mini-Cooper, and other special/older Mini Coopers.
Following the museum, we walked around the production line of the manufacturing plant where we learned interesting facts about Mini Coopers. For instance, there's the fact that no two Mini Coopers are exactly identical, and the fact that the production line was so ingenious and time-efficient they can start and finish a Mini Cooper within 6 hours.
Next, we walked through the process of getting the metal sheets and other parts of the car ready before transferring the car to the actual production line. These processes that once consisted of thousands of workers are now preformed by German robotic engineering. The utilization of advanced technologies into a single process has exceedingly benefited their company.
We then wrapped up the tour after visiting the robots, and proceeded back to the houses. The rest of the day was spent relaxing and getting ready for the test on Friday, as well as browsing around downtown for cheap soccer balls at JJB’s. Thursday was not too exciting until dinner time hit. With the morning spent taking a test and the afternoon with our different consulting groups brought the day to a peak of excitement when I tried to figure out the washing machines. (hint: make sure you have exactly 1 pound and a 20 pents when washing your laundry). This, however, was surpassed when Austin, Austin, and I tried to start the grill for burgers on a wet, windy day. We found it a huge hassle to find wood and stuff that would burn that day, but it turned out successful with only two burnt burgers and the rest nicely cooked. All in all, the days leading up to our Paris trip were quite interesting. From our projects to flipping hamburgers, these past several days have been a lot of fun. Next stop Pari!
Oxfam and Nielsen
Monday, we finally we able to visit the two companies that we will possibly get to consult for: Oxfam and Nielsen. It was an awesome experience. First, we took the bus over to Oxfam to see their headquarters and listen to the problems the company is currently encountering, as well as a brief explanation of what they do. For those who do not know, Oxfam is a 280-million-dollar company that specializes in low-end retail establishments similar, yet bigger, to that of Goodwill. It provides necessity items to poorer areas around the entire world. Their next target market is in Vietnam. However, they don’t solely confine their business to retail, but offer assistance when natural disasters like the earthquake in Haiti affect a large group of people. Oxfam is truly a great starting up company. They hope to expand much more in the future, and are asking for our assistance towards using technology to enhance efficiency with communications amongst retail establishments nationwide. On a side note, this was the company I chose to work with based on their mission statement and the overall feel of the company. For example, when we walked into their headquarters it was not like we were walking into a funeral home like some businesses feel. Everything was open and the architecture was astonishing. The ground floor was more like walking into a Macy’s or a nice Dillard’s in a mall except without all the merchandise cluttering everything up, and they had a cafeteria in the corner. In the middle it opened up to the staircase that led to the second floor, IT and marketing, and then proceeds to the third floor where you can find all the employees in charge of the 680 different retail establishments worldwide.
The other company was Nielsen, which, if I remember correctly, is the 3rd largest marketing research facility in the world and researches at least 15,000 products a year for various companies like Proctor & Gamble, Lysol, and Nestle. For Nielsen, you do more of a market research simulation due to customer confidentiality. However, they give you some products that you and on which your team get to use a statistical approach through the process of surveys and other various means to find out which product will be more profitable in the Oxford market. Nielsen is also a little more business-like in the way their facility is structured and known as a high-end market research group. Even though I didn’t pick Nielsen, they are an amazing company with a tremendous share in the marketing-research world, and were in fact my second choice. Both of these companies and the projects we are doing offer a magnitude of experience for, not just the marketing students, but those that want to be well-rounded when they come out of college. Again, thank you for staying tuned in and I can’t wait to let you know my experience at the mini cooper plant on Wednesday. Jeff Bartosh
First Day of "Class"
The trip has been amazing so far and the weather even better! OnWednesday, we were introduced into our first class over here: The Principles of Marketing. That morning was a little rough and it was difficult to get to the classroom at 8:30, but everybody made it on time. After our morning session, we headed out for some lunch at On the Hoof, which serves freshly made pitas, then it was time to return to class for our afternoon session. To my surprise, right after we were released from class, almost all of us, roughly 25 students, walked over to University Park to play some 7 on 7 footbol (a.k.a. soccer)! On a side note, since I love to play soccer I also would like to mention that the World Cup will be in sessionwhile we are here - more information later to come. But I digress, we had fun playing soccer for hours until we finally reached a stage of exhaustion from site seeing and intense soccer games. The rest of the afternoon and night were very relaxing, and going to bed never felt so good.
Thursday was similar except we went sight-seeing through the rest of downtown Oxford and got to see more of the history this city holds. Also, we ate at a Kebab’s vanthat night, which serves kebabs off Woodstock Street, and then proceeded back to the room to study for our first test Friday.
The test wasn't too terribly difficultand the afternoon class went by decently fast because we were all ecstatic about leaving at 5 to take our first trip to London. We boarded the train (hint going in groups can get you cheaper tickets then online) and met a couple of students from Wisconsin studying architecture and had a great ride talking with them on the way to Paddington Station.
Once in London, we headed for our hostel, which was not that great especially because my group booked it a night or two in advance, but we had a great time anyways seeing all the sights at night. The next day,we took the underground (was very cheap) all around London and to see the Changing of the Guards, which everyone should see(starts around 10:45 a.m). Sunday was a similar experience with running around town like Saturday. I could talk all about the different sites of London, but I will save you the hours it would take me to explain everything and just give you my top 10 favorite places I recommend seeing: The Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, Trafalgar Square, the Old Texas Embassy, Piccadilly Circus, St. Paul’s Cathedral, Tower Bridge, Buckingham Palace, and a play at The Apollo Victoria Theatre. Now these are only a few places that are special to London and and aren't even close to being the entire city, but our experience in London was so thrilling that itwill be hard to top it, but maybe our trip to Paris on the 10th just might. For now signing off, Jeff Bartosh.
The first few days
Hi, my name is Jeff Bartosh. I am a senior at Abilene Christian
University and currently studying abroad in Oxford England. This trip
so far has been the most amazing experience of my life, and I have
only been here for one week. I will go into more depth throughout the
rest of this blog, but first I would like to thank you for reading my
blogs and hopefully someday you will be able to share a similar
experience like the one I am about to share with you.
May 31- June 1: Now, I have been on an airplane before, but as I
arrived to Dallas/Fort Worth’s Airport I immediately started getting
the jitters. I have been preparing for months for this trip and now I
am finally at the place that is going to transfer me to another
country! After checking my luggage, I hugged my parents and girl
friend goodbye, and headed through security to start the opportunity
of a lifetime. Once on the other side of security, I filled my “safety
net” of a few hours by strolling around the airport and meeting other
ACU students that arrived earlier than I did. It was a fun beginning
that gave a great omen to how the flight and rest of the trip was
going to be.
After waiting around and talking for a while, we boarded the plane and
left for England at 5p.m. We arrived in London at 8 a.m. after a
surprisingly fast flight - I recommend that you sleep on the plane to
help prevent bad jetlag, which a few students understand better now.
However, once we hopped on our bus and started driving through London
to Oxford, you could see everyone's heads popping up like prairie dogs
and constantly moving as we were trying to take in such a beautiful
scene. My first thoughts after being able to visualize the aesthetic
beauty for myself were: why haven’t I ever lived here, I’m pretty sure
I am not dreaming, and I cannot believe I am actually over here. It
was so amazing and just got better as we started seeing the
transitioning from London to smaller, quaint Oxford. I think,
personally, it was better than London because you get that small town
feel when pulling into the neighborhoods and seeing true Victorian
style houses. It was a completely different feel that you don’t
normally get to see in the states. It was as if the city itself held
its own personal spirit that radiates culture off every little stone
and brick that completes it. Finally, we drove up to two houses that
gave us the feeling like we were right at home, especially with Mr. &
Mrs. Morgan there to great us as we came in.
It was early, and since I spent some of the airplane trip sleeping, I
was able to use the rest of the day to unpack and sight see around
part of Oxford’s main historical and “touristy” spots. It was a fun
day. The people here are really friendly and helpful if you get lost,
like we did, but we asked around and found our way back soon enough. I
appreciate you reading my blog, I hope you stay in-tuned.
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