Summer Internship at Air India – Kishan Gupta from Prin. L.N. Welingkar Institute of Management Development & Research Mumbai
Kishan Gupta interned at Air India Ltd and shares his insight experience of being there. Kishan is an MBA student at Prin. L.N. Welingkar Institute of Management Development & Research, Mumbai. Read on to explore more about his interesting project at Air India.
Having worked in a core manufacturing company for three years in SCM, my expectations were set sky high to work in similar companies to showcase my talents, experience, and learnings. Yet it was really a difficult time when companies didn’t turn up as per my expectations. So, I started applying to various companies and that’s when I came to know from a friend about the chance to do an internship at Air India Limited. I couldn’t abandon the opportunity and accepted it immediately. Believe me guys, I went through an excruciating process of filling application as it needed to attach huge no of documents required in a typical public sector unit for just starting an Internship and I could feel it that I will have a tremendous experience not only with respect to work but also with culture, people, systems, and processes; and indeed it was.
My journey started on 13 May 2014 when I reached Air India Ltd, Santacruz (Mumbai) office which is the national flag carrier of India with a worldwide network of passengers and cargo services, and also having in-house maintenance, repair, and overhaul capabilities to support its present fleet of owned and leased aircraft. Almost after a complete day of documentation, I was finally directed to the AOD (Accessory Overhaul Division) by HR to meet my Mentor and work with him.
Over the next one week, I went through the typical process of reading lot of manuals to understand why that particular section existed and how work was being carried out. I walked through the process and understand their shop floor working. By this time I was also on the verge of completing a book titled “The Descent of Air India” by Jitendra Bhargava which triggered an urge in me to understand the gimmick of this huge aviation industry which has been always in news with a lot of financial crisis in the country.
I went through the processes in stores. There I came to know about the huge inventory lying which hardly moved in the current context. This is when I decided to take up the project on inventory management which have blocked huge money that otherwise could have been used for other relevant works. So gradually I moved on to their Materials Planning Division to learn how the component planning was done and how the process was being managed. Following it I went through the process of Aircraft Procurement Team. In the meanwhile, I also did a “5S” project on test rig fabrication section so that they could have an easy access to various testing instruments.
This is where I could see that the principles of SCM were applicable to both in manufacturing as well as service industry and it wasn’t just a bookish knowledge. One of the toughest things I felt was accessibility. Each department seemed to be working in closed silos which I felt hurt the most this premium aviation industry. While working on my project I started to apply a combination of my learning at MBA and prior experience. While analyzing I could see the company have started doing well in terms of following individual techniques of inventory management. But drastic time called for drastic measures and I felt the need to combine some of the techniques to understand the nature of inventory and release away some of the excess inventory. Upon analysis, it was evident that the company needs to shed off huge piled up inventory to enhance their cash flows and came up with solutions which could result in huge cost reduction to the company.
One of the more fun parts was during my interaction with procurement people where I could use my MS-EXCEL expertise to solve their issues and accelerate their work on click of a button. It was like training professionals when I myself was under training.
Two months down the line I was more than happy when I came to know what I did out of my pure intuition was being actually taught to us by our professor in the next semester. It was really fun when I could correlate my previous internship experience with the actual learning in the class.
If Kisan’s experience motivates you, you can apply to these latest MBA internships and fly towards your dream career.
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