During my Degree programme in Industrial Engineering, I realized that nowadays it is enormously important to have international work experience. That's why I decided to integrate a 6-month internship into my Master's degree programme. Since I had already worked as a student trainee at Saint-Gobain in Willich, I had the opportunity to apply internally for an international internship. With the preference to work in an English-speaking country, I was contacted after a few weeks by a human resources representative of a location in central England. The company was British Gypsum, located in the small town of Sherburn-in Elmet.
British Gypsum manufactures drywall plasterboard at a total of five sites in England. The plant in Sherburn-in-Elmet has a small office complex and a huge production hall and is one of the most important employers in the region.
The organization of the internship was not particularly difficult in advance, as no special documents were required for England. Only the search for accommodation turned out to be a bit more complicated, as there were only a few options in the city of about 7000 inhabitants. When the landlady of a shared apartment had to cancel shortly before the start of the internship, the only option left was to stay in a caravan. I was skeptical at first, but since the caravan was equipped with all the amenities, my doubts quickly subsided. Another big advantage was that I could ride from there to the site in just ten minutes on a bicycle provided by the company.
On 18.04.2017, my internship started in the logistics department. In the first few weeks, I was shown many areas that are important for the work of logistics employees. For example, I was given a tour of the production hall, I had a one-on-one meeting with the manager of each department where the individual areas of responsibility were explained to me, I was shown the warehouses and how inventory counts are carried out, and I was able to ride along with one of the delivery trucks to a customer in order to get to know this process step as well. In the weeks that followed, I was sometimes assigned everyday tasks and was able to work on small projects along the way.
My day began in the morning by summarizing important key figures for logistics in an Excel document. These included stock levels, the movement of goods between the individual British Gypsum locations and deliveries to customers. During the day, I also had the task of preparing raw material stock counts for a warehouse employee, entering the results into an Excel spreadsheet, and reporting any discrepancies with the values in SAP.
Projects worked on during my time at British Gypsum included:
- Making a location map showing all storage locations of materials
- Calculating the loss of space in the warehouse if the stacking height of pallets were to be changed
- Recording of production rejects
- Improvement of the storage of a raw material
The results of these tasks were submitted to the logistics manager at regular intervals.
Besides work, I tried to see as much of England as possible. Since I didn't have a car, I had to rely on buses and trains for transportation. However, the train connections were very good and via the cities of Leeds and York, every place in England was easy to reach. On the weekends, I took trips to Leeds, York, Manchester, Edinburgh, Liverpool, the Lake District National Park, and the Peak District National Park. I also had two visits each from my girlfriend and my parents, so together with a rented car we were also able to visit Whitby, Scarborough, Alnwick Castle and the Yorkshire Dales National Park. From work, I also had the opportunity to participate in the Bear Grylls Survival Race in London, a 10-kilometer obstacle course through Trent Park.
During the week, Sherburn-in-Elmet unfortunately didn't have that much to offer, which is not surprising due to the size of the city. However, I was able to go running across the fields in the afternoons or participate in the soccer team's training. In addition, every Monday there was a quiz night in the local pub where I joined a group already in the first week. These evenings were always a lot of fun.
In general, I enjoyed my stay abroad very much. The people in Yorkshire and also in other regions of England are generally very friendly and open. I will definitely miss it, but I am also looking forward to flying back to support my quiz group at the pub and to see my work colleagues again. I will also miss the working atmosphere, as it is much more relaxed compared to German companies.
