Pratt & Whitney Plant Tour

One of the benefits/attributes of being in the LGO program is touring the facilities of our partner companies and other interesting plants. The major "Plant Trek" is in January of the first year (Jan '10 for my class) and will involve us traveling around the US visiting a variety of sites and performing reviews of what we observe. Check out some of the bloggers of the 2010 class for their experiences on the Plant Trek. To get a little more perspective and to be prepared for the January tour we start visiting more local facilities in the summer.

The first of these came last week with a trip to Pratt and Whitney's jet engine production facility in Middletown, CT. While I probably can't divulge everything we saw, I can say that it was a pretty impressive facility. They try and follow Lean practices to their fullest and have an incredible attention to detail. It's really a necessity when your products cost a few large bills; there is not really a whole lot of room for scrap or excess inventory.

Check out the F135 engine on Wikipedia, it's an integrated Short Take Off and Vertical Landing (STOVL), an incredible piece of machinery!

Applying: Studying for the GMAT

When I was looking to apply to LGO I extracted a lot of value from the student bloggers sharing their experience with the application process. To help give back I figured I would kick off a series of application prep articles myself. No commissions necessary, and no guarantees of success. This isn't sanctioned LGO application advice.

At this point in the year, you're probably still narrowing down potential schools and determining whether this year is the right year. I can't help you with that, but what I can do is recommend taking the GMAT early. In my own planning I tried to study for the GMAT through July/August and took the test in September. This helped in a number of ways. First, you know about where you stand in relation to the average scores of programs you're interested in. The Sloan and LGO stats are readily available on their websites (as are most others). Second, it gets this hurdle out of the way post haste so you can concentrate on the real deciding factor, your essays. Also, if you're not comfortable with your scores you still have an opportunity to retake the exam.

If you've spent anytime on the business school forums you've probably seen countless folks posting their "scores" and trying to get feedback on their chances. I know I spent far too much time perusing these posts (> 5 minutes). There is probably a solid mixture of chest pumping, blatant lying and a few honest inquiries into chances on there. Regardless it can be a little daunting, but just remember, the GMAT is not the end all be all of the application. It's an important part of the process but it doesn't stand alone. As many an admissions staffer will tell you; a great GMAT won't necessarily get you into a program, but a terrible one will probably keep you out. As I'm not on the admissions committee for LGO I can't speak of their secret formula for admission (y =mx+b is probably out of contention). Don't fret though, it's easy to get all bent out of shape on beating the average of the program; but remain mindful of the 80% range and how the rest of your application will round out your value proposition. If you feel reasonably comfortable with the results on the first pass you're probably best served by spending the time on essays rather than trying to up your score a few points.

I don't have any secrets to success on the test itself. Everybody studies, learns and takes tests differently. You should know what works best for you, so stick to that. Practice tests are great for pacing yourself, which is certainly a critical component. Take your time and build up your knowledge slowly, cramming over a short period probably isn't as effective in this kind of test.

Best of luck on test day!

A Tablet PC in BSchool.

In undergrad (circa 2000-2004) I saw a few students using Tablet PC's in class and around campus. At the time they were relatively new and pricey (the tablets, not the students). As a gadget freak I was definitely interested in them, but they didn't seem all that practical. They were very expensive, had limited software, and seemed pretty bulky and awkward to handle.

Fast forward five years to April/May 2009 and my pending purchase of a new laptop for BSchool. When I started looking around I kept a pretty blank slate (yes, pun intended) and tried to be open to all alternatives. As I researched options the tablet alternative popped back on to the radar. There were a number of models that were reasonably priced, so I took the next step of doing a bit more due diligence. I wanted to get a feel for the interface, writing feel and overall effectiveness of using a digitizer screen and a pen. I also looked into what the main software packages were that tablet crazed folks use. Microsoft OneNote clearly jumped off the page as having a cult following, among tablet and non-tablet users alike. I was pretty impressed with what OneNote could do, and that it was included (and often overlooked) in the professional version of MS Office. I was pretty impressed, excited and a little irked that I hadn't considered it in the past. Needless to say I was more interested in the Tablet option now.

I next researched all the models I could get information on. To save you a long description, I arrived at a Lenovo X200 Tablet. It was a little pricier than the outgoing X61, but I thought the upgrades to be worth the price (I also purchased off the Lenovo Outlet site and saved like 45%). They also seemed to be the clear leader in the field. Sure they look a little utilitarian, but it's what on the inside that counts, right? My one dislike with the process is you really can't find many tablets in retail outlets, so it's difficult to get a first hand feel of the tablet use. Props to GottaBeMobile for having a proliferation of video reviews.

Now, about two months in I've been very happy with the X200. I'm using it for notes in all but one class (Leadership - where notes really aren't taken frequently.... mainly an open discussion). Even homework assignments are easy to assemble and print out via OneNote. The one thing I was most concerned with in going to electronic notes was data backup. However, with OneNote's constant saving and backing up off site with ElephantDrive+MIT wifi it has been a flawless experience. And thank goodness, because I recently had a recent experience with the screen going out (I'm 1/4 Murphy, so if it's going to happen to anyone it will happen to me). MIT Tech services managed the repair and it cost nuthin', so no harm no foul. With ED (that's ElephantDrive folks, not requiring cialis) I was able to jump on any computer and work on my files. There are many similar alternatives in cloud storage, but since they've already proved invaluable I figured I better throw a plug there way.

I've had a lot of fun using the tablet and learning how to best take advantage of its resources. As I learn more I'll be sure to fill you in if I find anything else worth sharing.

What happened to June?

We're a little over six weeks through our summer semester on campus. It's been said many times before (by others), but man, does this go by fast! It seems like we just got started. Seriously, where did June go?

We started June 1st with a one-week program called Universe Within which kicks off the leadership curriculum of the program. It was a self-contained week of leadership frameworks, role plays, observation, reflection and introspection. Leadership aside, it was a great ice breaker

and bonding experience for the class. Within a week we broke down most walls and started interacting as a cohesive group. A highlight of the week was a one day adventure to Outward Bound; a ropes course and teambuilding exercise. An added benefit was watching selected movie clips... wax on, wax off to reflect on leadership styles. Mr. Miagi is clearly a great leader deserving of further study. BTW, Did you hear they're doing a remake of Karate Kid? Blasphemous.

After UW wrapped up we got started on our LGO core classes. It started off nice and gentle, and then sometime around mid-to-late June a wave of intensity rolled through and has kept us moving at a pretty incredible rate. I certainly don't mind it, that's what I expected from MIT. Here's our course load for the summer:

Operations Management - Little's Law, use it early and often

Ops is a great review of the common techniques and methods of opeartions management. We review product/operations design choices of price, value, quality and time and then get into Little's law, inventory management, plenty of case studies, and most recently a simulation on running a manufacturing facility.

High Velocity Organizations (Lean/Six Sigma) - Finding our inner rabbits

High Velocity Organizations, or what was formerly called the Lean/Six Sigma course is largely based on our professor Steven Spear's book, "Chasing the Rabbit." While most lean/six sigma classes I've taken focus on the tools and frameworks, we're focusing more on the why. Too often organizations get caught up in the toools themselves and forget the overall thought process of continuous improvement.

Leadership - WWBD, What would Bono do?

Our leadership class explores a number of techniques and leadership styles. We debated situational vs. trait based leadership (yes, including Bono) and reviewed a number of cases where leadership decisions played a key role. The key takeaway from this class so far to make time for reflection, it is critical in the growth process.

Engineering Probability and Statistics - 60% of the time it works every time

Although I minored in Statistics in my undergrad days I definitely needed this class to get back into the flow of things. The class is split up to two halves; the first half, probability, went over you basic probability laws, a heavy dose of Bayes theorem, game theory, a variety of distributions and hypothesis testing. Having just wrapped that portion up with a mid term we are now starting our statistics portion. More to come on that one.

Systems Optimization and Analysis - Optimizing optimal optimization techniques

Systems is heavy on Operations Research, or more specifically linear programming. I may be weird, but I really enjoy this stuff. We spend our time trying to optimize transportation networks, assignment problems and integer programs.

I had a version of most of these classes in my undergraduate program but I still find them highly valueable. I certainly didn't get to use all of the skills in my typical day-to-day operations, so they got fuzzy over the last few years. Being well grounded in the various techniques is going to be critical for understanding the rest of the courses we'll be undertaking.

Hello World!

Welcome to my corner of the LGO experience!

My name is Steve Wessels and I just joined the MIT Leaders for Global Operations (LGO) Class of 2011 in June. Over the next few years I hope to share some of my experiences and potentially those of my cohorts as we make our way through the expedition that is LGO.

A word of caution... don't expect these entries to be masterpieces in American literature. Combine the facts that a.) I'm an engineer and b.) I'm an engineer and you'll likely see more than a few gramatikul mestakes. That being said, I hope to post early and often to give you a light (and probably incredibly dry humored) recount of whatever passes through my mind at the keyboard.

Obviously I'm already a little behind, as it is already the 13th of July and we've got six weeks of prime LGO learning to get caught up on. Without further delay... let the blogging begin.