February

During this month, I spent most of my time coordinating the logistics for conducting interviews for the KPI project. It was a frustrating task because it's hard to get people to commit to hour interview when they have other things with higher priorities on their plates.

Also eTracker5 project got approval and budget for implementation at the HO IT Council meeting On February 8th. I am assigned as IT Business Analyst to work with a new hired Project Manager for implementing the IT components of the project.

Working on eTracker5 project has given me a complete exposure to the Project Delivery Framework which is a standard way of doing projects within Shell.

January

January was a busy month.. the majority of work was regarding the preparation of Investment Proposals that are going to IT Council meeting in February for approval.
Other than that, I got involved with another project related to KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). The goal for this project is to gather information from Mining units on how KPIs are used and how they are calculated. This would help to standardize the process of calculating and using the indicators. We had to setup over 30 interviews with Mine Operators to gather the required information (tough job!).

December

Lots of Christmas parties in December! First, I had my Intern Holiday Party, then a party for New Professional Network Canada (NPNC) and finally, Shell’s Christmas party/100 year Birthday at TELUS Convention Center. It was great to see to all my colleagues J

I also had a “Day of Caring” on Dec 9th along with other interns. This time, we went to Youth Safe House to cook and clean and decorate Christmas trees and gingerbread houses. Some of us stayed longer to play board games with our new friends.

On Dec 14th, we had the project celebration for SAS Induction Center (Pilot) up in Fort McMurray. The Pilot has been successful and I’m looking forward to see the implementation before I finish my internship.

November

In month of November, I experienced a Kaizen event for Shell Albian Sands Induction Center project. “Kaizen is Japanese name for "improvement" or "change for the better" and it refers to philosophy or practices that focus upon continuous improvement of processes in manufacturing, engineering, game development, and business management.” Kaizen helps to eliminate “waste” (Transportation waste, Waste of Movement, Waste of Waiting time, etc.) by improving standardized activities.

I am also contributing in another project regarding the Heavy Oil Site Access System. This system is a centralized database for all heavy Oil sites that restricts contractors/employees from getting unauthorized access to sites. Currently, each Heavy Oil site has its own database and as a result, if a worker gets banned from one site, they would still be able to get into other Heavy Oil sites. In the new system, if a worker gets banned from any of the Heavy Oil sites, he/she would not be able to get into other sites until the restriction is lifted.

October

After meeting with our HSE System Implementation Specialist and the HSE manager from Operational Safety department, there were some updates on the Investment Proposal for eTracker5 project. However, as we are getting closer to November council date, I can see some possibilities for eTracker5 to get postponed to the next council meeting sometimes in 2012.

Besides the work, there were some events that happened in October; few coop gatherings as well as events for the New Professionals Network. The best way to enhance your knowledge about different parts of the organization is to attend these gatherings.

And Finally, I’m starting to prepare a presentation for eTracker5 to demonstrate the functionalities/benefits of the system to higher level management. This will indeed help me to get more comfortable to do my final presentation at the end of my work term.

September

I believe Shell is having a hard time hiring new grads as there are only few coop students that got hired for the fall semester. When I compare this number to the number of coop students that were getting hired before, I can see a huge difference. Hope this is not permanent :)

Anyways, the results for eTracker5 has been satisfying for the management and the plan is to continue the current process until the IT Council approves the budget for rolling out the project throughout the HeavyOil sites sometimes in Mid November.

Also the first pilot for the Induction Center project at the Keyano College in Fort McMurray is completed. Having 3 pilot phases for this project is allowing us to get improved as we go and use the learned lessons in the next coming pilot phase.

August

I have extended my coop for another 8 months. This is so exciting because now I get to see the results of the project that I have been working on for the past 8 months. The pilot is finished at the end of August but the system will keep running until the final decision is made from the senior management to implement eTracker5 throughout the Heavy Oil sites.

The other project regarding the Induction Center at the Keyano College in Fort McMurray is getting into the first pilot period (There are 3 phases for the pilot in this project). Overall, the progress has been satisfying and I'm looking forward to see some positive feedback after the pilot evaluation.

Also, end of August is the final day for some of my coop buddies. I wish them best luck and hope they get job offers ;)