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 ;)

July

This month, I had to complete an Investment Proposal for eTracker5 (pilot) project. At the end of the next month, the pilot period is completed and a "go" or "no go" decision would be required from the management team. The decision has to be made based on the results of the pilot and the value of the savings that the system will provide for the organization. So far, the results have been satisfying and I'm looking forward to get a budget to roll out this project in a larger scale.

We also had our Internships Away Days this month. For the first time, I got a chance to visit the Caroline gas plant along with other interns that came from different locations across the country.

June

The month of June went by pretty fast! At the beginning of the month, we had a Shell Safety Day which can be summarized in one sentence: do the right thing! This is a significant event for Shell and its employees because in this organization, they value Safety more than everything else.

We also had our Interns Day of Caring event on June 24th where we went to the Coach Hill-Patterson Heights community to build a playground for kids. It was pretty interesting to see the office workers dealing with heavy equipments :)

May

I have just started my 4th coop term with Shell. There were about 40 more students started their summer internship as well. Summers with Shell are always the best! lol There would be a lot of fun activities like water rafting, camping, paintball games, and so much more....

My project is moving along as well... So far, the pilot has been great and I hear a lot of positive feedback from our folks at the mine.

There is another HSE project that I got involved with as well... This project is regarding to create a safety induction facility at the Keyano College in Fort McMurray so Shell would be able to train the contractors at the college before they get into the field.

April

My third coop term with Shell Canada is over. As I'm getting more experience with HeavyOil IT projects, I'm adding to my responsibilities as well which would help me to have a greater contribution in different projects.

My term project has entered into the pilot phase and it's been running up in Albian since last week. Hopefully, there would be no problem during the next couple of months so we can implement the new system in All the heavyOil sites.

Also today, we are getting some new coop students... It seems we are going to have some exciting summer parties :D

March

As I'm learning new things, my workload is getting larger as well. I got more responsibilities toward my project and also I got some chances to help and work with other teams in IT.

My project is going to be implemented at Albian sites and I'm going up there next week to gather some information on how to install the new system.

For now, we are going to implement a pilot version of the system for 2 or 3 months and if the pilot was successful, Shell will expand the scope and there would be a chance that Shell uses the same system in all the sites around the globe.

February

The first couple of months of my internship went by so fast!! I'm not sure if it's because I was so busy at work or because I was having so much fun at other times :)

I have already been assigned and started to work on my internship project as well as other small projects that keep me busy all the time... It's always exciting to apply the learning from school in a real world environment.

I also went for a site visit up to Scotford for the first time in mid February and I stayed there for few days. Besides the cold weather, everything else was very interesting!

My project is intended for Scotford site, so I might get to go there again sometimes soon :)

Spring Semester - January

Back to Shell!


I have started my third coop semester with Shell Canada on January 4th of 2011. It is exciting to come back and see my ex-colleagues!!

This semester, I'm working with a different team in the Systems Management department as a Business Analyst for capital projects. For the first time, I got a chance to visit Albian mines and refineries which were truly amazing!!

Working as a Business Analyst would be a great opportunity for me to understand and apply my learning from school in a real world environment.

I'm looking forward to contribute in Shell's Heavy Oil projects and hope to learn as much as possible from this great opportunity.

Mehdi