The Bill - Week 1

My first week passed by and I was extremely exhausted by the time Friday's lessons had finished. I went home and fell to bed and had a deep power nap. Saturday and Sunday I revised and did what I learned at university many, many years back - writing things up, summarizing pages and chapters from the big handout folder, and in the end, it was actually a very reasonable package to learn and review.

Last week we learned the "street" sections of PACE, the Police and Criminal Evidence Act - Stop & Search, Power of Arrest, etc. And then there was also a self-defence part one day which was my biggest challenge. But I think I mastered both parts pretty well.

Group dynamics is interesting. I am one of the oldest with my 39 years. Most people are in their early twenties. What is the best though about the group is its diversity - half men/half women, British, Continental European, and all sorts of racial mixes from around the globe which have integrated into Britain; like me, suppose. This is absolutely perfect and mirrors London's society extremely well.

What I find strange though, compared to Germany, the lack of a written Constitution enables British police to enter private living space only by applying PACE and without a warrant. This would be absolutely non-thinkable in Germany. The new policeman in me says "yes" to this right given by PACE, the German in me is still a bit hesitant to accept it.

All in all, I had an extraordinarily good experience, my class mates are pretty nice and friendly, and my trainers extremely funny and very professional. I am looking forward to week 2.

The Bill

Today, a completely new chapter in my life is going to start - life as a policeman. And no, this is not a joke, but today and for the next 4 weeks I am going to get trained up in the police training facilities in north London and will then work in one of the boroughs on a voluntary basis, 16 hours a month minimum.

Most of my friends and family were asking me why on earth I would do that. There are a few reasons:

1. The Altruistic Reason: I truly believe everybody has to give something back to the community and society. We are all very good in taking and expecting, but giving can be an extremely interesting challenge, too, and it can be fun!

2. The Uniform Reason: I think I have always been fascinated by the police, from childhood on. Strangely enough, I never applied for a job with them when I still lived in Germany, but hey, one gets older and wiser.

3. The Professional Reason: Since I want to also establish myself as Executive Coach (besides my consulting career) I truly believe that getting trained and working as policeman will open my horizons immensely and add to my skill-set.

4. The Leisure Reason: I want to force myself to get out more and do something useful. Temptation is far too high to stay in and play with the computer, watch TV or just potter about when one could do something else.

5. The Social Reason: Extremely interesting to me is the possibility to get to know so many new and interesting people. Especially as freelancer one cannot get to know enough.

So, all in all, this makes sense to me. And I am looking forward to later on, on my Day 1.

My Director

The other day I got a phone call from a colleague of mine from Proudfoot, it was Thomas, and he was my director on the Otto Bock project. We worked together on various other projects, too. It was the first time we chatted since 2005 I guess, which was really nice. There was no specific reason for the call, just a chat and touch base again. Thomas read this blog and whilst doing so, he recognised that I disgracefully left him completely out in the Otto Bock story! Shame on me!

Let me do that now and pay hommage to a team member (and no, he is not dead yet) who had an extremely vital role in the project. I especially need to thank him for all the client handling advice he gave me. As a young project manager, who is still green behind his ears, client handling (and I mean the top clients) is extremely vital.

In the worst of times when the savings had to be cashed in and defined he spent an extremely huge amount of time on the project and took a leading role. And I am very happy he did!

Anyway, I thought I still had to mention that.

A Sandwich nearly eaten...

Yesterday, 31st July, I finished the manuscript of my book. This so far final version has 49,000 words. I quite did not manage the last 1000 words to round things up, but am sure they will come at the next revision. I sent it out to a few friends who offered to edit it and check how good or bad it actually is. I am extremely grateful to all of them. I am in utter need of them as at the end of the day I wrote the book in English which is actually not really my mother tongue.

So, what is the next step? To be honest, I have absolutely no idea. On Twitter I am chatting to a few people who tell me different things - the one says I don't need an agent, the other one insists on agents. And publishing is absolute new to me. I read a book called "How to publish and make money from it" and she suggested to also go via an agent. I think I'll end up doing this, as agents are probably better in marketing the thing afterwards anyway.

Okay, that's an update so far. In the next month or so I will probably get the first reviews back, I will have to get in touch somehow with agents, professional editors, publishers and just take it from there.

I'll keep the world updated on the progress!

The Cucumber Sandwich

Sorry for not updating my blog, but I am writing a book at the moment about my life in the UK. I guess it will be finished at some stage in July. And then I shall be back.

The book is called: "Dont mentschen ze var - a German on his Search for the Cucumber Sandwich".

KPIs of SCP

SCP has a few KPIs by which one can see how well (or not so well) they have done.

Customer Service measured as Customer OTIF (On Time In Full). This KPI measures the orders a customer wants at what date with the ones actually delivered on that date. Whether these should be orders or order lines needs to be decided case by case.

Internal OTIF from factory to distribution centre (also called Factory OTIF). This is a shared KPI with SCO and measured the weekly planned orders with the actually produced orders which enter the distribution centre for distribution to the customers. This is more interesting in an MTS (Make To Stock) environment where SCP would be responsible for reorder points, safety stock, etc, as MTS orders are mainly generated by SAP or any other production planning system.

Stock. These stock KPIs can be expressed in total nominal stock value (raw material, finished goods, work in progress, packaging, goods for resale) or days of stock/inventory. Also, obsolete stock should be measured.

The Role of SCP (Supply Chain Planning)

The main task of SCP is to manage the forecast, plan and communicate, whereas it needs to be decided case by case to which amount and detail the planning part is to be undertaken.

I am perfectly happy with the minimum planning as in output planning, a wish list of which products need to be in the distribution centre at what date. Some planning departments also take over the whole of production planning (scheduling) as in scheduling which product needs to be produced at which line on what day, etc... I truly believe though that this kind of planning should remain within operations (more detail later).

Talking about communication, SCP should bundle the information which gets from the front end (sales and marketing) to operations. Nobody should be allowed to get in touch with operations but SCP.

And, SCP should manage the forecast of Sales and Marketing and allow operations (SCO) to plan resources.