During June-July 2015 International team internship program was organized for Alliance University (Bangalore, India) and Togliatti Academy of Management (Togliatti, Russia) students at AVTOVAZ RENAULT NISSAN Purchasing Organization (Togliatti, ARNPO).
The International team internship project realized at ARNPO is the pilot project of lean educational technology developed for training cross-functional team work in multi-cultural environment and focused on finding new solutions and process optimization, where the participants got the experience of net-working and complex interaction, international team management, got understanding of purchasing processes and ARNPO corporate culture.
19 students studying Marketing, Finance, Operations, Economics and Management participated in this program. 10 MBA students from Alliance University and 9 Bachelor students (2nd and 3rd year) from Togliatti Academy of Management were divided into international teams and worked in different ARNPO departments.
Program business mentor was ARNPO General Director Mr. Venkatram Mamillapalle.
During the 1st stage (2 weeks) of internship the trainees were assigned to different ARNPO departments and performed similar task: benchmarking of one of commodity groups comparing AVTOVAZ-Renault-Nissan and other OEMs. ARNPO departments: interior, exterior, body in white&materials, chassis, indirect, body&electrical, powertrain and logistics.
For the 2nd stage (2 weeks) of internship ARNPO General Director has chosen three focuses for the future work: exterior, body in white&materials and logistics. All students were rearranged into three teams and received practical tasks according to department needs, team leads were appointed, mentors started acting as consultants. The final presentations topics were the following:
- Case study on safety systems (exterior team).
- Simulation tool for purchasing and logistics (body in white&materials team).
- Urgent cargo delivery (logistics team).
In the frames of the program a number of special visits was organized for the group. The students visited GM-AVTOVAZ plant, where they participated in Simulated Work Environment training on wooden assembly line and had a round-table discussion with Mr. Jeffrey Glover, GM-AVTOVAZ CEO.
There was organized a visit to Togliatti Academy of Management partner – Open Code IT company (Samara, Russia), where the students got acquainted with up-to-date IT solutions developed to provide IT support of business, industrial and technological processes in various spheres, saw exclusive Russian know-how developed for call centers and situation centers. The possibilities of implementing IT solutions to purchasing and logistics spheres were discussed.
As a result, by the end of the 2nd stage an international team of Russian and Indian students, with the consulting support of ARNPO colleagues and Open Code programmers developed a unique concept of e-business simulator based on the extensive applications of ontologies, intelligent software and simulation technologies – a tool that could be used for practicing negotiations skills, building cross-functional teams and mastering managerial skills necessary for efficient cross-functional interaction.