Supply Chain Management Apprentice planner Review

As a supply planner I am currently a scheduler in No3 capsules factory. This involves planning the production on the line alongside the MSO demand seen in APO. Alongside this I am the despatch planner which consists of planning despatch for deep sea loads (outside of Europe) by creating sales orders and UTMS orders and forecasting the weekly load volume. It also means running the daily forecast and actuals of the number of loads we expect to have that day in the factory.

In the course of my apprenticeship I have become more confident in leading teams and providing an authoritative approach to situations where I am the planner of. I have improved my IT skills with using the online system SAP and also my excel skills which I have developed through the online system Degreed which is a platform with multiple tools to improve learning/understanding.

I enjoy the variety of roles we are able to learn whilst being apart of the apprenticeship. We usually are moved every 6-12 months to a new role or factory where we can learn more about the supply chain and what other parts are included in the process. I enjoy working with the people in my team and working together to solve issues in the logistics part of planning.

I believe as a whole the program on the job is well structured as I have had the chance to learn almost every part of a planner's role in the supply chain. However the apprenticeship side with the college at the start was not well structured and we were very behind schedule due to the constant changing of assessor's as prioritising the job over the apprenticeship. We have however now caught up in the last year on the college work by working intensively on a strict time line.

My team, leader and manager are very supportive in my learning on the job in my role and always encourage me to learn new things as I go on in the apprenticeship. I feel I always can go to them with any problem I might be facing and I know they will help me or provide the tools I need to overcome them.

Over the last year I have received a lot of support from my assessor with my apprenticeship and they have been very clear with the direction we needed to go to get back on track with the deadlines we had. In the first 2 years however I was not learning much at the college but only what I was doing day-to-day on the job full time.

The apprenticeship side of my role from what I learn in the college does not help me in my day-to-day role as a planner. What I learn on the job has given me the information I needed to work through my college work and understand the units more. I would not say the qualification has helped me in my job as I have not used the resource into practice during my daily tasks.

Yes, there is an online platform on teams chats where they will post new activities and groups that will be starting. For example they have started a cycle-to-work scheme and I have taken part in the 5k run around port sunlight which helped raise money for a specific charity. We also as a planning team have been out for meals together for example at christmas or in the summer.

Yes

I would recommend Unilever as it is a great company to work for and provide multiple benefits as working as an employee, for example: Bupa, Babylon, pension scheme and unilever discounts. The people are also all amazing and support one another. However, I do not think I would recommend my specific apprenticeship.

Advise I would give would be to be yourself and genuine. Make sure to research the Unilever policies and their views for the working environment and how you think your skills apply to them for the role you are applying for. Try and be as confident as possible and with the initial application form try and stand out in the first few sentences. Even adding words that you have seen on the website can make your form stand out.