Un día en la vida de: Ali Bhallo, Axis Rotational Program

I think it’s important for leaders in any discipline to understand how the puzzle pieces fit together. Because of this, I knew for my initial job out of college, I wanted a role that had a broad focus rather than a specialized one. I felt this would help lay the foundation for me to understand the tradeoffs and consequences of decisions. I also really like that the program was not only supply chain but also had adjacent functions such as engineering and quality as part of it. Lastly, the fact that it is a newer program was appealing—it’s not fully molded so I felt like my input would be considered and could help shape future years.  

During my first rotation, I was a planner at Oliver’s New Britain, PA site. Coming out of college and into this role was a tough learning curve. Being a planner means being at the heart of production in the plant—there are many moving parts, and there’s a lot of different functions that relied on me doing my job correctly. Balancing this responsibility while also learning theory, Oliver processes, and the new systems that were being rolled out was an interesting challenge. Fortunately, I had a fantastic manager who helped to flatten the learning curve. I was also given the opportunity to lead early on—my manager was needed at another site to train on the new systems, so I spent the last two months of my rotation as the sole long-term planner in New Britian. Although it challenged me, it was an incredible learning experience, and I am grateful that I had this opportunity.

For sure the travel aspect of the program. I like to explore and the fact that we get to visit different locations, potentially some overseas, is really exciting to me. I also have really enjoyed seeing my overall development from my previous role to now. It’s clear that what I learned before is helping me in my new role, which makes me excited to think about the business knowledge I will have after all four of my rotations. The different skill sets, people I am exposed to, and projects I work on will help shape me personally and professionally!  

I learned this earlier in my career, but it has been heavily reinforced here. Nothing matters more than how I interact with people. No matter how much we automate our processes it still comes down to how well you can work with others to accomplish a goal. I’m also learning the balance between speed and quality … I tend to be a perfectionist at times when it comes to my work, but that comes at the cost of speed. With tight deadlines, using the 80/20 rule to help strike a balance has been important.