Hello and welcome back! It has been a while since I last whipped up a blog post. I have been living a busy life that has included trips to Prague, Vienna, Budapest and Amsterdam since my last blog post. As I mentioned last post, November 5th – 9th I was in Hamburg, Germany for a school trip. This was in partnership with the Kuhne Logistics University, a specialized logistics post graduate school in Hamburg. Without further due, here is my 3 week late recap:
Here you can see the break down in what was the most packed field trip I have ever been on.
Monday, November 5th:
Rise and shine. Right after coming back from Norway, I was packed up and back on a bus. A long bus, that is. Good thing I sat beside my friend Julianne, who had packed plenty of healthy snacks. What a gem. On the bus, I mainly read “Logistics Clusters, Delivering Value and Driving Growth”, our mandatory reading. And, no, I did not fall asleep while I was reading it (okay… fine, maybe I did once). (okay you got me, twice).
We arrived at our hotel early and I was roomed with 3 other students: Chelsea (UBC), Lisa (CBS), and Claire (CUHK). Our room was *definitely* a two person room with a bunk bed in it. The joys of budget travelling.
We got settled in and heading into Hamburg to find some food. One weird thing was noted about Hamburg during this food search: no one takes cards. Literally, almost no restaurants or small stores in Hamburg take credit card. I don’t understand why, I don’t understand how, but it felt like living in in the dinosaur era given that I did not bring euros with me.
Next stop: Port Tour. We had a 3 hour long boat tour of the port of Hamburg. Unfortunately, the tour guides accent was very thick and I understood none of the tour but pleasantly nodded and smiled at him for three hours. A hilight of this tour included seeing the second largest private yacht in the world, owned by the owner of the Chelsea Football Club. Of course, seeing the cranes was cool too. What was not cool you ask? The scrapped car landfill in the cluster. Served as a nice reminder that we are killing our earth! The tour included beverages which was also a plus, I love free things. Free, meaning, I already paid for it when I paid $500 for this trip.
We got off the boat and headed to our Welcome Dinner. Seeing out “hotel” (i.e. hostel) accomodations, I was expecting a buffet dinner or maybe a sandwich; something that would be underwhelming to a normal citizen, but appealing to a cash strapped student. I was pleasantly surprised. They booked a beautiful restaurant with us including a four course meal and wait for it…. U n l i m i t e d w i n e . Not sure whose idea it was to give 45 twenty year olds unlimited wine, but I am sure they regretted it by the end of our couple hours there.
While some of the students wanted to go find a club, Chelsea and I opted to head home. Some highlights from the walk home: the intoxicated Danish students trying to remember my name, the cohort singing high school musical together (I’m glad it was a global phenomenon), and one particular student yelling “We’ll walk back to Denmark!” while no one followed him.
Tuesday, November 6th:
Our morning started with a welcome to KLU. All I can say was wow. They treated us with such amazing hospitality. Unlimited coffee (and not just drip coffee, I’m talking cappuccinos, mochas, and lattes!), snacks (including fresh fruit), and buffet lunches! We had a few lectures from some really amazing, engaging profs. One of our profs even slyly mentioned his TED TALK. Yeah, like having your own Ted Talk is no big deal. We then visited the Port of Hamburg Container operations – this is a completely automated facility. There was almost no people, except to make sure the machines were working as they should be. It was really interesting to see how automation can transform roles and workplaces, and the efficiency gains they provide. There was even self driving trolleys in the facility- something that was truly unique to see! There was a short presentation from a consulting company as well, who were really selling the idea of automation in supply chains. For dinner, we found a cheap vietnamese place for dinner, but being the cheap person I am I refused to pay for water. I still cannot believe free tap water is not a thing here. My dish was extremely spicy. You get the picture I’m painting? My mouth was deliciously on fire. On our way home chelsea nad I picked up snacks and sparkling apple juice, the clear necessities for a good night it.
Wednesday, November 7th:
“Business Game” day. We were expecting a case competition, as is the case with most company visits. This however, was no case competition. They had us play this game where we manually went through the port operations process of exports and imports and timed us the first time – where it took us well over an hour to finish. Then, we talked about what the process looked like by drawing gantt charts. Finally, we were allowed to make efficiency changes into the processes with the exception of a handful of rules that had to be abided. When we finished with the adjustments, our new time was inhumanely fast. We could process the whole thing in 20 mins, whereas our first run took us an hour 20! The game was a good way to reflect on how innovation can disrupt supply chains.
Chelsea, Deep, Tina and I hit up Mcdonalds for dinner. The Mcflurries in Germany looked unreal, but in TRUE Mcdonald’s fashion, their ice cream machines were broken. Classic.
Thursday, November 8th: Company Visits
We started our day with a tour of the Airbus production facility. It was absolutely mind boggling to see the intricate and technical difficulty it takes to build a plane. We even got to see the double decker planes being made and their sheer size was impressive. The size of a mere wing of one of those plans was equivalent to the size of a regular aircraft. We then had some free time where we went to see the beautiful Hamburg town hall and I got a coffee, before heading to UPS. The UPS in Hamburg was completely manual, something very different than the automation we had been seeing. It was interesting to hear about their night runs and how they are trying to support sustainability with bike carriers to do their deliveries.
We got in quite late but the rest of the group who went and visited Amazon waited for us and we all got dinner together at a nice Indian restaurant. It was such a great time with the whole cohort together, learning more about each other. The Danes learned that I am in fact *not* the right person to ask about Indian food. We then hit up a nice sky bar and enjoyed some really expensive drinks together.
Friday, November 9th:
Our last day was a round table talk about with speakers from companies such as Kuhne & Nagel and Hapag Lloyd. It was really interesting to hear about their industry experience, their companies, and their take on the industry and where it’s going. We then headed on a bus back for a 1 day break in between my next trip: Prague, Vienna, Budapest.
