Schneider is my dream company
“Congratulations! You got your first silver medal!”
Just a few months ago, I celebrated my fifth anniversary with Schneider Electric, which evoked a great deal of emotions within me.
I considered Schneider Electric to be one of my dream companies long before I became part of it. It was close to my graduation when I decided to pursue a career here because of the company’s sustainable vision. Fortunately, after several interviews, I was finally offered a full-time position as a Method Engineer in Suzhou, China, a beautiful city with both classical and modern charm.
In my first three years as a Method Engineer, I was mainly involved in production sites where I gained valuable knowledge and experience. This included confirming capacity and supply to meet demand, responding to events that shut down production lines, building a new production line for several product types, and implementing new concepts to improve employee efficiency.
Schneider Electric also offers systematic training courses for everyone of all positions. In your first year, you will be assigned a buddy to guide and assist you in integrating into the company culture and mingling with others. People in Schneider are delightful and friendly — they will not hesitate to help you! My colleagues formed a strong support system for me in my early years. I also had many opportunities to build my network and collaborate with people from different teams, countries, and cultures to deliver meaningful projects.
Learning about digitization
Schneider Electric encourages employees to innovate and explore new technologies to help improve business operations. The talent development program provided me with the opportunity to shift from the role of Method Engineer to Digitization. This program introduced me to the concept of Robotic Process Automation (RPA), which enables computer software to emulate and integrate actions typically performed by humans when interacting with digital systems.
I used to struggle with repetitive tasks so I seized the chance to learn about RPA and use it in my projects when the opportunity arose. This allowed me to move to the Global Supply Chain China Digital Solution Team two years ago to work as an Application Engineer. Now, I primarily focus on delivering digital solutions, and my main area is RPA. As the RPA Community Leader, I oversee various undertakings, such as community operation, talent training, project delivery, and license management. Leveraging my newfound expertise, I discovered other RPA techniques, such as VBA/VBS, C#, SQL, and Tableau, through exposure to different project requirements.
Given everything I have learned, I believe RPA is a great experience to master new technology and improve business performance at the same time!
Key learnings in Schneider Electric
Since digital transformation has evolved rapidly and I needed to adapt to my new team, I switched my work priority to a new area: application analysis and design. But with my years of experience in hand, I believe I am ready for the new challenges ahead.
In my five years at Schneider Electric, here are 3 key learnings that I would like to share with you:
- Business awareness is essential
Business awareness is an essential part of any project if you want it to succeed. Lean engineering is a theory, and digitization is a tool. Both can only generate efficiency for your company if they are utilized rationally in a business situation.
- Learn every day
Change is the only constant in today’s world, so nurture your curiosity and cultivate a learning habit. You can learn a specific technology that directly benefits your project or even something unrelated to your job. My Learning Link, Schneider’s web-based learning platform, lets everyone participate in different courses where it can help employees develop their skills every day.
- Be positive and realistic
As we live in the VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous) era, we face many challenges not only at work but in our daily lives as well. Therefore, we need positivity to encourage us to think of solutions, instead of complaining about problems. Additionally, resilience is a practical soft skill that teaches everyone to learn to accept failure and imperfections in life, to keep improving, and to continue moving forward. Just like our slogan, “Life is on,” moving forward is crucial.
I would like to invite you to join Schneider Electric, and let’s enjoy innumerable fascinating experiences together afterward! Search for job opportunties in Supply Chain and more here on our careers site! www.se.com/careers
About the author
Marie Shi started her career in Schneider Electric as a Method Engineer. She worked within the production line and performed lean-related work. Marie seized the opportunity to learn Robotic Process Automation (RPA) through the talent development program, which enabled her to then transition to the Global Supply Chain China Digital Solution Team as an Application Engineer. She now focuses on RPA, as well as developing other skills, such as VBA, VBS, Tableau, SQL, and C#. Recently, she shifted her work priority to application analysis and design.
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