My First Steps on the Road to Success at Conti
With the experience provided to me by the Global Manufacturing Information Technology Trainee program I was able to work on and learn different skills, adapt to the multicultural world we are currently in, live through unique experiences and gain friends that will stay with me forever.
Hello! My name is Ubatanan Coroa, Data Analyst, Local Key User of a principal Maintenance application system and I am part of the engineering department at the Camaçari plant in Brazil. I have a degree in Computer Science and a postgraduate degree in Data Science at Salvador University in Brazil and I am passionate about technology which motivates me to seek new knowledge.
My journey at Conti started in 2021 when I was accepted into the Global Manufacturing Information Technology Trainee program, and I define this program as unique, with a lot of learning and focus on building a strong network.
The program is divided into two phases: Local Plant Stay and Central Stay. For the first phase, as the name suggests, each trainee stayed in their plants while in the second phase all of us shift to work in central.
Due to the pandemic, our trainee program was the first in the hybrid model, which proved to be something more complex, as we were working on cross-functional projects in multicultural teams, working in different parts of the world, but we always managed the schedules in the best possible way to respect the time zone differences.
The phase “home plant stay” was very important because even though I had worked in manufacturing before, it was never in a tire company so this moment gave me knowledge of how processes worked with different point of views, from the more operation way to the management, and that helped and still helps today when I need to find solutions for different areas of the company, make contact, or even contribute to the process.
For me, the Central phase was the most challenging, because initially we worked remotely and had to deal with time zone differences and respect cultural differences. Today I know that working in a multicultural team is unique, because these differences make for a creative environment, different people with different ideas working to find a solution.
Later, there was the face-to-face phase in Germany. As soon as I arrived, it was challenging, being far away from my country, without my family and friends. Living in such a different reality was a new experience.
But I had the opportunity to get to know my coworkers better and I realized that we were all in the same situation, however, now we had each other, which not only facilitated the work and development of projects, but also allowed us to create a strong friendship.
Today I realize the importance of all the path I've taken here, as the knowledge from the plant has helped me in other projects and in my current role.
The trainee program, despite the difficulties, provided me with wonderful experiences, where I built a very strong network of contacts that prove to be very valuable for benchmarking, sharing solutions and strengthening ties between plants.
I'm grateful for everything I've experienced so far at Conti, and whenever I look back, I see how much I've evolved professionally and personally. It's amazing to be in a company where we have the freedom to act and the possibility to achieve great things. What we achieve and where we end up, it only depends on our drive.
