Hannah Solomon

5.45 AM

Good morning!

As soon as my alarm goes off, I press snooze and I treat myself to a lie-in, checking my personal emails and playing the NYT wordle and connections of the day.

6.00 AM

Let's try that again… My alarm goes off for the second time, and I start getting ready for the day. After a quick shower, I decide on my OOTD and grab a piece of fruit for breakfast before heading out the door.

Such a beautiful sky this time of day.

7.00 AM

The best thing about our office location is that I usually travel against the traffic so it’s a smooth 20-minute drive for me in the morning. I've got a jam-packed day ahead, so I'll turn up the tunes to get ready and motivated.

7.30 AM

I'm currently in my logistics rotation in the Supply Chain Grad program where I’m located across the road from our other offices. This is our Auckland DC - we call this "The Vault" and it’s the biggest warehouse I have ever seen!

As I'm setting up for the day, I'll grab a Suntory Boss coffee from the fridge (Rainbow Mountain Blend is my personal favourite), and then proceed to catch up on any emails, messages, or immediate actions that I need to get done this morning. I’ll allow myself half an hour while simultaneously planning out my daily agenda.

Welcome to my office!

8.00 AM

I'll start off by reviewing data for one of my current projects. The logistics team is currently in the middle of validation for our LGVs (Laser-guided vehicles). These robot-like MHEs will be responsible for transferring inventory within our warehouse eg. completing the put-away process or replenishment.

My involvement includes creating visibility around the frequency of pallets being receipted into the warehouse, which will advise leaders on where improvements to make this process more efficient for LGVs.

Time to get some work done.

10.00 AM

I have a catch-up with one of our inventory controllers at the Vault; he is responsible for all the internal stock movements and pallet locations in our warehouse. One of my other pieces of work involves validating and updating SOPs (Standard Operating Procedure), so I’ve scheduled this catch-up to receive an overview of one of our processes.

We are heading into the warehouse floor, so it is important to remember PPE – Hi Vis and Safety Boots are on! I’m looking out for any variances in the ways of working compared to previous procedures.

Always a great time on the warehouse floor – here we were looking through our picking locations.

I have a meeting and workshop this afternoon, so I'll go for a stroll to our manufacturing site, where we make most of our AU and NZ products!

11.00 AM

For my next meeting, I have a Supply Chain Graduate catch-up and knowledge share. This is an opportunity to hear about what other grads are working on so that we can provide support, feedback, and ask questions.

I meet the other SC Grads and we go inside the factory to do some Gemba which is part of our Suntory Spirit directly translating to “the real place”. Through this, we gain an understanding of what happens at each level of business processes for good leadership and helps develop wide networks across the business.

For our Gemba today, another grad is taking us around the canning lines and explaining his current role and project in his manufacturing rotation.

We have 2 production lines dedicated to producing canned beverages in our Wiri manufacturing site.

11.30 AM

After finishing our learnings in the factory, It’s morning teatime so we head to the lunch area to grab a Boss Coffee and catch up on our rotations.

One of my favourite parts of the grad program is making connections with other graduates, so I always look forward to grabbing a coffee together.

We have a commercial coffee machine so we would usually go for a latte; however, it was particularly warm so we decided on our favourite iced coffee-in-a-can instead.

12.00 PM

Lunchtime! Engineering put on a BBQ to celebrate the long service of some of their team members; I went along to listen to speeches and got myself a yummy feed also – thanks, team!

I completed a rotation with them earlier in the year, so it was a great opportunity to say hello and catch up.

How good is a steak and a snag for lunch?

1.00 PM

Day 2 of my workshop is starting, and we are learning how we can implement the Suntory Monozukuri Way/Values into our goals as a business. These concepts help us make quality products as efficiently and smoothly as possible.

I've had a great experience being a part of the business while we transition into Suntory Oceania - we are opening a brand-new manufacturing facility in Queensland this year (2024), so this workshop is important for our manufacturing leaders and managers. We came out with an understanding of lean operational excellence concepts and determined key strategy moving forward as a function.

As a grad, it’s been an exciting afternoon networking with the leaders in our supply chain, and it has encouraged collaboration and lean thinking to make plans to smash out our goals for the year

Yatte Minahare! – Our Suntory Value is to dream big, take challenges, and never give up.

4.00 PM

After writing some notes to myself for tomorrow and packing up my desk for the day, it's time to head home but not before having a drink and a yarn with my colleagues.

5.00 PM

Home for the day! Once I’ve settled in, I’ll dedicate some time to doing some exercise. I like to switch it up usually, today I’ll go do reformer pilates after my busy day! 

6.30 PM

After winding down and taking a shower, it's time to make some dinner and it’s my signature dish of nachos (extra spicy!) on the menu.

I have heaps of time left on my hands before I need to start getting ready for bed, and I’ve run out of snacks for work. I’ve decided to whip up some gluten-free brownies. Usually, in my free time after work, I’ll either be putting on a movie, baking, working on my spreadsheets, cleaning up, or going out to dinner with friends.

8.30 PM

It’s time to get ready for bed- to wind down I’ll check my phone with a podcast or music in the background. Depending on my mood I might pick out a book to read or put a reality TV series on.

9.30 PM

Goodnight by 9.30 pm! Ready to catch some ZZzs and take on a new day tomorrow.

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