Plant Trek Day 5

Day 5 - Nurnberg

For possibly the first time this trip we started the day without any hiccups. We loaded onto the bus and headed to Adidas. It was funny because as we were getting very close to the Adidas World of Sport headquarters we passed a very large building with the name Puma on it (more on this later). When we pulled up, we were all a little surprised and possibly under impressed with the building. We later found out that when Adidas purchased the land it had army buildings on it that cannot be torn down, but we also saw the models of the very impressive building they have under construction now. The new building felt much more like Adidas.

As an aside about Puma, it was funny how when they told the history of Adidas they do not mention Puma. They did mention that originally the brothers worked together and at some point they split (the brother of the founder of Adidas founded Puma and both companies like to be close to where they were founded so they both have buildings right across the street from each other). The funny thing is that the brothers are both dead but they still seem to hate (based on what Adidas did not say) each other. The rivalry lives on.

Gotta love passionate rivalries

We started the day with an impressive tour outlining the history of Adidas and walked famous historical moments involving Adidas products (for example, on the wall would be a shoe that was worn by Stephie Graf at some famous tennis event, signed, and then returned to Adidas as well as a poster about her). This had some very fun items and was a good history of the sports Adidas is involved with. With this tour we also got to see some of the demo rooms where Adidas can sell the Adidas store idea to customers (apparently Adidas has a new strategy of opening retail stores…they are only in a few select cities so do not feel bad if you were unaware).

Next we went into a conference room for a presentation about Adidas and some of the things they have going on that our group would find interesting (operations, logistics, etc.). I won’t go into the details of what they discussed but I will say that our group was very excited about the discussions and asked so many questions that Adidas often had to stop us from asking questions to allow the next presenter to present. There are two LFMs working for Adidas at the headquarters in Germany so they both talked to us during this presentation and I would say that we are very interested in their work. We also got a pitch from someone within HR and some of the 09’s without jobs were definitely interested to talk to him.

After the presentation we went to lunch at the cafeteria on site. As has been all week, the food was excellent and covered by the company (yea for free desert!). During this lunch I was sitting by the HR contact and we were discussing the possibility of Adidas becoming an LFM partner. I’m honestly not sure how interested they are, but I know that they would be an excellent fit for the LFM program. They seem to line up well with the direction the program has taken (more supply chain than manufacturing). As always, I think the LFM program has a lot to offer a company who properly works with the program (offers quality internships and takes an invested interest in the program and recruiting at MIT) and I hope that we are able to establish a relationship with Adidas. Of course some partner companies work better (try harder or are more interested) with LFM than others…which is why some companies don’t always get the value out of LFM that they could, but I can say that the companies who put in the time and effort to work with us have gotten their money’s worth out of the program (Boeing is the best example of this).

After lunch we headed over to the distribution center (about an hour away). Overall the facility was very similar to the Amazon one we saw on Domestic Plant Trek, but it was still impressive to see. The most impressive site was the area where they stored inventory (especially during the non-peak season). This system was entirely automated and it was incredibly big. It felt like the scene from the matrix where they first pan out and you see the machines harvesting humans. It was incredible. After that (all incoming inventory passes through this storage system so it was more or less the beginning of the product flow) we walked through the rest of the process. Again, it was a ton of conveyors and clever ways of picking and sorting inventory so that in the end you fill a box with exactly what the customer ordered.

After the tour we snapped a photo and headed back to Nurnberg. As is part of the LFM tradition, a group of our students presented awards making fun of people and events that occurred on the trip. I won some award involving finally finding a country that eats the way I do (meat and starch only, no vegetables!). As always these were a good laugh helped everyone remember the fun week we had.

A leisurely stroll down memory lane (pictured above)

The two LFM alumni’s offered to take us to dinner at a nice restaurant in the Old Town area so we all headed there after a very short break in our rooms. Once again I had a large plate of meat.

Pictures from dinner

After that we went to another beer hall to continue the party. We learned a drinking song from some of the German speaking students in our group and proceeded to sing it every couple of minutes. We thought it was awesome and I am sure the rest of the hall was highly annoyed. After another bar stop we headed back to the hotel. We have already started scattering as some people had planes to catch tonight and other tomorrow. Most of us (including me) are not departing until Sunday and we will spend Saturday in Munich.

Pictures from beer hall