Day Trip to Peacocks Medical Group
By Zhen Wang
Half of the class, two of each of the group members, went to Peacocks Medical Group Ltd in Newcastle Upon Tyne on 19th October 2006. We had been given a group assignment about the analysis and reengineering of Peacocks' current business procedures and had the opportunity to visit Peacocks headquarters with the purpose of collecting the necessary data for our project.
Peacocks is one of the UK's largest and prestigious companies and has been
providing medical goods and service for over one hundred years. The company
invited us to observe and evaluate its current supply chain systems thus enabling
us to suggest alternative business methods or technologies to help the company
move away from paper-based systems to modern IT-based ones.
Prior to the visit we did some background research about the project. When we arrived at Peacocks we listened to a presentation about the Company which was followed by a question and answer session allowing us to gain an insight into the goals of the Company and an overview of the infrastructure and technologies currently being used.
After the presentation we attended a health and safety talk, a requirement before visiting the manufacturing premises, and had a brief look at the Company's showroom. Although we found this to be on the small side there were still a lot of products on display. The visit to the manufacturing floor was of particular interest and we discovered that a combination of hi-tech machinery and old tools are used in the production of the various products because hi-tech machinery alone is not adequate for some cutomisations.
It was a fulfilling day despite the weather ( a rainy day!) and we learnt a lot about the company and its processes. We also had the opportunity to work as a team and experience of working as a consultant. I do hope that there will be more trips like this so that we can develop our skills even further and take what we learn into the real working environment.
