My experience during Practical Training.
My name is Maryna Naumenko. I am studying in JAMK University of Apply Science, International Business, Bachelor Degree. After the 2nd year of university I went on a Practical Training for a semester (May-December 2017) to Canada. I made an agreement with ERP Compass Navigating Success to have my PT with them, as an accounting assistant. It is a privet company, created and owned by Aleksejus Biga. The company is a Microsoft partner and Canadian distributer of Microsoft product. ERP Compass’s specialization is Microsoft Dynamics AX ERP system.
I started my work May 17th 2017. My tasks were very straight forward:
- I started with familiarizing myself with Dynamic AX first, in order to be able to understand how the program works and how my work was organized. Since Aleksejus Biga already had everything setup, I just had to follow the system.
- When it came to the task, I had to put in the system financial expenses of the company for the quarter (Feb-Apr). Since it is a small privet company most of my sources were the physical bills, as well as invoice in physical and electronical format, and access to bank transactions to compare with the rest of the information.
- My job was to fill all that information in AX Dynamics in different formats and folders. And sum up the expenses for each category (including tax calculation).
- At the end of the round I had to present my findings, calculations, suggestions on the particular quarter, physically and in the program.
Unexpectedly my boss decided that he wanted me to focus more on the dynamics AX and he organized an interview for me in company called Cyclone Manufacturing Inc. Cyclone Mfg is ERP Compass’s biggest client at the moment, and they hired ERP Compass on February 2018 as a consulting manager in the IT department (official title, but the job is very abstract and huge). Cyclone Mfg used to use JobBoss as a system/program where they would store all the needed information (for over 40 years, until February 2018). By the April 2018 they changed everything to AX dynamics, and no longer required JobBoss.
I was supposed to be hired there not as Aleksejus Biga’s assistant/co-worker, but as an individual. Cyclone gave me a position as a planer engineer and only for two months as a co-op student. I agreed and my project started on July 5th 2018.
Briefly about the company; Cyclone is a Polish company that is based in Canada (2 buildings in Mississauga (Meadowpine and Rapistan), 1 in Milton, and 1 in Toronto (Century)), Poland and Middle East. It’s two main clients are Airbus and Bombardier, as well as many others. Company is building parts for airplanes (mostly small parts, but one of the building in Canada makes a completed wing for the plane). And it is also a privet company, with extremely strict rules.
The last project turned out to be the main one. It required for me to do the same job as I did at the beginning of the Practical Training. However this time I had to show better skills on using Dynamics AX. And the quality of my work sky-rocked after the first time. It was much easier for me to understand the process and the system in order to do my job more efficiently.
- In total I worked about 800+ hours for accounting part, and 1054 hours for Planner engineer project.
Both of the experience were very important for me. Even though both of the companies are well respected, but have a lot of issues on the inside, and it makes it harder to work for them (for many other people). Nonetheless I think this is a very important and interesting experience to have. I learned more in this past 8 months, than I ever had. I would definitely recommend both of the companies to other students, who have lot of patience, fast learning skills, ability to work under high pressure, leadership skills.
Author: Naumenko Maryna