Day 5

Another day at the Vanderlande office, first HR recruitment with Sam. However Sam was in a meeting so I helped Jane, the one who took care of us and made our schedule, with posting letters. The closest post office was at Terminal 3 so we had to go there by bus, through the rain.

Back at the office, Sam briefly explained me about what her job was and then went off for another meeting. I got to go through the website of Vanderlande and just look at the information presented there.
For the recruitment, there was a whole process that needed to be followed in order for someone to work there. It started with the Request to Recruit given to HR, then more information about the person had to be given and then the company would place an Internal Advert so more people knew that there is a job offer.

The applicants had to send their CV and HR had to produce a short list for the first interview, if you succeeded in that one, you had to make a Personality Profile Assessment so that the HR knew more how this person handles in certain situations. After that test, HR will hold the second interview and if they succeeded that one as well, they get an Offer of Appointment, a form to clarify successful candidates pay, notice period, type of contract etc. If this was all filled in correctly, the person would be send an Offer successful candidate, mainly an offer letter and terms and conditions of employment. After that, the start date and induction and they are ready to start at Vanderlande.

After the break, I got to work with Project Operations and Commercial Management with Bill. However when I arrived, Bill was still in a meeting so one of the other people from that department talked me through the basics. Mainly about the site Cemar that they use.

At Commercial Management, they basically make the contract with the client. All the administration work for that contract is put into the site Cemar. In the contract is a detailed description of what kind of materials the client wants, the size of the space it is put into, etc. Vanderlande then, after the decision of what the client wants to use and how it looks like is made, starts to get the materials that are needed at that time, this is also called procurement. These materials could be made at the Vanderlande in Veghel where they mainly make products, or buy them from other suppliers. These other suppliers need to sign a subcontract, that the specific material will be used and delivered at the right time. When the supplier notices that it will be delayed, they need to put that notification in Cemar and explain why they're late. After the manufacturing and supplying, the materials need to be installed. After the installment, the system so far is being tested individually. So if you have like in an airport multiple check-ins, these new check-in systems are tested one by one and in the end all together, so the overall system works as well. All these notifications are picked up and taken care of at the office in Vanderlande.

There are also different types of contracts, based on who has the largest risk. There are three types:
- Open book
- Target price contract
- Fixed price

The open book contract is the largest risk at the client. The open book contracts means that whatever the supplier or worker buys for the construction, the client has to pay all of it.

The target price contract lays in between the risks, so when the client and the supplier agrees that the construction is going to cost €10m for example and the client decides they want to add other elements in it as well, so the price goes up, to €12m. The target, the line that if exceeded, the client only pays 30-40% to the supplier, needs to go up as well because these costs aren't connected to the previous costs, it is an expension of what the client wants, so the budget for the construction goes up, so does the target.

The fixed price contract is that the work is done for a fixed price, so an house is expanded and that is done for €100K. If the supplier can get the equipment and work done for less than €100K, he gets to keep it, as profit. If the supplier exceeds it, the client benefits from it, only if the client didn't make any last changes to what he or she wanted to happen to the expansion.

There is also a pyramid, with three standards that influence each other. They are quality, cost and time. If you want to buy a laptop with a gold layer instead of a normal basic one, the quality of the laptop increases. The cold costs a lot, so the cost increases as well. Putting the gold layer on it takes more time than the making of basic computers, so as you can see, all these three elements influence eachother.

In the evening we went to Windsor. Collegues of Noa's father were going there and we could drive with them to it, which was ideal becuase by car it took about 10 minutes to get there while by bus and train around 40 minutes. Windsor is the place where the Queen lives, Buckingham Palace is more like a work office. Harp from Finances explained that if the flag is fully raised, the Queen is present, if only halfways, she was absent.

Noa and I went our own way and decided to go to GBK, stands for Gourmet Burger Kitchen. We both got a Buffalo burger and some fries. Yet again, the food tasted delicious and the small restaurant was nicely decorated. After dinner we walked around Windsor a bit more and along the Thames, and of course taking pictures.