Consultancy and Project Management
Ana Lee on her internship at IBM, April 2010
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“IBM (International Business Machines) is a multinational with a continuous history dating back to the 19th century. The company’s revenue totaled $95.8 billion (2009) and has 398,455 (2009) employees. Among them are scientists, engineers, consultants and sales professionals. IBM employees have earned five Nobel Prizes, four Turing Awards, nine National Medals of Technology, and five National Medals of Science.
IBM Netherlands is organized into 5 major units: Global Business Services (GBS), Global Technology Services (GTS), Global Financing, Sales and Distribution and the staff department. Life sciences and Pharmaceuticals is part of IBM Global Business Services. GBS’ work includes consultancy to the eventual implementation and if needed outsourcing services.
Project SCORE
The Solution for Compliance in a Regulated Environment is abbreviated in SCORE. IBM SCORE supports Good Clinical Practices (GCP), Good Laboratory Practices (GLP) and Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) content management needs and is capable of capturing electronic signatures and electronic authentication to confirm the identity and intent of users performing specific tasks. It helps organizations in the Life Sciences and Healthcare sectors comply with regulations such as GxP and 21CFR11 for R&D and manufacturing. The FDA (US Food and Drug Administration) has sharpened its regulations for submissions of new drugs. Submissions in the past were filled on paper which is no longer accepted, only submissions in the Electronic Common Technical Document (ECT) format are accepted. SCORE controls all created information and manage the workflows. It fully tracks the drug development in the value chain and guarantees a secured and regulatory compliant work environment.The goal of this internship was to experience Consultancy and Project Management in a multinational company. The project was in the implementation phase when I started my internship at IBM GBS. The client’s ability to implement the solution successfully and with realized benefit is a key component of this phase. My internship started with obtaining more knowledge on SCORE. This was done by theoretical deepening in the IBM database, SCORE tech training PowerPoint presentations, the users’ guide and Configuration Specification. During this time I also had login possibilities on the SCORE testing environment so I could get familiar with the solution.
My tasks started with the support of every day tasks of the team such as attending and making minutes during the progress and status meetings with the client, dialing into conference calls and manage the online SCORE Implementation Team Place. As the project went on, the time came that SCORE soon needed to be validated so I got assigned to be responsible for the Operational Qualification Test Scripts. These test scripts will be used to validate the solution. Validation is a Quality Control process to ensure that the product meets the solution promised to the client in the prior phase. Therefore, OQ test scripts had to be written and test runs needed to be done. At the end of my internship I managed to write the OQ test scripts for SCORE validation and made the first test run.
My IBM experience
I have learned many things from and enjoyed my internship at IBM GBS. This internship gave me the opportunity to see a glimpse of the life as a project manager as well as a consultant. It taught me, among other things, how to toggle between working on a goal oriented and time oriented way. IBMers are used to work globally and at any location besides at the office. Working on the client’s location showed me, besides the way IBM worked, also how a pharmaceutical company operates. It was a great chance to experience Science Based Business in practice.Find more information on SBB internships and more SBB internship experiences on our website.
