Saša Oblak, School of Engineering and Management

Saša, why did you decide to study engineering and management? If you had to decide today, with all your experience, would you take the same decision?
After talking to my friend, who described the study programme to me and told me that this school would be the perfect choice for me, I immediately decided to enroll. I would do the same today, too.

Where do you work and what is your position? What are your main work tasks? Is your work based on a regualr daily routine or is it heterogeneous?
I work at the ITW Appliance Components, d. o. o., company as a production and maintenance manager (operative leader). My job is to organise and coordinate the production and maintenance processes, monitor KPI, train co-workers and search for potentials and solutions, and to set goals. There is no routine in my work, but rather daily challenges which me and my co-workers deal with using an appropriate strategy.

Who (within you company or elsewhere) do you mostly cooperate with and what are the greatest challenges? How did the university prepare you for that? What did you like most about your studies?
I actually cooperate with everybody, from the branch manager to the workers in production and maintenance, and other services (the purchasing and sales departments, FRS, R&D;, technology, quality control, HR). If necessary, we also cooperate with other colleagues within the corporation (Italy, Bulgaria, China, USA), where the greatest challenge we face is a different culture, way of thinking, and sometimes also the differences in legislaton. The strategies of the corporation are the transfer of knowledge across our branches and a standardised manner of operating and thinking. The school helped me gain additional self-confidence in project management, knowledge transfer, in carrying out analyses and setting goals, and also in obtaining a broader view of production and teams. What I liked most about my studies is the fact that the lectures were based on practice and not only on textbooks, the fact that we could exchange our opinions with the lecturers and that we produced interesting and educational seminar papers.

Your study programme offered a large variety of elective courses. Which courses did you choose? Have you been using this knowledge ever since?
Knowledge Management, Data Mining and Industrial Design. I use the knowledge obtained at the first two courses at work and sometimes I even check something in my lecture notes. On the other hand, the knowledge obtained at Industrial Design is useful for my hobby.

Whom would you recommend this study programme and the profession itself?
An undergraduate student of Engineering and Management was working for us not so long ago and since his knowledge was on a high level and he had the intention to further pursue Master’s studies, we offered a scholarship to him. At the round table organised by our school, in which I took part, there were also other BSc and MSc graduates of Engineering and Management working in various fields, sucha s production, R&D;, the technology sector and HR. This means that the school indeed gives you a broad knowledge, which can be very useful in different departments of a company.