Business Management

On Thursday 14th July Business Management Unit 3 & 4 students attended the Mars Wrigley Ballarat factory. It was an amazing opportunity to see all of the topics that have been studied in real life operations. 

Mars haven’t run any tours in the last three years due to COVID restrictions and our group were very fortunate to be the first group to trial a potential return of tours. Pav Duzhnikov the Industrial Engineering Manager – Australia, along with Rob McClennan and Brett Fleming, two parents of the Business Management class who are associates at Mars, helped make the tour possible navigating the many new COVID and safety requirements. They also conducted the tours sharing their wealth of real working knowledge.

While at Mars, students had the opportunity to tour the plant and see the many stages of making Mars Bars, Maltesers, M&Ms and Snickers. Students saw the Unit 3 & 4 Curriculum topics of Operations Management, Quality, Waste and Change Management in action, which was very valuable as the end of year exams are fast approaching. Students also had the opportunity to work on an engineering problem - to research if it was viable for Mars to introduce a new packaging machine for a possible Maltesers  range. There was also the opportunity to do a quality check exercise with M&Ms like the Mars staff do each morning. 

Hopefully the opportunity to do this same amazing excursion in 2023 will also be an option for the Business Management students to see their learning being applied in a real Business setting.

When asked to provide feedback these are some of the students' comments:

• ‘Couldn't of been more happier in being able to go, being able to explore a business’s building that you drive past frequently and their daily operations. The use of machinery and staff to create local product such as Mars bars and Maltesers.’
• ‘The excursion and tour around the Mars factory was interesting to see as it reflected the work we did during the operations management unit and gave us insight of the processes rather than just reading about it in class’.
• ‘Amazing tour and great source of knowledge that can be directly applied to the school work.’

We were really grateful for the opportunity given from Mars Ballarat and the students' attitudes and behaviour was to be commended.

Traci Robins