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Hi!
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My name is Alexandra Grossman, but you can call me Alex.
While my internship with Liebherr Mining Equipment began Fall 2023, I extended my stay until the Fall 2024 semester so I could earn credit for my work through ODU. As the Technical Writing Intern, I worked closely with the Technical Publications Team and not only gained experienced as a technical writer, but cross trained on several skills and software through working closely on projects with Product Support, Spare Parts, and Training departments.
My main job priorities were to assist the senior technical writer to update and publish technical materials for customers. There are 5 major manuals per truck with different intended audiences: Service, Operators, Field Assembly, Parts, and Maintenance manuals. I updated information in these manuals through PTC Arbortext and Altova XMLSpy using XML code by collaborating with technical team leads and engineer SME to convert technical instructions into easily understood materials for customers. Later on in my internship I was trained on illustrations with Creo View, Adobe Illustrator, and ArborText IsoDraw to help mitigate the Missing Illustration Backlog (MIR) and create illustrations for newer truck models.
Photo taken from google images, not from my time at Liebherr for privacy reasons.
After I had created the UX test, I made an instruction document that contained 8 parts to be tested alongside a pre and post test survey with Microsoft Forms. Members of the project used my work to test 17 people familiar with the current catalog structure, recording the videos so that I could watch back later for data collection.
During data collection, I used Excel to organize demographical data, such as a person's name, company they work for, experience working with the catalog, current satisfaction etc., alongside data from the UX tests. I tracked how long it took to find each part, how many folders clicked out of 3 (the number needed to get from top level to part level), and comments made while trying to find that particular part. Additionally I tied in satisfaction and other notable information from the post test surveys.
Finally I used data collected from the tests to create a report and presentation that will be shown in January, post my internship, to show upper management a proposed solution to help customer satisfaction with our catalogs.
Fall 2024 Technical
Writing Internship
In addition to my day to day assignments, I worked on two notable projects that were focused on collaborating with other departments: The Spare Parts Restructuring Project and updating an existing slideshow for a new fleet of trucks. These projects enriched my internship as I gained experience with leading software in the field.
Spare Parts
Restructuring pROJECT
Originally I was added to the Spare Parts Restructuring Project to help organize and take notes during the long planned meetings. This project focused on improving our customer satisfaction with ordering spare parts off our catalog, which originally was very poorly organized.
We first began by picking two restructuring approaches, system based and location based. System based broke down initial choice for customers by systems: electric, hydraulic, etc., while location based started off with front, main, rear, and cab, then broke down further into the systems within each location. However, at this point I realized I could help contribute to the team more than just note taking, as I had collaborated with a friend in college in the semester previous to create a user experience (UX) test.
I created two UX tests for this project, System and Location based approaches, through screenshotting the original website and deleting the current text off of folders and replacing it with the new categories discussed in our meetings. I used Adobe Photoshop to add, subtract, and create lower tiers of folders depending on the number of assemblies and systems within each organizational approach, and created a clickable slideshow PowerPoint that closely resembled how navigating the actual website would be.
Updating a slideshow+
project planning
While I cannot share details of the contents or purpose of the slideshow due to confidentiality, this undertaking was to improve the current slideshow intended to track progress between departments in creating a new fleet of trucks for a customer. The issues with the slideshow were legibility and cohesion, as it was hard to understand who was relying on each other for what information, how far along they were in completing a milestone, and if they were on track to finishing on time or at risk of delaying another departments start/end dates.
During the meeting, I noted that while there was a loose project plan in the form of a table within PowerPoint, people were manually updating Timeline Pro and the table separately from whatever personal project plans they had (if any), and that it did not show dependencies between departments. Thus, while my original assignment was to essentially beautify the slideshow, after some research I found a solution with Project Professional.
With Project Professional, one can automatically generate swim lanes for Timeline Pro on PowerPoint and keep information such as tasks, deadlines, percentage complete, predecessors and successors synced with the Project Professional File. As such, I created a template for departments to fill out and had 1:1 meetings with each department lead to ensure that the file was filled out correctly and linked with other files if relying on particular information.
Once everyone was mostly completed with their individual project planners, I created a parent document with all their children files linked within, then broke up that parent document on PowerPoint's Timeline Pro. The first few slides focus on the overall timeline, with all department milestones showing exactly where they are dependent on one another, deadlines, and % completed. The next view was focusing on individual department milestones and the larger actions it takes to complete them. The lowest view was the exact tasks and action steps that comprise of these larger actions and subsequent deadlines. This organization allows for full clarity of how all departments are situated with one another, and best of all is synced with PowerPoint. So, if someone adjusts their individual child files, it flows into the parent document which in turn updates Timeline Pro, so the slideshow will never have to be altered meticulously again.
Internship reflection
During my internship, while my main focus was on technical writing, the additional work I did in projects or the cross training I did within my own department helped me to discover new career pathways and roles that I previously have not considered. These roles are illustrator, UX tester, and project manager.
My next professional pursuit will be next Spring, 2025, as ODU's Counseling Service Communications and Marketing Intern. As the marketing intern I will be assisting in planning, coordinating, and staffing outreach events aimed at promoting the Counseling Center's services and resources, managing and updating the Counseling Center's social media and websites, developing marketing strategies to reach diverse segments of the university community, compile and organize content for the Counseling Center's monthly newsletter, collecting data on effectiveness of outreach efforts, and analyzing data to evaluate impact of various initiatives and identify areas for improvement.
As per my previous statements about cross training and new career pathways, I learned new abilities and skills with specific industry standard software. For illustration, I worked with 3D models in Creo View, and created illustrations with Arbortext IsoDraw. While conducting the UX test, I gained real-life experience creating a UX test, instructions, survey, and data analysis post the testing phase. I also gained experience in proposal writing for the suggested steps for the next phase to improve our catalog. Through creating a new, reorganized PowerPoint, I used Project Professional and Timeline Pro to create in-depth and synced project plans that automatically feed into the final presentation that will be shown to our customers.
From my internship, I believe the skills that will be the most impactful for my desired future career is experience with ArborText XML, Altova XMLSpy, Project Professional and Timeline Pro.
Acting as a professional in my field foremost comes with collaboration and teamwork. As a technical writer, you are the liaison between many people: illustrators, customers, engineers, training, Product Support, etc., and you must be able to work with people effectively and timely to finish the projects that are on your plate and assigned to you while respecting that everyone is also trying to do the best for themselves in their own departments.
I believe my humanities education has impacted Liebherr positively as I was able to see the bigger picture in a lot of projects and facilitate them through close notes taking, proposal writing, and communication in following up and planning future meetings.
I believe the most rewarding part of my experience was the people that work for Liebherr. Liebherr is extremely multi-cultural. On my floor alone you will hear people speaking in German and Spanish, and with English, American, and Australian accents. It was amazing the sharing of culture that happened in that workplace-- my coworkers were more than happy to help me practice my Spanish for my Spanish major, and potlucks were always amazing with the wide variety of food to eat. I genuinely liked my coworkers and made deep bonds with people that I probably would have never been close with outside of a professional work environment.
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