I’m Oana, I’m from Romania and I’ve been with TME for five years. I’m a mechanical engineer, working as a Manager in Purchase engineering.
How and why did you join Toyota?
After graduating I did my PhD. In my studies I studied Quality Assurance and all of the people we studied had implemented their Quality related tools in Toyota. It sounded like a great company and I thought it would be a dream to work there.
Can you briefly describe your journey through Toyota until now?
In my first five years here, I have had a number of roles. Purchasing is a big department made up of two main pillars: Engineering which deals with pre production planning where we work with suppliers using the Toyota Production System, and Buying, which buys everything for the vehicles from raw materials to finished parts.
I joined as a Senior Engineer in what is now Purchase Engineering and spent two years travelling the world visiting suppliers. I then moved to Buying for year as a Senior Buyer for a year and then moved back into Engineering, and last year was promoted to Manager.
What's it like to work at TME?
At TME an engineer’s job can give the opportunity to travel a lot apart from across Europe, I have travelled to Japan three times and to China. As an engineer, I like to see what is happening, and see processes and how people react to them, so I learn a lot and that’s what I love. People are priceless and it’s unbelievable how much you can learn here just by listening.
People here will help you in any way they can. At TME there are opportunities to grow and build your career. If you want it and work for it, you can rotate between departments or go on assignment to other departments, depending on where you are and what you contribute. It’s very dynamic at TME.
What do you enjoy most about your job?
One of the main things for me about TME is working with the Toyota way. For me the most important part is Respect, so it doesn’t matter who you are, your ethnicity, or your gender, you are respected as a professional and for your own capability that for me is a wonderful thing.
There is a lot of attention around the world just now about gender equality and that women don’t get the opportunities, but I don’t feel that about Toyota I’ve been here five years and have had two promotions, and I feel that I have been promoted because of my own capability.