PlanetTogether Announces New Internship Program (BOOST)

SAN DIEGO - Planning and scheduling software leader, PlanetTogether's, CEO Jim Cerra has announced the creation of the company’s Building Optimized Operations for Students and Technology (BOOST) internship program. BOOST will give business school and engineering students the chance to apply their operations management theory into real world applications, helping manufacturers in the process.

Selected students will take part in a 1-3 month project where they learn APS fundamentals and identify companies and non-profit organizations that could benefit from Advanced Planning & Scheduling (APS) software. Once the firms agree to take part in the study, interns will collect data and survey participants on their current planning and scheduling processes and issues, perform simulations and analysis using PlanetTogether’s APS system, and make presentations to the subjects of the study along with recommendations for business planning optimization.

For non-profits involved in the study, an extra bonus is being offer. For qualifying companies, PlanetTogether will donate the software and all-related services to the the firm, free of charge.

The studies already underway involve the University of California, San Diego, Harvard University, and National University. This fall, PlanetTogether will expand BOOST to Cornell University, Cerra’s alma mater, and then to other top engineering and business schools. While the internships will have the option for work done remotely, PlanetTogether is starting with a focus on primarily local universities allowing students to drive to see the PlanetTogether headquarters and engage in weekly face-to-face meetings with experienced PlanetTogether engineers.

The internship isn’t just a nice filler for future jobs resumes; PlanetTogether is hopeful to find some of its future employees in the field of interns and expects participating companies to gain real benefit from working with the students to uncover opportunities for greater efficiency and customer service improvements using planning and scheduling software.

Cerra said the responsiveness from UCSD in particular has been an exciting launching board for the program. “We greatly appreciate the support and enthusiasm coming from UCSD professors and students around this program,” Cerra said. “The operations management faculty invited us in to guest speak about planning and scheduling and the outlook is encouraging with the number of students applying to be involved in BOOST. It’s clearly going to have a meaningful impact with the quality of people getting involved.”  

Learn more about getting involved with the BOOST program.