{"id":143994,"date":"2014-02-06T17:45:12","date_gmt":"2014-02-06T19:45:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/?p=143994"},"modified":"2014-02-07T19:05:38","modified_gmt":"2014-02-07T21:05:38","slug":"future-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/future-now\/","title":{"rendered":"The Future \u2013 NOW"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Representatives

Eduardo Cesar<\/span><\/a> Representatives of Poli J\u00fanior which has 90 university students from 19 fields of engineering at the Polytechnic School of USP.Eduardo Cesar<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

University undergraduate students, average age 20, are managing to transform theories learned in the classroom into early experiences in the job market as members of junior companies. \u201cThe fact that we can actually live the professional experience from very early on enables us to gain a systematic view of the way the job market works; it prepares us for what we\u2019ll be facing later on,\u201d says Eduardo Amorim, 22, vice president of the Federation of Junior Companies of the state of S\u00e3o Paulo (Fejesp) and a fourth-year student at the S\u00e3o Carlos School of Engineering of the University of S\u00e3o Paulo (USP). The junior company movement, which began in France in 1967 and arrived in Brazil in 1988, has been gaining new adherents every year.<\/p>\n

In 2004, there were 119 companies and 1,417 junior businesspeople. By 2011, according to the 2012 Census and Identity survey conducted by Brasil J\u00fanior\u2014a confederation that represents 14 state federations\u2014the number of firms had reached 359 and the number of businesspeople who responded to the questionnaire was 4,444, but leadership estimates that this figure now exceeds 8,000. From the 2,185 completed projects, the companies had revenues of R$8.5 million. \u201cThe S\u00e3o Paulo and Minas Gerais federations are the strongest in the movement,\u201d says Daniel Daibert Rocha, public relations advisor to Brasil J\u00fanior. Established in 1990, Fejesp is the oldest of the Brazilian federations. It currently includes 37 junior companies, also known in Brazil as EJs, affiliated with 13 universities\u2014five public and eight private\u2014that offer about 93 undergraduate programs and have around 1,400 members. The Federation of Junior Companies of Minas Gerais (Fejemg), established in 1995, now has 49 companies and about 1,500 businesspeople. They represent 14 educational institutions, 10 public and 4 private.<\/p>\n

The Junior Company of the Get\u00falio Vargas Foundation of S\u00e3o Paulo (EJFGV), and Poli J\u00fanior of the Polytechnic School (Poli\/USP) started the EJ movement in Brazil. Within the space of one month they established their respective companies–one in December 1988 and the other in January 1989, and they have been accumulating success stories ever since. The EJFGV cites as examples two projects that were finalized in 2012. One of them is the redesign of the logistical network of distribution center for a major food company in S\u00e3o Paulo, the name of which they agreed not to divulge. \u201cThe model we developed focused on cutting the logistical cost of delivering products to cities in the inland regions of S\u00e3o Paulo, southern Minas Gerais, and northern Paran\u00e1,\u201d says Ricardo Takaki, 20, institutional director of the EJFGV and a fourth-semester student in business administration.<\/p>\n

\"representatives

Eduardo cesar<\/span><\/a> Representatives of the EJFGV, with 60 students, mostly from the FGV business administration program.Eduardo cesar<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

Working with the database and reports about the logistical network, used to service 444 cities, the EJ prepared models of various scenarios so that after refinement, they could arrive at the best proposals for the situation presented to them. \u201cOur study and the solution we recommended were so well received by the client that the team that authored the project received an offer of employment in order to implement it.\u201d Another project that had a good final outcome, with approval by the client, is the one for a school, also in S\u00e3o Paulo, that needed a brand valuation to help it attract investors. \u201cIt was our first brand valuation project, i.e., we had to quantify the value of the brand,\u201d Takaki says.<\/p>\n

Among the successes achieved by Poli J\u00fanior is the modification of the layout of an inventory and distribution shed operated by Mazzaferro, a fishery products manufacturer in Diadema, a city near the state capital. It was carried out by production engineering students with the help of a professor from that same field. \u201cRearrangement of the factory layout and the production process resulted in a savings of R$1 million a month,\u201d says Pedro Martinez, 20, CEO of Poli J\u00fanior and a third-year student in computer engineering.<\/p>\n

Another recently completed project\u2014an assignment from the Foundation for the Technological Development of Engineering (FDTE)\u2014is that of a surgical stapler used in gastrointestinal surgeries. The device will now enter the testing phase. The proposal is that the new product replace a disposable tool now being used, one imported from the United States at high cost. \u201cWe designed the entire device,\u201d Martinez says. At the request of the General Services Department of the Polytecnic School, Poli Jr. also upgraded the ground floors of all the school\u2019s buildings on its Butant\u00e3 campus. \u201cWe added new elements like windows and doors, and corrected the design of the stairways,\u201d he reports. In all, 15 buildings containing 2,351 rooms were evaluated, covering a total area of 105,000 square meters.<\/p>\n

The EJFGV is made up of degree candidates in the fields of business administration, economics, and law. \u201cBecause students can become members of the EJ as early as the first semester, our focus in making the selections is more heavily based on the candidates\u2019 backgrounds than on their technical knowledge,\u201d Takaki says. And so, like some EJs, that of the FGV has on staff a human resources consultant to help in the recruitment process. Before participating in the company\u2019s consulting projects, recruits undergo training and take professional development courses. \u201cAfter acceptance, they have a career ladder that involves several stages of preparation before they become consultants.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Members

Mecatron<\/span><\/a> Members of Mecatron, composed of 25 students from the control and automation program offered at the School of Mechanical Engineering \u2013 Unicamp.Mecatron<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

Currently, 60 students from the first through sixth semester are members of the EJFGV. Most are from the business administration program. Since its foundation, the company has already completed more than 300 consulting projects. \u201cEvery project has the assistance of at least one professor on the faculty, but normally we get support from two or three professors,\u201d Takaki says. The EJFGV has partnerships with Bain & Company, a management consulting firm; MBA Empresarial, a human resources consulting firm, and with Mandalah, which focuses on innovations that have a sustainability component. \u201cOur projects are oriented toward sustainability; they seek higher profits, but with an environmental and social filter,\u201d says Takaki.<\/p>\n

At Poli J\u00fanior, a company composed of a team of 90 university students from 19 fields of engineering at the USP Polytechnic School, the selection process is conducted twice a year. \u201cOur company is composed primarily of first and second-year students, but we also have some from the third and fourth years,\u201d Martinez says. The training period lasts for two to three months, after which a trainee is promoted to analyst and participates in projects and events. From analyst, students are promoted to junior manager, level at which they will work on research and development projects at the company. The next step on the ladder is promotion to senior manager, and there they are responsible for supervising the juniors. After completing all these phases, a participant may compete for election to an executive position.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince we cannot accept every polytechnic student as a member, we hold events, such as a week of lectures and courses aimed at first and second year students, to demonstrate the possible job opportunities at the company in the future,\u201d says Martinez. We also hold a recruitment workshop for the third, fourth, and fifth year students that is attended by companies such as Ita\u00fa, Odebrecht, Shell, and other major firms, and by about 6,000 people. Since the EJs are not-for-profit civil associations, all their revenues are used to defray the expenses of maintaining company infrastructure and training their members via courses, attendance at events, and lectures.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>With ten years of activity in the market, Mecatron\u2014composed of 25 students from the control and automation program offered by the School of Mechanical Engineering of the University of Campinas (Unicamp)\u2014conducts projects in the field of control and automation for various laboratories and institutes of that university as well as for microenterprises and small businesses in the Campinas region. \u201cAll members are involved in every phase of a project, which means everything from management and marketing to customer support,\u201d says Guilherme Plazza, 20, director of marketing at Mecatron and a second-year student at the school. At present the company has about 20 projects under way. In cases that demand specific types of knowledge, students from other engineering courses at Unicamp, such as computer science, also lend a hand.<\/p>\n

Some of the projects recently carried out by Mecatron deserve special mention, such as a piece of equipment it developed for a doctoral candidate from the Chemistry Institute. The device automatically controls the valves of a chemical substance purification experiment. \u201cThere was a 30% increase in the volume of purified substance and a 1% increase in the purity of the reaction product, as well as a reduction of six hours per day in the time needed to do the work,\u201d Plazza reports. The company also developed a temperature control system for a room that houses a large collection of insects maintained by a professor at the Biology Institute. \u201cThe system sends a text message by mobile phone when there is an abnormal change in temperature.\u201d<\/p>\n

Microenterprises in the region also seek out Mecatron. For example, a laundry placed an order for automation of the machines it uses. \u201cWe developed software for a Petrobras refinery that displays the progress of the production process on a computer screen,\u201d reports Plazza, who since his first semester in the course has been a member of the junior company at Unicamp. \u201cWhen I started with the company, my idea was to find out how a company works and is organized, and to better understand the job market so that I could become a better professional in the future,\u201d he says. He says the experience has certainly surpassed his expectations. \u201cMy view of the world has expanded and, through contacts with clients and other people, I\u2019ve learned to deal with people better and work as part of a team.\u201d Victor Stefanelli, who until June 2013 held the post of vice president of Ayra Consultoria, which operates in the field of business management at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), shares Plazza\u2019s opinion. \u201cIt was the most useful team-building experience I\u2019ve had since I entered the university,\u201d says Stefanelli, 20, a sixth-semester student in the School of Economics at UFRJ. \u201cTo learn to work with people from different backgrounds, under tight deadlines, to achieve audacious goals with limited resources, was a daily challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mecatron has been recognized as one of the four best EJS in Brazil, earning the highest category of award from the Brasil J\u00fanior Management Excellence Program in July of this year. And it was also chosen as the best not-for-profit organization in the state of S\u00e3o Paulo, within Level I of the 2013 edition quality awards given out by the Paulista Institute for Management Excellence (Ipeg).\u00a0PJ Consultoria e Assessoria, formed by students from the production engineering and mechanical engineering courses at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), is another of the four EJs that received the highest category of awards from Brasil J\u00fanior this year. \u201cThe award attests to both the quality of the services we provide and our internal management practices,\u201d says Arllen Jorge, 21, director of operations for the junior company. In addition to these two, Ayra Consultoria and FCAP Jr. Consultoria, from the School of Administration Sciences of Pernambuco, also received awards.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Established in 1995, PJ now has 60 members. \u201cThe selection process is fully planned in advance and executed by our human resources department,\u201d says Jorge. Most of the clients for our projects are microenterprises and small businesses in Belo Horizonte and the metropolitan region. \u201cAs of September this year, we already had 20 projects underway, while in all of last year we had just 23,\u201d reports Jorge, a sixth-semester student in production engineering. Last year, the junior company at UFMG earned R$115,000. \u201cIn 2013, our goal is to get to R$140,000.\u201d The selection process is open to undergraduates from all over the university, regardless of their semester of enrollment. But the great majority of the members of the EJ are students in the second and fourth semesters. The company has 10 partners, among them Bain & Company, Amcham Brasil (The American Chamber of Commerce), and the Federation of Industries of the state of Minas Gerais (Fiemg).<\/p>\n

Among PJ\u2019s successes are the installation of a quality management system at a construction company in Belo Horizonte that resulted in a 200% increase in the number of works projects completed. After that project, PJ Consultoria received, in only six months, orders for four more projects to install similar systems. Another assignment that was considered a success was the management of processes and planning of a layout for the shed owned by PMC, a microenterprise in Nova Lima (MG) that was founded in 2011 and makes interlocking concrete floor tiles. After 12 months, the company\u2019s partners decided to retain PJ to map out the production processes and work on the design of a factory that would accommodate a second tile manufacturing line.<\/p>\n

Poli J\u00fanior, Mecatron, and PJ Consultoria represent a sample of the way EJs are composed. \u201cEngineering work accounts for 30.08% of the area of EJ activities in Brazil,\u201d says Rocha, of Brasil J\u00fanior. But applied social sciences\u2014that include consulting services provided by students in programs such as business administration, architecture, and urban planning, accounting, media, law, and economics\u2014are also well represented, at 23.12%. In S\u00e3o Paulo State, about 70% of EJs are made up of students from the exact sciences. The other 30% are made up of students in chemistry, pharmacy, international relations, and law. In 2012 alone, companies affiliated with Fejesp were responsible for more than 380 commercial projects and had revenues of about R$4.4 million. \u201cThat means that, although we represent only about 10% of the EJs in Brazil, we account for more than 50% of revenues,\u201d says Amorim, of Fejesp, a junior businessman since 2011.<\/p>\n

At the Minas Gerais Federation, the situation is basically the same. \u201cHere, too, more than 70% of the students come from programs in engineering and business administration,\u201d says Ryoichi Penna, CEO of Fejemg. The others are studying communications, economics, accounting, pharmacy, psychology and information technology. Penna, who is finishing the business administration program at the University of Juiz de Fora, entered the university\u2019s junior company in January 2010 and stayed for two years. \u201cI left to coordinate the world conference of EJs in Brazil last year, and then I ran for president of the Minas federation,\u201d he says. The world conference is held every two years. The one in 2012, in Paraty in Rio de Janeiro State, attracted 2,100 people from 15 countries. \u201cAnd it helped create the first junior company in the United States, at the University of Illinois,\u201d Penna says. That came to pass because a professor from that university was present at the conference and became enthusiastic about what he saw. The next conference will be in Geneva, Switzerland, in 2014.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe EJ movement, in addition to the one in Europe, is very strong in Brazil,\u201d Penna says. \u201cHere we\u2019ve managed to mobilize a huge number of companies to attend the events.\u201d Proof of this are the national meetings held annually, each attended by about 1,700 participants. This year, the meeting was held in Porto Alegre and the next one will be in Aracruz, in Esp\u00edrito Santo. \u201cWe also work toward forging closer ties with the European confederation, which is based in Brussels,\u201d he remarks. Every semester, Brasil J\u00fanior sends two or three members over there. In Europe, the most active confederations are, besides the French, the Germans, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and Rumanian.<\/p>\n

Not only are the federations responsible for promoting coordination activities that will strengthen the movement here in Brazil, they also take care of the regulations that apply to junior companies. \u201cToday in Brazil, we have the EJ seal, which is awarded annually,\u201d Penna says. To receive it, companies must go through an audit. Federations would like the seal to be regulated by proposed legislation that is now pending in the Brazilian Senate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brazilian junior companies have revenues of R$8.5 million","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[169],"tags":[225,234,243],"coauthors":[115],"class_list":["post-143994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-economy","tag-finance","tag-innovation"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143994"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143994\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143994"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=143994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}