Day 6 - Shanghai

Good morning. Not really. I had to wake up at 6:30 this morning and I couldn’t find the coffee in the cafeteria. But that’s where the bad stuff stops. Today we went to one of the major universities to visit them. The lecture was on the Asian climate of business, with a more specific emphasis (of course) on China. Learning the Chinese mindset is of course going to be very important for us if we are to do business with them in the future. We should also be learning the mindset of the Indians. (They are, after all, one of our major supporters).  Afterwards we went to a manufacturing plant called Omron. It is a Japanese company that manufactures various controlling hardware for equipment such as Medical Equipment, cars, etc.  The factory process was really interesting. I don’t have many pictures because they didn’t allow us to take any, but I’ll do my best to explain some of it. 

First they introduced us to the structure of the factory. They told us about stuff such as who is who in the company and how to identify certain positions on the factory floor. The factory process at the beginning is automatic, but when the assembling happens they utilize a cell format assembly line. 3-5 people to a cell and the products go through each person (the lead person twice) to have a specific element added.  Then it goes through quality checks by people and various scanning equipment before it is actually sent off to their customer. 

The whole process was really interesting, but several questions came to mind. The product is followed entirely by paper. Why would a company the size this, with a world-wide distribution net, have a paper traced and manually inputted manufacturing process? How would their accounting system be able to truly trace what is raw materials, work-in-process and finished goods? What inventory system do they use? What is their manufacturing overhead rate? How is it applied? Unfortunately, I was unable to get any answers to these questions, but c’est la vie. Now I know a little bit more of what to look for if I have to do some manufacturing consulting work in the future.

After Omron, and we dropped of the kids from the University, we went to the acrobat show. These people are amazing in their acrobatic talents. There were some people who were able to put their feet past their head, from the back. I think I would die if I had to do that. It just goes to show what you can really accomplish if you put your mind to it.