Days 6 and 7

We visited ASIMCO in the morning and Vermeer in the afternoon on Tuesday.  ASIMCO makes engine parts for use in commercial sized truck diesel engines.  The plant we visited manufactures the fuel injection system.  About 80% of the employees live in on-campus housing.  The facility has been repurposed by ASIMCO and involves machining parts to very small tolerances.  The company employs primarily Chinese engineers (hydraulic and mechanical) and technicians.  Some of the precision machines we observed cost in excess of $7 million.  We were not allowed to take pictures in the plant, which is common, however we were allowed to take pictures of the lobby area, and of their mission statement poster, which I found particularly interesting (first above).

From ASIMCO, we went to Vermeer Beijing.  Vermeer is based in Pella, Iowa and is family owned.  The man we visited there heads up their Asia division, and is a Calvin alum.  Mr. Blouwkamp provided us with lunch and gave us a summary of the company.  We then split up into groups with his management team.  The engineers got to go with a young engineer who was an excellent guide.  Though he was young, his knowledge of the company was fantastic, and he could answer every question.  His English was very good, and though he has only been with the company since 2008 after completing his Master's Degree, he is very much an important part of the team (already representing the engineering division).  Vermeer Beijing is involved in producing trenchless drilling machines, which allow cable to be drilled and pulled from point A to point B underground, without disrupting the surface.  When they began in China, the company would modify their American designs for the Chinese market.  In some cases they still do this, however in many cases it is necessary to engineer solutions for specific markets, such as China and Japan.  In China, there designs are copied extensively and cheaply.  Chinese clients do not want all of the automation that U.S. customers require (no shortage of manual labor in China) and they do not want to pay for more features than they need.  For this reason, Vermeer engineers solutions very differently here than in the U.S.  They are much more focused on cheaper designs that meet but do not exceed specification.  When they started in Beijing, the company owned 90% of the market share in trenchless drilling tech, however today they own about 5%.  A goal of the branch is to increase that share, which was lost in the time after cheaper Chinese solutions began popping up.  The production facility we visited can produce 4 drilling unit simultaneously.  It is not large, but they will be moving to a larger facility soon which will let them increase their output.  I really enjoyed the Vermeer visit.

 

We went back to the hostel after visiting Vermeer and waited for the train to come.  Our train for Shanghai left at 9:20 and we nearly missed it.  The compartments in the train were rather small, but they were so much better than trying to sleep sitting up.  I played some Rook with Tim, Derek and Amanda before going to bed.  We arrived in Shanghai at 7:20 the next morning and had to be ready to get off the train when we got there.  It was interesting having to get up and dressed for a meeting on the train, there were certainly no showers involved.  We went right to our first meeting.

Our company visit was with the bun supplier for McDonalds in China (also for some KFC and Burger King).  Mr. Jamie Gong, the operations manager of the plant gave us a presentation before we toured the plant.  We had to put on two hair nets, shoe covers and a coat similar to a lab coat before we could enter the floor.  They are very serious about cleanliness there, for good reason.  We saw the process from beginning to end, from the dough preparation to the bun formation, cooking, slicing and packaging.  We were even allowed to eat some of their buns and English muffins.  Initially, we asked if we could have some of the rejects that were coming off the line because of cosmetic effects.  They gave us some of those graciously, and even had some fresh packaged buns for us to eat when we got back to the presenting area.  We ate buns today that were literally just off the line.  They hadn't even been sliced yet (SO GOOD!).  The bunch of us looked pretty ridiculous.  Check out the professor's blog if you would like to see pictures.

The next company we visited was EMC² which is an information systems company.  They design, build and manage information structures which store protect and manage information so it can be accessible, searchable and shareable.  They work with banks and financial services firms, manufacturers, healthcare and life sciences organizations, internet services and telecommunications providers and many others.  The company deals with both hardware and software solutions and is moving more toward information management.  Competition includes IBM, HP and Dell.  We got to talk to the leader of the China division today.

After our visit, we went to our hotel in Shanghai (East Asia Hotel), put our bags away and went to find dinner.  About 10 of us guys went exploring first though.  We found a mall, and by the time we had left, there were only six of us.  We decided to try a Chinese Pizza Hut for dinner.  Pizza Hut is a much higher scale and classier place in China than in the U.S.  They serve intricate desserts, pastas, rice dishes, wines, appetizers and of course pizzas.  We ordered three large pizzas, one was popcorn chicken, one bacon and boiled red cabbage, and the final had many different meats.  There were definitely tastes on the pizzas that I had not tasted before.  I've become a fan of Chinese pizza to be sure.  The water they serve is free, but they serve it warm, kind of strange for Americans used to safe tap water.  After our dinner, we did some further exploration.  We walked down the main drag for a while, until we got to the river.  The entire time we were out though, we were hailed by innumerable vendors trying to sell us anything and everything.  One guy tried to get us to come to his store.  He brought us around a corner and to a dark street.  His shop was dark and the windows were completely barred over.  There was no way any of us were going inside, so we kept walking, and after a while he stopped following us; not before trying to sell us many illegal, illicit and illegitimate things though.  Eventually we made it down to the river and got to see the skyline at night.  It is truly magnificent.  We got some good pictures, and when we were heading back, we even saw fireworks.  They were probably in practice for the Expo, which is taking place in Shanghai later this year.  Not exactly sure what it is, but it looks like it will be big.  The bun bakery we saw today was made the official bun seller of it, and they were quite pleased, so it must be important.

So our first night in Shanghai is over, it was quite enjoyable.  Tomorrow we visit SMIC (the company I researched, which manufactures semiconductors which are used in every computer) and Comnex, an LED manufacturer.  That will be very interesting from an engineering point of view.

Good night.