Wednesday, 14 March 2007

Day 3 - Transfer to Guang Zhou

We only spent one night in Shen Zhen, and today was the day we will be leaving for Guang Zhou. Before leaving Shen Zhen, we spent the morning visiting two of Shen Zhen's tourist spots:

Window of the World; and the Shen Zhen Muesem

We were greeted by the statue of an eagle as we entered the first exhibition hall:

The reason why an eagle was on display was because the shaped of Shen Zhen and its coastline resembles that of an eagle spreading its wings wide while soaring in the sky.

After which, we headed to lunch, when Xiao Deng told us that every meal we'll have in China is gonna be 8 dishes and a soup, 八菜一汤. Epps.

So we were on our way transfering to Guang Zhou to visit the only company of the day, Aztech System Ltd. It was a 2 hour bus ride, which turned into a 4 hour bus ride when the driver lost his way.
That's our driver who was with us for the 9 days we were in China. He rocks too!

So with the long 2 hour turned 4 hour bus ride, we all did what we always do the moment we were on the bus:

Sleep lah, what else can we do?

哎唷! Who's that sleeping with his mouth wide open?


Edward!!

Day 3 - Aztech Systems Ltd.

We ended up arriving to Aztech Systems Ltd at around 4pm. As a result, we had to postpone a visit to another company we intended to visit today.

However, Aztech was the most comprehensive visit and detailed tour we went through in the entire 12 days.

We were greeted by Mr. Jeremy Mun, the director of operations for the Aztech Factory in Guang Zhou. He first gave us a brief overview of the company's background and the range of products that the company unfolds, as well as its future plans.

When he finished his presentation, he simply said, "I understand that there is a list of questions that you guys have prepared, can somebody pass the list to me?"

And we were shocked because he was so helpful. We asked a few questions before deciding to have the Q&A session after the factory tour because it was close to dinner time, which means the workers are going off soon.

We were decided into three groups and being lead by Mr. Mun himself, and a NP intern doing her 6 months APT with Aztech, as well as a guy named Jeremy (I think) who just recently graduated from NTU, majoring in Electronics Engineering.

We were given a tour of the factory production line, the living quarters of employees as well as the recreational facilities. And we were all taken aback by how 'Singaporean' everything looks like in that place.

The living quarters were undergoing Lift Upgrading (LUP - Soooooo Singaporean lah). What to expect when you have a Singapore company operating in Guang Zhou?

Even their basketball courts looks Singapore-like:

And so does their canteen:

After the tour of the factory's facilities, we toured the production line. We weren't supposed to take any photos of the production line, but Mr. Mun allowed us to do so, but we can't take any pictures of their products though.


The production line area is very neat and well organised. Everything seems very efficient. There are even flow charts that shows the entire manufacturing and assembling processes can been seen by all employees so that everyone knows what is going on.


Other notable points are that their employees are colour coded in a sense that workers in different areas of production are identified by the colour of their attire so that no one gets mixed up.

Seen here is the Quality control point where workers check the quality of the materials before sending them to the production line. These workers are identified by their pink tops. Which at this stage of the tour, we realised that Elizabeth (bird) is also wearing an identical pink top. Haha.

After the tour, we headed back to the meeting room where we continued with the Q&A. We were blasting Mr. Mun with so many questions that Mr. Wong had to stop the Q&A session as it was getting really late.

By the time we were done and ready to leave the place, it was already past 7pm. All of us were hungry but felt that this was the best company visit we had so far.