A pharmaceutical company, Giant Bicycle, and another night market

Some dolls at Yung Shin Pharmaceutical

Today began with a visit to Yung Shin Pharmaceutical. This was a rather interesting company visit. The manager of the factory was the first one to talk with us, but he could not speak English. So, he had a translator who would also be the one who would do most of the explanation for the rest of our time there. After watching two short videos that gave a little explanation about the company history, it was time for the tour of the factory. Because of the company wanting to minimize the amount of human contact with the machines and the drugs (which makes sense) we actually did not really go into any of the rooms with the machines. Instead, we walked in the hallways outside the machines and looked through windows into the rooms. There were information about each machine on the outside of the door though. I was impressed the capacity for each machine. Some of them could go through like 30,000 pills per hour! One of the things I liked was the technology of the company. There were even self-driven machines that would transfer boxes of products. I understand why we could not go in and actually inspect the different machines more closely, but I still wish we could have been able to.

Chris Lai from Giant Bicycle

After leaving Yung Shin Pharamaceutical and eating a quick lunch at McDonalds, we headed to the next visit at Giant Bicycles. Chris Lai was the representative that would give us the initial presentation and the tour of the factory. The presentation was very informative and really showed that Giant is a company that is pushing for people to get a more healthy lifestyle through biking. In fact, their CEO at about 72 years old did a bike trip all the way around Taiwan and still bikes to work everyday. Giant even has a company retreat biking event where managers and employees from all over come to Taiwan and do the bike trip around Taiwan. It takes about 8 days or so, but all of the employees love doing it. After the presentation is when we went on the actual tour of the factory. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take pictures here. The assembly line was about how I would expect it to be. Everyone had a specific job for each part of the bike, and the bikes constantly moved down the line until they were completed. There were goals set up around the factory, like how much product should be completed or the maximum amount of downtime any line should have for each day. When we were there, they were pretty much matching or beating all of their goals. Overall, I was extremely impressed by the friendless of the company, the willingness to listen to new ideas (in fact they asked us what we believed they should be doing more of), and the efficiency at which they were completing their product.

In the entrance of Giant Bicycle

With both of the business visits done, it was time to head to the new night market. This one was the Feng Jia night market. Dr. Peng told us that this one was the entrepreneur night market. Basically, this was where people would bring their new products and, if it sold well here, then it would come to night markets all over Taiwan. Since I was not overly familiar with a lot of the products, I'm not sure what was new and what was not. However, I did try some of the chicken's feet that Dr. Laurence bought, but I did not think they were tasty at all. The night market was a neat experience and still a lot different then the one at Shih-Lin, but I still really enjoyed myself there and it was a good way to relax at the end of another great day in Taiwan.