Today marked the last day of company visits. Unlike the previous day that saw two technology companies that focused on readily available consumer goods, today was more about industrial goods, with one manufacturer, TE Connectivity, the producer of connectors and sensors, and the other, Dupont, the producer of a wide range of polymer products, such as nylon and Mylar.

Whereas the previous companies, during our visits, focused primarily on the administrative side of the business, such as business models, markets, and so forth, TE Connectivity gave us a glimpse under the hood of an industrial manufacturer. They gave us a tour of their factory that featured machinery resembling a Rube Goldberg machine, with jargon that went totally over my head. The factory operates 24 hours a day all year, with employees working in eight hour shifts. The number of components they could manufacture in a single day was staggering enough, and to multiply that by 365 was inconceivable.

The visit to Dupont was an amalgam of the first two companies’ presentations, with the speaker starting the visit, like the presenter at Cheetah Mobile, with the company’s extensive background with a question and answer at the end. This portion was followed by a tour, like we had at Microsoft, of Dupont’s hall of devices, with thing gadgets such as erasable wallpaper, Tyvek wallets, which one of the guides gifted to me, and the literal coolest of all, slow melting ice cream. All in all it was not only an informative day, but a delicious one as well!