Today we visited Medochemie in the morning and Wargaming in the afternoon. Medochemie is based in Limassol, which we will be visiting a few times throughout our trip. Wargaming came to the University of Nicosia and gave us a lecture.

While at the Medochemie headquarters we heard a presentation on the supply chain of their company. First, we heard from a quality assurance specialist that has been working for the company for 15 years. She brought up a few stories that exemplified a concept that I had not previously been aware of. This is the fear of recalls within a prescription company such as Medochemie. This can substantially disrupt the supply chain. In order to initiate a recall, the company must first identify the problem, then alert the authorities of any government where the drug was issued so that they can issue a statement. Then they must track down all of the compromised product to be shipped back to the company. This most likely becomes a sunk cost for the company.

We also heard about the companies main mission for the country and it’s surrounding countries. The company serves over 300 million people and provides low cost prescription drugs. They have offices in Cyprus, the Netherlands, and Vietnam. They have also been looking into moving to other countries but have since been halted by the COVID-19 pandemic and the situation in Ukraine.

We then toured the company’s warehouse which featured efficient shelving which moved similar to a library. The aisles moved by the press of a button. I was wondering how a truck would fit into the aisles, then turn to the side in order to pick up the pallets off of the shelves. This was solved by having a machine that moved the fork to pick up the pallet out to the side. I thought this was interesting.

In the afternoon we were visited by Wargaming. They gave us a lecture on how a video game goes from idea to product. Wargaming has a main trilogy of games: World of Tanks, World of Warships, and World of Warplanes. They employ about 3,500 people across many different countries. They also have their games available through PC, console, and mobile platforms. In the US, they mainly focus on their console variants.

We also heard about an issue in the gaming issue known as “toxic positivity.” This kind of seems like an oxymoron, therefore it took me a while to understand what was meant by this. During a video games development phase, sometime consumers demand the company release the game too early. This is called “early green lighting.” Examples outside of this company include Battlefield 2042 and Cyberpunk 2077. These games were released too early and have poor quality, because of the unrealistic consumer demand.

Overall, today included lots of interesting information and new people to meet. We will be traveling back to Limassol tomorrow in order to visit the port.