Today was our first day of company visits. Our first company visit was to HY, a company I was initially unfamiliar with. On the bus ride to the factory, I briefly researched what they did and found out they made yogurt drinks. After finding this out, I was extremely excited for the visit, for these yogurt drinks were a staple of my childhood; my mom would always buy these from the Chinese store and bring them home for my brother and me. During the tour, we learned about the process of making the yogurt drink, the assembly process of bottling the drinks, and the packaging. The factory boasted an immense amount of automation and smart systems, including a system that could sense any flawed bottles and discard them. What made it so impressive was that it was fully automated and also performed this function on bottles that would pass by extremely fast and would simply “push” the flawed ones out without stopping the flow of bottles. At the end of our tour, we were given free samples of the yogurt drinks, a probiotic powder, and a fresh towel. The drinks were delicious.
After the HY company visit, we stopped for lunch at a traditional tofu-soup restaurant, where my 3 other friends and I shared soup that included tofu, mushrooms, beef, and seafood. It was tasty, but it could have used more meat in it. When we arrived at TK Elevators, on our drive in, we were greeted with their elevator testing tower, which was a spectacle to see. When we were inside, we were able to interact in their area dedicated to the workers when they are on their break/after work, where we got to try out their golf simulators and ping pong tables. Following that, we interacted with their safety training equipment, including a harness used for the workers when installing the elevators. I got to put on the harness and be taken up into the air, which was very uncomfortable, and then dropped down. Although it was just 5 cm, it was very painful. I cannot imagine working in a harness like that all day long. We were also taken up into the elevator testing tower, where we enjoyed a view over the nearby city. After the tour concluded, we took the bus back to the hotel. I spent the night getting Korean barbeque with friends and enjoying the view from the rooftop area of the hotel. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed both company visits and my day in general, but I would say TK Elevators was the highlight of my day.
