Wow, it was hot today. The moment I stepped outside in the morning (after rolling out of bed ten minutes before we had to leave), I was immediately sweating. We headed over to UEF for another lecture on sustainability, this time focusing more on supply chains and how they can be resilient. One of the examples was about us being a manufacturer, in which one of the factories we used was exposed for using child labor, and what different scenarios could look like. Such as the three worst reactions we could have, which had some pretty interesting responses. Later we played another kahoot, which unfortunately due to my slow reaction time and bad internet, lost. We finished up at UEF with another presentation about companies and what they could do if a disruption happened.
We headed out for lunch at a steakhouse, before finally going to our site visit of the day, Dien Quang Company. First, we had a lecture on how they stayed sustainable even with their mass growth. They said that despite competitors growing from 2-5 to 200-300 over the past few years, they have stayed resilient and adapted, with staying focused on their quality of the product instead of just beating competitors. This really tied back to the presentations at UEF for me, as it made me understand what it means to be resilient within industries more. Despite having a massive growth in competitors, that was most likely unexpected, Dien Quang has still stood it’s place as one of the top electric companies.
A part of the facility that interested me the most was the smart bar, where we got to see their different products in different environments. My favorite part of that was the home system (named Mica), which worked similar to that of a Google/Alexa. It was cool to see how both the U.S and Vietnam have these types of similar products, even by completely different companies. Throughout the tour of the building, we were able to see many different parts of the manufacturing process, and even though I was sweating (despite my portable fan), I still was interested in it. We got to see the workers inside of the facility each doing their part in the process, and how it all comes together at the end to form their products. I have to be honest, I was so hot I didn’t get to catch some of the machines that they were naming, but we walked by one cooling system which piqued my interest as it had a ball bouncing inside. Another product that caught my attention was the fashion section of the smart bar, where they explained how they use lighting to elevate fashion models features and looks. At the end, we were all gifted a bag with a universal adapter for chargers in it, guess we didn’t have to buy one before this trip!
As I’m writing this, I’m getting ready to go out shopping for a bit and explore the city more. Can’t wait for tomorrow when we visit the Cu Chi tunnels!
