After a fun night of street food and karaoke with the UEF students, I was excited to see them again for class this morning. We learned more about how to strategize and problem solve if an international organization experiences a disruption. We also celebrated Becky’s birthday with the delicious passion fruit cake. Happy birthday! For the group project at the end of class, my team decided to focus on a scenario where H&M was exposed for unsafe working conditions. We decided that staying honest, apologizing, and then working to create clear health and safety policies would be our priority and then conducting audits to ensure those standards were continuously met.
Our site visit today was to Dien Quang, a high tech lighting solutions company. Our visit started with the video and presentation. I was quite impressed by our interpreter, who was able to convey the company’s messages and help answer our questions. I can’t imagine remembering all that the presenter was speaking about and then having to translate it. After our tour was quite interesting. The guide mentioned how different products are made for other companies in Korea, Japan, and even the US. Dien Quang is committed to working with their partners to ensure a global structure. For the manufacturing process, they test the products in many conditions, including a rain shower (cover image) and an electromagnetic field (seen above) to test how the light reacts with other devices around it. I have the smallest background in light manufacturing and testing. My dad used to work at DeWalt on the large stand lights meant for construction sites and large spaces. He would bring the lights home and my sister and I would help drop them from different heights to see if they would get damaged. It was interesting to see how the testing process differed based on the function of the lights. At the Dien Quang tour, once we entered the room where the actual people were constructing the products I noticed a few things. First, no one was wearing safety glasses, even though it appeared they were soldering pieces together. It was also quite hot in the buildings and I’m curious what the working hours look like. During the Q&A the product quality was mentioned a lot but never the working/manufacturing process for employees.
The smart bar presented interesting light solutions for innovation and sustainability. The display (seen above) shows a few lighting techniques. For parking garages, the lights are automatic with motion so they aren’t wasting energy. For the home, there are sensors to adjust the light based on temperature. We also saw how different lighting can be used to enhance a product. Under the pink light, the meat looked fresher. Which, in my mind, seemed a bit like catfishing with lighting, but I understand companies want their products to appear most appealing.