May 21st

Today we visited the Yung Shin Group Pharmaceutical. They make and bottle various pharmaceutical products that range from health care, cosmetics, human drugs, veterinarian drugs and special chemicals.

This company, like many other Taiwanese companies, help promote a healthy lifestyle for their employees. Yung Shin is the largest pharmaceutical company in Taiwan and they have received many FDA approvals for their drug products and testing operations and they have a very diverse client base (in over 300 markets worldwide).

Yung Shin uses top of the line BOSCH equipment for most of their operations: washing, bottle, ampoules (small sealed vial which is used to contain and preserve a sample, usually a solid or liquid) and vial filling and capping procedures. These machines are a part of a system that ensures quality and helps reduce contamination.

One of the machines at work

All their employees must pass a rigorous screening and training process to become an employee of Yung Shin. These employee don’t need much of a technical background because much of their training is in-house and on the job. Most of the employees at Yung Shin are local citizens.

We toured the manufacturing floor and the Quality Assurance System. Most of these areas are enclosed rooms and they have a maximum of about 4 staff members per room.

Most of the work is completed by machines. The employees that run the machines do not maintenance or reset the equipment if they malfunction. Yung Shin has a maintenance team that restarts or resets that equipment if it jams and only the maintenance team from the equipment manufacture company can do preventive maintenance on the machine itself. Many of these machines can run at a very high capacity.

One thing that Yung Shin has implemented is a product delivery system to their storage facility via automated fork lift delivery. They have three forklifts that move finished, boxed products to a storage area without the help of a human driver. 

No need for a driver

They deliver the products to a roll away system that places the packaged products into a storage facility that too is automated.

For Yung Shin to protect their operations, we were given a “side tour” for those who do not work for the company. Overall, Yung Shin Pharmaceuticals have a good operation and are trying to keep themselves on the cutting edge of pharmaceutical technology and manufacturing development.

Lunchtime!

Big Mac Meal for $99 ($2.97 USD)

After lunch, we took a tour of GIANT bike company. Established in 1972 in Taiwan, they have grown in popularity among cyclists around the world. In their first year, they sold 3,800 bikes. In 2012, that number hit 6.3 million. With 9 global factories, 13 sales companies and 11,125 dealerships around the world, their revenue hit about $1.8 billion with most of their sales in China. GIANT does everything in-house: design, research, marketing manufacturing and retail strategy. They have added on selling of accessories for their bike and clothing for their riders depending on what type of riding that they do (racing, performance, off-road, mountain, etc.).

GIANT has created the “Ride System” where a customer enters one of GIANT’s dealerships and they discuss the type of riding that they may enjoy. With this information, that discuss and recommend the type of bike to purchase. After this part of the system is complete, GIANT has the customer sit on the bike so that can adjust the seat, steering, hand brake and pedals to the length of the customers arms and legs to make it easier for operating and riding the bike.

GIANT’s bikes are not a “one size fits all” design. GIANT also has created the “Liv/GIANT” brand. This is a special product line for the female rider. These bikes are just as high tech and light-weight as any other bike produced by GIANT but designed for females. Along with the Liv/GIANT bike line, GIANT also has designed and created a clothing line to help promote the bike riding culture.

GIANT is getting their name out to the public by sponsoring cycling teams in Holland and others like the Blanco Pro Cycling Team, GIANT Pro XC Team, GIANT Off Road Team and the Rabobank Liv/GIANT Women’s team.

We took a tour of the bike manufacturing floor (no photos allowed) and it was very similar to the manufacturing floor of the assembly plant at General Motors. The operations, parts delivery system, work space footprint, job rotation and quality control were almost identical.

I was expecting GIANT manufacturing floor to be smaller with less employees but I guess when you’re selling over 6.3 million units, you’re going to need a small army to fill this demand.