Before the National Holiday

 After get to the  office, opened my laptop, check new emails, September's work will be paid after the national holiday. No big thing to do.

 WangQiang had bought us two tickets to Hefei days ago, we will be there on 3th Oct, and then spend some time playing around there. Hefei is the  capital of Anhui Province, it's a new city developed after the foundation of  PRC mainly due to the rail way economy.

 Yesterday, Qi Jianfeng, the school teacher in charge of the course-affair, called me and asked if I want to join a program pursuing a doctorate diploma after graduation, if joining the program, no exam will be take, but an agreement have to be signed in which I have to guarantee I will  finish my study work to get the diploma.

 This Wednesday afternoon, we handed in our internship report to the department,each student had about 10 minutes to introduce his /her internship to the reviewer(two teachers),several questions may be asked, like is there any industrial engineering theory or concepts applied in you internship, did you find any problems and made any improvement proposal? I don't think those questions are necessary because most of  the time during the internship , we may be doing daily/dirty work, learning is the main duty, few of us would think about how to apply those theories in practice, the reality is greatly different from what we had learned in the classroom. I don't like one of the  reviewer in my team, he looks like a corp sitting there with great anger on his face, hey, we don't owe you money!
 


 
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Happy Weekend

Last night, about 20 of us ,students from Chenzhou, a small city in Hunan Province Southeast China, gathered again after 12 months Three freshman and all the others old member. Every September, when the freshman enters the college, many parties are held to welcome them, and it's also a good chance for those old friends from the same city to share some time together. For me, three years ago, I was a totally new member like those 3 yesterday, but now ,I myself became an old man, many old friends have graduated and worked and I'm right now on my way of job hunting.

Should Chinese Government Support State-owned Enterprises?

  In the mirco-economics course yesterday, the teacher asked us if there is any industry should get sepcial support like low tax rate or mandatory high price. The first student said the agriculture industry should be supported because it fulfills the basic need of human to survive. The second student made his point that some weak industry like auto and high tech industry in present China should be protected and supported in intensely competing market. Then the teacher asked us why? No one could provide sufficient proof! "So, you just think they ought to be supported and then they should be supported?" the teacher seemed quite disappointed, I realized there are many things we never thought about and we just simply believe it should be what it's like now, even if it's actually not reasonable or ridiculous.

  Early in the 1960s, Chinese government decided to develop its industry prior to agriculture, farm products are purchased by the  government at extremely low price and invested into industry to develop cities. We never doubt that if it's wrong to do that, the fact is :even the whole country's farmers sacrificed so much for so many years, Chinese industry is still like a sick man, countryside all over the country look like Africa. The conclusion yesterday was : the weaker the industry is, the less you should support or protect it. The reason is that all enterprises are existed for only one single reason: profit. This  nature would motivate the company to improve its productivity, thus survive in the competition. If you protect it, they can get profit without productivity improvements,they keep surviving,but you can't protect it for centuries even you can do that for decades,once those companies lose their protection, they go to bankrupt soon. There is  another strange phenomenon with Chinese protected state-owned enterprises: when the government is no longer capable to support them, they go bankrupt, but no management member lose his/her money, instead, they can full their moneybag and get out of the mess.

  Once the CEO of a very famous corporation said the whole Chinese mainland is a evil, I doubted that, because all what I saw and heard  were reasonable and I was taught to think them as normal, but as I learn more and think more, I believe more that he is right, so many strange and abnormal things happened time and time again, I don't know what would Chairman Mao's face look like if  he see today Chinese society.    

 
 


 
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No Good to Skip Class

In the first week of this semester, I skipped the first class of this Monday morning, the internship is contracted until the end of Nov. When I started to modify my resume, I was startled that I got nothing to add, ok, I think I have to make a decision, stay or not, if stay, then I can focus more on my courses, if not, then I have to take effort to find a good job, people say that the first job is critical, a good start usually means a good path, vice virca.

From this week on, I will not update this blog everyday, maybe once a week, or once a month, maybe this post is the last update. I have to admit that sometimes I'm sentimental, I may think what are we living for, why should be positive? There is no pure equity in the world, never ever, Didier tried to let me understand or convince me that China has the lower tech, but that doesn't mean lower profit, Valeo's profit rate is 3%, but most of Chinese private or jointed venture's have a profit rate more than 10% percent, 20-30 percent is very normal. China has cheap labor force, that's true, the profit created by low cost labor are mainly shared by price breakdown and management, that's why Made-in-China products are always cheap and Chinese medium-sized enterprise management mostly drive Benz or BMW, that's hard to imagine in Europe? China is a ridiculous country, most foreigners may say that, I don't know how to convince them that it's not.

Full Time Internship Over

   So tired last night, so the weekly summary was only few words. This week Didier was not in the office until Thursday, but my job needs his instant feedback, if any action is taken without his instant feedback, once mistake detected, rework will take much more time than initial work. Until now, my assignments are almost done, after next week, new assignments may be given. Pang will not be there in the next week. She will take care of her Baoyan things. Baoyan is a popular program in many universities in China, senior undergraduate students don't have to take the national exam, if they have an excellent academy record during the first three years in college, and they can enter the master school directly without any further tests. Similar program also exists for doctorate study.

 

   Review of what I have done/experienced/learned during these two months in Vlaeo:

 

1. Filing

 

  This is the main assignment. Its essence is simple, even a primary school student can do that, but the pre-condition is all the rules and detail instructions are given explicitly. I still remember the first day when I was in the office, my boss Didier gave me some docs to read, I finished in no more than three hours, but actually I didn't get much of the meaning, I just scanned through those simple words and made a general understanding. After that, my boss started to give me assignments, he talked for about 2 hours and wrote the main points on a A4 paper (I put it in my internship report). Those 2 hours were the most terrible hours in my life, I was still not used to Didier's accent and there were so many glossary terms in his talk, I thought I could understand what he said from that A4 paper, but I was wrong, his hand writing was also a big trouble for me, if you can see the scan of that paper in my internship report, and you are a Chinese, you will understand. My boss was always busy, when I have a question, I may hesitate before asking him, I doubt if he would shout at me when bothered. The fact is he is very nice and never shouted at me, but he would ask me to try to solve the problem by myself first, if I'm not capable to handle, he is right beside me.

Ok, though there is absolutely no idea in my mind how I can get my job finished, work have to be done. My boss's only rule is the filing system has to be standard and known to everybody use this system. That reminds me of the information management system in MIS class, my team built a library information management system using Access, to build a system like that, we have to first understand how the system works, the process of the whole operation and files could be used at each stage or procedure. In the first week, I did nothing but asking questions and read materials in those messy folders, the purpose is to understand the procedure of purchasing. Valeo is a big group corporation, there is no way you can understand a function department without understanding the group structure and culture first. After asking hundreds of questions and reading or skim through all the files, I started to make proposals, of course the first few proposals are crappy and pathetic or even stupid, but after improving again and again, finally I made a feasible optimal one. The following work is just make sure everybody deal with docs and file according to the system standard or rules I established, the first time I do it myself, the second time I do it my self, the third time I do it with others., the forth time I do it with others, the fifth time others do it by themselves, that's the way how it works, Didier told me yesterday, it's a hundred percent right.

After dealing with files and documents for almost two months, I learned that no matter how messy things are, if we just keep do it, keep improving, any problem will eventually be solved. Doing is much more valuable than hesitating about how to do. Initiative is a good thing, try to solve problem first by yourself, if you are not capable to do that, never hesitate to make your problem everybody's problem, don't forget to say thank you after other's help. 

 

2. Training in SVES

 

Shanghai Valeo Electrical System, Co. LTD. Twenty minutes from the office, at the end of metro line No.2, in there, I experienced a zero distance view of mass production/ industry age/ total quality management/ quality culture/ logistics management, any theory learned in classroom about industry engineering can find a match of practical application there. There were so many to learn, but only one week's training was arranged, it's a pity.

Valeo use QRQC tool to implement total quality management, and force their suppliers implement QRQC, with the same quality management system, Valeo take efforts to control defective PPM within one figure. There are lots of aspects with quality, I don't want to mention it here, it's not interesting if you are not a quality engineer.

 

3. Business visit to Valeo suppliers

 

I have two colleagues from Brazil division, they will be in China for half a year to solve some quality and productivity problems with Chinese supplier. I accompany them visit several suppliers in Shanghai. When visiting a supplier, we may do a quality evaluation with supplier if necessary, there are 8 aspects to assess, each aspect we have several index. After doing a evaluation, we get a comprehensive knowing of the situation in our supplier and decide if we can develop new business/hold current business or not. Our suppliers' quality level are mostly in low level, usually inspection department have more workers than machine operator. But quality anyway has to be guaranteed, that's why we are pushing our suppliers to buy new equipments and instruments.

Weekly Summary

Last full time week in Valeo, the most boring week.

LCC Rating Analysis

Nothing to do, so I extract the purchase amount from 2005 to last month and analyzied the rate, made some trend chart with Excel.
Didier came back from Taiwan this afternoon. He said he will be back next week, I left my internship report on his desk. After tomorrow, life will be slightly different. From next week on ,I will be in the office on Monday and Friday, the other three days will be in the classroom.

This morning Viviane complained about the fake money she received days ago, she said it may came from the ATM machine, I don't suspect that. Some time ago, there were a hot argement about the fake money from the ATM in the campus. My roomate got the cable Nestor needs, but only two lines, I thought there would be three lines, but the shop owner said there is no mistake, one for audio, the other for video, ok, let's just believe he is right. God bless it works.