From 4 - 10 March 2018, faculty members and students from the SUSS School of Business (SBIZ) visited Taiwan for an immersion programme. The purpose of the programme was to allow the participants to learn the ropes on how Taiwanese companies run their logistics operations through company visits and to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Feng Chia University (FCU) in Taichung.
On the first day of the immersion programme, David Wu, chairman of Leopard Mobile - a company which develops applications such as CleanMaster and PhotoGrid – hosted the participants in his office in the Taipei101 building, and was later joined by Spencer Liu, founder and CEO of CloudMile. The digital entrepreneurs shared with the participants on their insights on the current state of business in Taiwan.
David Wu (fourth from right) together with SUSS faculty and students.
During the company visits, SUSS students teamed up with FCU students to analyse the operations of a company, identify the problems, and propose a workable solution. At the end of the trip, each team presented their proposed solutions to the rest of the participants.
Some of the companies that the participants visited were the 79-ha Free Trade Zone in the Port of Taipei, Taiwan Design Centre, the FamilyMart distribution centre, the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), and the 8D Tea shop in Nantou County. A host representative from each of the companies brought the participants around the building and explained in detail on the operations and production processes of the company.
The participants outside the Taiwan Design Centre, whose mission is to promote creative design in Taiwan.
For instance, Ms Jane Tien from Sunshine Energy Technology, the company behind 8D Tea, briefed the group on the use of its rapid cooling technology in the production process. The shop itself is equipped with an array of IoT hardware devices and software systems that enables management to monitor all stages of its tea drink production process from a mobile application. With IoT and cloud computing, the customer can view the videos of how their order is made, as each bottle contains a unique QR code of its production history.
The participants at the Family Mart distribution centre where they were briefed on the operations by
Assistant General Manager Hou Chia-Ka.
At the end of the trip, each team made a 15-minute presentation of the observed logistics issues related to the 8D Tea visit, and the recommended solutions required to address these issues, followed by a Q&A session from the judging panel comprising of Prof Lin Liang-Tay, Dean of the College of Construction and Development, FCU, Prof Lee Pui Mun, Assoc Prof Chen Fang-Yuan, Head, Department of Transportation and Logistics at FCU and Assoc Prof Tan Yan Weng, Head, Logistics and Supply Chain Management / Urban Transportation Management programmes at SUSS.
On the same afternoon, Prof Lin and Prof Lee signed an MOU to formalise the collaboration between the two universities to provide opportunities for students and faculty to participate in logistics and supply chain management training programmes and activities conducted by the two universities. This includes exchange programmes, research collaboration, seminars and conferences. Plans for a tri-regional conference series comprising FCU (Taiwan), Tongji University (China) and Southeast University (China), and SUSS (Singapore), are already on the cards.
Professor Lin Liang-Tay, Dean of the College of Construction and Development, FCU,
and Assoc Prof Lee Pui Mun, Dean of the School of Business, SUSS, signing the MOU at the FCU campus in Taichung.