All Around Beijing

We spent our last two days in Beijing touring some of the less famous sites (especially compared to the Great Wall and Forbidden City trips of last week). On Friday we trudged through the Beijing Zoo, mainly to see the pandas. They have a few there, and the students really enjoyed getting to see them up close. The rest of the zoo is pretty depressing, though. I remember seeing an entry in a guidebook four years ago that said, "All zoos are prisons for animals, but the Beijing Zoo is like Death Row!" I'll spare you the pictures of lions and tigers in prison-like cells and solitary bears stomping around concrete jungles. After that we went to the Lama Temple to see the world's largest wooden carved Buddha, at least according to the Guinness plaque outside of the building. We finished the day by switching up our shopping schedule and went to the Pearl Market (instead of the Silk Market as usual) to finish off our shopping lists.

On Saturday we started at the Temple of Heaven, the place where the emperor would come to worship. The complex is huge, and many locals come to the large parks surrounding the temple to practice Tai Chi each morning. We got a short introduction from a (short) Tai Chi master about some of the major poses. After that we went into a Hutong (neighborhood alley) on rickshaws to have lunch in a family's home. We all agreed that it was one of the best meals that we've had in Beijing. In the afternoon we visited the Olympic Park including the Bird's Nest stadium and the Water Cube aquatic center before heading to our farewell dinner with the students from Beijing Jiaotong University at a revolving-top restaurant.

 

We are all packing now to head to the airport around noon today. Next stop: USA! We hope you enjoyed following our Chinese trip of a lifetime!

Best,
Professor Drake

With Apologies to Alice Cooper...School's Out!

Wednesday and Thursday were the last official class days of the China trip. On Wednesday I gave the students a whirlwind introduction to Physical Distribution, covering transportation, warehousing, materials handling, customer service, and reverse logistics. It's material that usually takes me about three or four weeks to cover, and I was able to induce a round of applause from the students after finishing it in two hours. After the final lecture on Wednesday, we visited Lenovo, which purchased the IBM personal computer business about five years ago. We got to see some really innovative new computers, and many of the students were like kids in a candy store playing with some of their new offerings that were on display. That evening the students largely stayed in the hotel because they had to study for the final exam on Thursday.

After the final exam on Thursday, we went out to Hyundai's manufacturing facility near the Beijing Airport. After a brief presentation about Hyundai and its joint venture structure in China. We then toured the assembly facility where we saw cars assembled from start to finish. It was as close as many of us (me included) have ever gotten to an automobile assembly line, and it was very interesting to see the principles of lean production that we discussed in class being put to action in the plant. Unfortunately they didn't have any gift bags that included new cars for each of us. I guess they ran out of those before we arrived!


Best,
Professor Drake

There Was No Joy in Mudville...But There Was in Tianjin!

On Tuesday morning we boarded the high-speed train to Tianjin to visit Joy Mining Machinery's Chinese headquarters. The train is similar to the Bullet Train in Japan and can travel about 200mph at top speed. After about 55 minutes, we arrived in Tianjin's Tanggu Station and boarded a bus to Joy's headquarters. We listened to a few presentations from the Director of the China Supply Chain and the Manufacturing Manager, and then we donned our reflective gear to prepare us for a tour of the facility. It was almost as if I set up the presentations, because they mentioned a lot of the concepts that we had been discussing in class over the past two weeks. Many of the students were surprised to see that the manufacturing facility was spotless and had an orderly flow of materials from one station to another. After the tour they provided us lunch on their metal trays that made us feel like a cross between prisoners and factory workers, but we all appreciated the fact that they gave us lunch. We then made our way back to the train station and then to Beijing.

Best,
Professor Drake

Now That Is One Great Wall

Day two of sightseeing took us to one of the New Seven Wonders of the World, the Great Wall. In particular, we visited the Badaling section, which is the most common place to visit. Just as at the Summer Palace yesterday, there were a bunch of people; but most of us decided to walk up the left side which is steeper and therefore, less crowded. We all definitely got our workouts by hiking up the interminable steps, further and further into the Chinese sky. Everyone definitely agreed that the experience was a highlight of the trip and something that they'll never forget.

After we worked up a large appetite on the wall, we stopped for lunch and then visited the Ming Tombs to hear more about good old Emperor Yongle and his wondrous accomplishments. The visit to the tombs culminated in a stroll down the Sacred Way, an avenue lined with 18 pairs of identical statues of warriors, officials, elephants, camels, and some mythical animals as well. As you can see, some of the students couldn't resist getting very friendly with the animals. We concluded our visit by rubbing the giant turtle's head for luck at the suggestion of our guide.

Before we went back to the hotel, we made one final stop to have a tea ceremony at Dr. Tea (apparently the more educated sibling of Mr. T). We sampled four different teas including jasmine, oolong (which you have to brew an oolong time!), and lychee. It's always interesting to see how many different kinds of tea there are and how each one has a different way that you should hold the cup and drink it. Many of you back home are going to be the proud recipients of some of Dr. Tea's best wares.

Today (Monday), the students were back in class with me for over two hours this morning as well as this afternoon, so there's obviously nothing exciting to report from that (...unless, of course, you want to hear me teach about Inventory Control methods again, which you probably don't!). Tomorrow we're headed to Joy Mining Machinery in Tianjin for a full-day visit. We get to ride the high-speed train that goes over 200mph, so stay tuned for pictures of that!

Best,
Professor Drake

We Built This (Forbidden) City

On Saturday the group trudged off for our first official sightseeing excursion in Beijing. I say "official" there because everyone has visited a lot of sites separately (especially the Silk Market), but this was the first outing as a group. We started at Tiananmen Square, the largest outdoor public square in the world and then entered the adjacent Forbidden City. We walked through with our guide, Lee, for the next two hours and learned about the history of the palace, which dates back to the Yongle Period of the Ming Dyansty in the fifteenth century...those of you who are up on your Chinese history might have an idea of what I'm talking about. After the Forbidden City we had lunch and then made our way over to the Summer Palace. It's a shame that we were there on a weekend because it was very crowded. This is normally my favorite place in Beijing because it is so peaceful and relaxing. Thousands of visitors tend to put a damper on that, though. I think the students were able to understand my description of how it can be so peaceful anyway, even if they didn't get to experience it that way.

Stay tuned for details of Day Two....something about a wall that is kind of big and famous?

Best,
Professor Drake

Thursday Is Friday in Beijing!

After making the students sit through four hours of my class covering two statistics-centric topics on Thursday, I had to do something to make it up to them (and to maintain their sanity!). So the whole group boarded nine or ten taxis and headed towards the local TGIFriday's for our weekly taste of America. Of course, the whole process took much longer than it should have because these taxi rides always require a good amount of negotiating and gesturing before we can receive a beckoning hand summoning us to board the vehicle. The attached pictures are some action shots from the chaos. A few taxis made some unintended detours (aka, the scenic route), but eventually everyone showed up. The hostesses ushered us into a hastily-prepared party room either for our comfort or to sequester us from the rest of the guests. (It was probably a little of column A and a little of column B there.) With that, we commenced our feast on appetizers, burgers, steaks, and desserts. It was a glorious feast that can only be enjoyed so much if it is consumed as such a welcome change from the endless lazy-susans full of Chinese food. A taste of home once a week is never a bad thing for the road-weary traveler.

Today's class in the morning was a whirlwind introduction to the Manufacturing Planning and Control process. After navigating the manufacturing alphabet soup of S&OP, MPS, MRP, BOM, and RCCP, we broke for lunch. At 2pm we came back together for our last lecture by a member of the Beijing Jiaotong faculty. The topic this time was Human Resource Management in China, and the highlight of the lecture was when the professor showed some clips from the movie "Modern Times." After that, the students got together and planned their activities for their first Friday night spent in Beijing.

Tomorrow the group is headed to some Beijing tourist staples: Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, and the Summer Palace. Stay tuned for some great pictures from the homes and residences of the last Qing Dynasty emperors!

Best,
Professor Drake

Hitting the Books in Beijing

I have to begin my first official blog post of the trip by thanking Professor Ryan for ensuring that the trip got off to such a good start. My class on Tuesday morning began with a discussion of the foundation of Supply Chain Management, and in the afternoon we had an excellent presentation about the high-speed rail system in China by Professor Zhao Jian. Professor Zhao analyzed the value of travel time savings that passengers would realize by using air travel over high-speed rail and concluded that high-speed rail is only preferable for medium-length travel instead of for some of the long-distance routes that the Chinese are building. Of course I found it interesting because the research was related to transportation, but I was happy to hear unsolicited praise coming from many of the students afterwards as well.

Today we covered two topics (Supply Chain Information Systems and Quality Control) in the morning, and we enjoyed a presentation about the role of Chinese culture in business relationships by Dr. Wang Li in the afternoon. She even showed us some clips of famous movies that illustrate some of the main differences between Chinese and Western cultures. In between all of these lectures (and writing their daily journal entries), many students have gone shopping at the famous Silk Street Market (eight floors of mercantile madness). Some have even gone two days in a row. Others decided that they needed a massage this afternoon after all of their shopping yesterday. (I refuse to think they needed one after my lectures!)

Everyone has been very busy over the past few days, but nothing has been too picture-worthy, so I'm going to skip out on the pictures today. After two lecture and problem-solving sessions with me tomorrow, the whole group is going out for dinner at the local TGIFriday's. I should have some good pictures to post from there!

Best,
Professor Drake