Post company visit - LEE KUM KEE

LEE KUM KEE is found by LEE KUM TONG in 1888. At first, the main product of LEE KUM KEE is Oyster source. The target market at that time is not local family. It targeted the chinese restaurant in foreign countries. It mainly because, oyster source, at that time, is a luxury stuff with quite expensive price.

The vision of LEE KUM KEE is to provide the chinese cuisine to the foreign countries. This vision is symbolized by the brand of LEE KUM KEE. The bridge shape liked brand is the way for the chinese cuisine get into Eastern countries.

Nowadays, LEE KUM KEE not only produce oyster source, but many other sources, which already been a necessity in local family's kitchen. With a wide range of source, LEE KUM KEE being the giant source company in Hong Kong.

Throughout the whole supply chain in LEE KUM KEE, quality control is essential part for producing a perfect source. The quality control include ingredients checking, taste testing, etc.
Taste testing is mostly related to the customer as testers will test whether the taste of the source is acceptable or not. These testers received training about the original and perfect taste of each source. This process guarantee the quality of every source.

For our company visit of LEE KUM KEE, we visited a factory that only product oyster source. Also, we knew that that factory will only produce once everyday in order to produce sufficient amount of Oyster source to the market.  The amount of production will vary according to the market demand. However, because of lack of significant peak season, there is no significant fluctuation of production process. Lack of significant changes, it helps the demand forecasting.

 

Expanding the company's vision, INFINITUS is found in 1992. INFINITUS aims to bring the benefit of chinese herbs toward foreign countries. The types of products is much more various for INFINITUS as it mix herbs into facial masks, toothpaste, drinks and even detergent. During these 20 years, INFINITUS already got the permit from the related department in China.Till now, the main target of INFINITUS is still Mainland and Hong Kong. From time to time, as benefits of chinese herbs are being recognized by the world, INFINITUS will sell their product all over the world.

From this company visit, we learned that  the most costly part of the supply chain is not necessarily the most important part of supply chain. It depends on the nature of the products. For LEE KUM KEE, they treat Quality Control as one of the essential part of supply chain. It is because, a source with bad taste will no longer being attractive to their customers.

Post Company Visit - Yakult

Yakult is a Japanese probiotic mike-like product which was created by Minoru Shirota in 1930. Dr. Shirota discovered that lactobacilli were effective in suppressing harmful bacteria within the intestines.


Philosophy
For a long time, people have believed that a healthy intestinal tract leads to a long life. That was also the belief of our company's founder, Dr. Minoru Shirota. He worked with volunteers, then developed an inexpensive, good tasting beverage, so that as many people as possible could benefit from Lactobacillus casei strain Shirota, which reaches the intestines alive and promotes intestinal health.

Business Details

Yakult started their business in 1969 in Hong Kong. The first factory was located at Kwun Tong and now the factory is moved to Tai Po. In the beginning, Yakult used to employ “Yakult Mama” direct marketing strategy to sell the drink. It used to use glass bottles in order to recycle and reuse them. Then Yakult changed to use plastic bottle in 1968. Yakult has recently published a new flavor of Yakult – Yakult LT

Yakult has localized its bottle size in different coutries. In Australia, Europe, India, and Indonesia, Yakult comes in 65mL bottles. In the Americas (including Mexico, one of Yakult's largest selling markets), Japan, Philippines and South Korea, 80 ml bottles are available. In Thailand, Singapore, Taiwan and mainland China, and the United States. It is also available in Hong Kong where it comes in 100 ml bottles.

The following is the latest video advertisement of recent introduced Yakult LT.

During the Visit

We have learned:

• The breeding process of the lactobacilli 
• The manufacturing process of Yakult drink
• The design of Yakult drink bottles at different countries
• The underlying  biology principles of lactobacilli 
• To taste the freshly produced  Yakult LT

 Reflection - Yakult Business Practice
After the company visit, we had a deeper understanding of Yakult Co. There are several business practices are worth highlighted.


Emphasis on Quality Control

1. Actively apply Replenishment & recycle with retailers

• Strict Quality Control, because of short valid period of Yakult drink( 1 month)

2. Provide marketing strategy – Impact Marketing

• suggest placing loads of Yakult drinks at the eye-catching place of store
• Increase the sale of drink
• Reduce the amount of recycling drinks

3.. Insist of placing bottles by their own staffs

• ensure first in first out (FIFO)
• No Yakult drink at Tastes because of the negotiation of this policy 

4. Yakult has their own fleet of trucks to distribute drinks



Localized of product and selling method



5. Design localized bottles(100mL)

• maximum size, localize for HK people which culture prefers larger volume of drink

6. Change the strategy of Yakult mama into retailer stores selling

• because of cultural difference
• HK people refuse direct marketing (door-to-door selling method)

 Minimize manufacturing cost 

7. Forecast demand for production

• because Yakult drink has short span of storage 
• daily production ~1million bottles , mostly original flavor and less Yakult LT (green)

8.    Yakult production operates at night

• the lower electricity cost at night in the factory district
• save manufacturing cost

9. Make plastic bottles by their own

• reduce transportation cost and time

Post Company Visit - HIT

Company Preview

Hongkong International Terminals (HIT) is a member of HPH Trust, the world's first container port business trust listed in Singapore. HIT is also a part of HPH's global network of port and logistics operations, and continues to have access to services and resources enjoyed by companies within the HPH Group.

Situated in the Kwai Tsing container port area of Hong Kong - one of the busiest container ports in the world - HIT operates twelve berths at Terminals 4, 6, 7 and 9 and another two through its joint venture with COSCO Pacific Limited at Terminal 8 (East). HIT and COSCO-HIT handle over 50 per cent of Kwai Tsing's container port traffic.

Established in 1969, HIT has continuously set the industry benchmarks for productivity, efficiency and value-added services. Using modern management techniques, state-of-the-art computer systems and award winning IT applications, HIT has become the centre of excellence for the group, Hutchison Port Holdings. 

 Control Tower

This tower contains the controller of HIT. The controllers in this tower are responsible for different operation of HIT. For example, the ship planner will in charge of the loading and discharge operations. They will use the technology and different strategies to plan the loading and discharging sequences. The berth planner will decide where the ships should dock.

This screen is showing the nGen system of HIT. nGen refers to next generation terminal management system. This system shows the immediate situation of the terminal. The staff in the control tower can know the situation of the terminal by seeing the screen which help them to update the status of the terminal.

During the field work guided by the staff of HIT, we learned lot of things about the operation of a terminal.
First, we learned that there are different kinds of crane, which can perform different kinds of movement.
Second, we learned the communication between the terminal and the truck driver. Every driver need to check in through the specific gate. After checking in, a sms will be sent to driver about wherever the driver should go for picking up the cargo.
Third, we learned that there is a very powerful system for planning the allocation of cargoes in the terminals and on the ship. Doing the optimization of the allocation, the waiting time and the system time of the whole operation will be shorten.
Knowing these information, we got very practical understanding related to terminal operation. Other then the theory and example on the book, we can truly knowing what is really happening in the operation. It is definitely a valuable experience for us as a students learning logistic related topic.

The following is the video from the field report as a reference.

Post Company visit - TAL

Before we visit TAL, we study the TAL case and their website. We found out that TAL use different technologies to maintain the competitive advantage in the industry.

These let us very interesting how they innovate these kinds of technologies. And also how they get the balance between the high cost and the benefit of the innovation?

TAL is a local apparel company that produces products for many well-known brands such as Burberry, Uniqlo, etc. Tal also invests a lot in innovating new manufacturing technology and clothing technology. They also provide value-added service for their customers so that they become the market leader of apparel industry. On 12th March, we have an opportunity to visit TAL and have a better understanding of the company.

This is TAL’s show room which displays their products.

This is one of the awards that TAL get in 2011

They provide us a talk about their company belief and show us their innovative products.

TAL is an apparel Company, as they provide value added services, focusing on innovating products and technology, these make them to become one of the largest garment manufacturers in the world and gain high market share in the market especially in the US.
One of our classmate asked that how TAL face the balance between high innovation cost and the benefit of competitive advantage. It is very interesting they answered that the innovation cost is not such high that we think and the customers would be enjoyable to pay more on the technologies in order to get a better quality. They also mentioned that the main concern of the new innovation is the demand of the customers and the importance of the innovation. 

TAL claim itself as an “INNOFACTURER”. It is because their services and products are extra-ordinary, which cannot be easily replaced by their competitors.

In this visit, we found out that TAL provides highly differentiated service. TAL provides full package supply solutions to transform the traditional commodity-like generic products. Besides, the MTM system provides additional sources of differentiation. It represented how TAL used its technologies to maintain the market position.

Post Company visit - Kerry Logistic

Kerry Logistics Company is a logistics provider with strong focus of China. Kerry Logistics is a member of the Kerry Group. It has a diversified their business, for example the Shangri-La Hotels and resorts, South China morning post. Kerry logistic is a main logistic company in Hong Kong.

They have 12 different logistic centers in Hong Kong which located in different district. All the centres belong to Kerry Logistic property. For example, they have a dangerous good centre in Kowloon Bay, for food and beverage centre in Tai Po. Besides logistics centres, they also own the trucks in order to reduce the rental cost.

Kerry logistic contains different logistic aspects, they will provide different services to different business type, for example, electronics and technology, fashion, retail, food and beverage, automotive, pharmaceutical and healthcare, industrial and chemicals and wine. They will provide value-added service to their customer, for example, for the food and beverage customer they provided In-store replenishment & stock counting and In-store labeling & stamping, for the fashion customer, re-labelling, price and security tagging and re-packaging. Also, they recently establish a wine cellar has tight control of humidity and temparatue in order to provide a good enviornment for the wine. This wine cellar is a new idea for the popularity of wine in Hong Kong.