Day 9: Cutting Class Part 3 (kinda) - 12.5.15

Today, there was no class at all! Instead, the day started out with us going straight to our two company visits. Even though there were two companies, we only went to one place, and that was VSIP, Vietnam Singapore Industrial Park. The other company, II-VI which is headquartered in Pennsylvania, currently has a facility in one of VSIP's parks.

The first company that we were briefed on was VSIP. They told us all about their parks and their plans for expansion. The whole purpose of the park is to house different manufacturing companies. They have their own power grid and they also offer logistics services to their partners, providing them with a lot of benefits and making them more appealing to companies looking for places to house their facilities. They made sure to be a better option for companies deciding between utilizing an industrial park or setting up factories and finding land on their own.

The other company, II-VI, deals primarily with laser optics and thermal control systems. This briefing was definitely a lot more interesting to me as it allowed su to see an engineering company in action. During our tour of their facilities, we got to see lenses being made by hand (lenses that are even used in laser eye surgery), as well as the manufacturing of a variety of chips used in their thermal cooling systems. It was really amazing getting to see a few of the processes that we've learned in school applied to the actual development of these thermal control devices. After the tours, we got lunch at a restaurant near the park. It was pretty amazing, and definitely one of the first lunches we've had that wasn't served with white rice (there was fried rice instead).

Unfortunately, we weren't permitted to take pictures of most of the facility