Study Visit to Malacca

Study Visit to Malacca
(Cubic Learning Factory)
9th – 12th September 2009

As part of my duty, I have the privilege and honor to be part of a 6-member staff team led by Ms Auyong LS to bring 115 final year ECE students on a 4D3N study visit to Cubic Learning Factory (CLF) in Malacca from 9th – 12th September 2009.

9-9-2009 (Wednesday)
In the words of Mr Maniam’s (CEO of CLF) opening speech: “this study visit will enhance your employability because of the overseas exposure and hands-on experience”. For this, we have Ngee Ann Poly (NP) and CLF to thank for.
Before we could begin the factory tour, we have to surrender all our electronic equipment –hand phone, camera, ipod, laptop, MP3 and MP4 players. As we toured the compound, we were awed by its spaciousness: huge warehouse, huge factories and even a university inside CLF. Their students have industrial attachment right inside their own campus.
Cubic engineer, Mr Sik showed us around and related to us his life as an engineer. I am particularly impressed with the followings:
• Mr Sik has not switched off his hand phone since working in Cubic some 8 years ago.
• Production yield target is 99%, if it drops by more 5%, all personnel will be recalled back even for those on leave.
• There is a ‘war’ room to thrash out differences. I will leave it to your imagination as to how it got its name.
• Not a single chair can be found in the production line. A standing operator produces as much as 30% more than a sitting colleague.
• Contract manufacturing: Cubic assembles sunglasses equipped with Bluetooth Technology for a US company. The gadget is a sunglass, headphone and microphone, 3-in-1 package, and retails for a cool US$199 per pair.
• Diversification: One of Cubic factories produces luggage compartments for Airbus. This is a joint venture with a Japanese company.
• Security: Everybody is subjected to security check when one steps out of the factory. Female staff is not allowed to wear metal strap bra or metal hairpin so as not to trigger the alarm when searched.
When we checked into the hotel, we were told that they going to give us different rooms than the ones previously agreed upon. We needed to re-assign 121 people there and then, resulting in a messy congestion at the lobby. To add to the problem, some assigned rooms were not usable – walls, carpet and even the blankets were mouldy and the rooms were filled with an unbearable stench. We only managed to solve all but one by midnight.

Seafood dinner at Sungai Duyong was a letdown. The place was quite a distance from the hotel and it was definitely not worth the trip. Many students did not eat much, preferring to have another meal on their own. Dinner rating: 2/10
The evening ended with a visit to Tamingsar Tower where we spent 7 minutes revolving at the top of the tower overseeing the skyline of Malacca.

10-9-2009 (Thursday)
There was confusion starting from 4am: we have 4 Muslim students and they needed to take their breakfast early because of Ramadan. The food caterer sent the food to the wrong rooms and waking up the wrong people and upsetting many in the process. Apparently, the front desk staff did not advise the caterer properly. The sad thing was that this same mistake was repeated throughout the trip, right up to the last day. As we do not have the updated list for everybody, there was confusion when we tried to contact each other in the morning when we tried to get hold of the late comers.

At the Cubic Factory, there was a lot of waiting and more waiting when the CLF staffs do not know where to put our belongings as we were not allowed to bring electronic stuff into the factory. The room that we used the day before was not available then.
When we were finally allowed into the factories, instructions were passed down to us at the last minute to group the students in fives which resulted in further unnecessary delay – we could have done it while we were waiting had we known the requirement earlier.
After the groups were seated at their respective benches, instructions were intermittent with long pauses in-between either because they needed to fix the PA system or they were having ‘serious’ discussions among the instructors. Even the presence of their CEO did not help the situation much.
The one who saved the day was none other than Mr Sik. Unlike the others, he is technically competent and has many interesting experiences to share. He was able to engage our students and they listened to him. No wonder, Mr Chua BK said that our students should not go to CLF if Mr Sik was not available. The students worked on refurbished speakers, they removed all the screws, inspect the inside and put them back. In the lecture, they learnt about 2.1, 5.1 and 7.1 speaker systems and ported-speaker design.
In the afternoon, every student group made a sales and production process presentation. The students were forthcoming and entertaining in their sales pitch. The topic was very appropriate as hand phone was something very close to their hearts and they talked passionately about it. I was looking forward to the explanation of many terms such as Minimo, CESB but was no wiser after all the presentations. It would have been perfect if there was an immediate debrief on their performance. However, the students got distracted when someone mentioned about dinner and shopping. We mentioned this need to close the ‘loop’ to the trainers but were very surprised that it was not taken up.

Portuguese dinner: The dinner was served at the Old Portuguese Settlement facing the Straits of Malacca. It was much better than the dinner we had the day before but there was no signature dish to distinguish it from the others. I would have passed it off as another seafood dinner if I had not known better. Dinner rating: 6/10
Later, we shopped at a huge shopping centre at Melaka Raya.

11-9-2009 (Friday)
Like typical ‘camping’ youngsters in a foreign land, our students slept very late with many surviving on 2 to 3 hours of sleep. They became restless and noisy during the morning lecture. The chairs that they were using produced a high pitch noise as they swiveled from side to side. The noise was very irritating particularly for the older folks. Even Mr Sik could not hold their attention. The problem was exacerbated by the large group size and their short attention span.
Mr Sik was very kind; he brought from his home a Hi-Fi that cost a hundred thousand ringgit to let us experience high-end music. We were appreciative of the fact that the system was quite heavy and it took a considerable amount of his time to position his equipment for the optimum effect. The machine could virtually transport you to a live concert just by listening to it.
However, only ten students could squeeze into the demo room at a time, the rest of the students were tasked to write their reviews which they would share after the whole exercise.
We could see that the students were getting very restless.
Auyong pushed Mr Maniam to produce more meaningful activities for our students. A visit to the aerospace factory was arranged in the afternoon, the agreed number kept fluctuating between 50 to 60. We have had to keep playing by the ear. Finally, the factory agreed to take 50 people. For those who were not selected for the aerospace visit, Mr Sik activated a production line (no components were used) for them to see. Due to the economic downturn, there was no order for production and not enough qualified personnel to engage our students.
Dinner was at Ole Sayang. This was by far the best dinner we have had in Malacca. Dinner rating: 8.5 out of 10. We shopped at Jonker Street, a World Heritage site. They have Pasar Malam every Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and it was no co-incidence that we were there on Friday, thanks to Auyong.

12-9-2009 (Saturday)
The morning was yet another round of miscommunication: we were expecting coaches to pick us up at 9am but none came. Without the transport, it was difficult to move 121 people from point to point. After much haggering with the coordinators from Cubic, we decided to let the students wandered on their own.
We started checking out of the hotel after lunch and finished the process by 1:50pm. The coaches brought us to CLF for the closing ceremony. We conducted the feedback session there and it was followed by the closing speeches by the various representatives. After picture taking at the main gate, we headed home and reached NP at about 8:15pm.