Day 2 - Yakult Factory

Day 2, time to get down to work. We started off the day by visiting the Yakult manufacturing factory. The lady explained in-depth the industries that Yakult looks into, which surprised all of us since we only knew Yakult in the F&B industry. Who would have thought that Yakult also has facial products?

Exterior of the Yakult building

Lobby of the building

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The adults talking among themselves

The speaker

Yam and the humongous Yakult bottle

Group photo

Map marking the places where Yakult factories were present

The products manufactured by Yakult

After that, we sat through a short video where there were more information of Yakult. Apparently, in Japan, there is a service where the employees would deliver the Yakult drinks to their doorsteps on bicycle. Even though we would not be able to experience this kind of culture in Singapore, I think it is a good opportunity to learn the way businesses thrive in the different countries. At least it would provide us with a certain amount of knowledge should we decide to set up our business abroad. We had the opportunity to try the Yakult manufactured in the plant.

Next, we had a Q&A session where the groups working on the company began asking questions. The most common queries were about the intake of Yakult drink per day and also about the production of Yakult. Since China is a big country with many states, it would not be feasible for just one factory in Tianjin to cater to all the markets in China. As such, in such a big country, Yakult has a few manufacturing plants around the different parts of China to cater to the different areas. Furthermore, Yakult is a type of drink that has a portion of good bacterial to boost our immunity. Therefore, the drinks should be transported quickly and also in the suitable temperature to ensure quality of drink. In Singapore, we can see many different flavors of Yakult, but in China, they only produce the original Yakult flavor. Even though they did not mention the reason for producing only one flavor, I believe that it is due to the level of demand. They would not be able to achieve the level of output they are aiming for since changing the flavors would mean they have to stop all production and change all ingredients inside. Furthermore, they are operating with a 80 manpower due to the low need for direct labor except for quality control and to operate the machines.

And finally, token of appreciation

Soon after that, we were able to see for ourselves the actual manufacturing process. In Costing, we learned about manufacturing process in theory, but never had the chance to see the actual process. That was indeed a very good opportunity to understand the manufacturing process and link with the theory that we have learned. I believe that this would help us to better absorb Costing and also serve as a recap before we continue to the next Costing module.