Official First Day

       It's the first day that we started our program in Japan, we met at 4 clock in the morning. However, because of the jet lag, all of us met in the lobby on time which is really important in Japan culture and all of us did not break the tradition which is great. Nathan told me that today would be a long time and I found that we spend around 13 hours for those company tours.
       The most impressive I learned today is about the efficiency for Japanese business. We did three corporate visits today, Tsukiji Fish Market, Kawasaki-Rikuso Transportation and Tuna Processing Plant. The first two companies of those are using just-in-time philosophy which is developed by Japanese company in many years ago. Since I am a supply chain major and I am done with all the basic supply chain class, so at this point, I really want to discovery why Japan also has great supply chain ideas and has high efficiency in supply chain.
       For the Tsukiji Market, one of the reason for just-in-time, 7 top wholesales would sale all the fish for that day, this is the requirement form government. Since the market is owned by Tokyo government. compare to China or some part of USA, Japan has the advantage of efficiency supply chain because of all the society has the JIT philosophy, from worker to manager to government. For KRT, their food business require a JIT philosophy everywhere because of the time limited of food. As a result, they have a great work in forecasting and with a safety stock based on different food to help decreasing inventories.
       Although today is tired and I almost fall in sleep many times, I really like today's visiting. I did learn a lot and reviewed a lot material of supply chain. I cannot to wait for tomorrow, have chance to talk with Disney, one of my favorite companies.