Field Trip_ Maritime Industries_ 20100423

On 23^rd Apr, UMN team made a third field trip. The aim of trip is to learn more about Ningbo Maritime industries and investigate the routine duties and working conditions of the involved labours. About the observation spots, we chose two companies as they are in different roles and with different environmental cultures within logistics industries. Group A including Ned, Angela, Yulin visited Ningbo branch of CMA, one of world’s largest shipping companies; Group B, Mukda and I, visited one local logistics agency named Ningbo Maoyu International Freight Agency. To briefly compare two companies, the former is obviously bigger in size and more cosmopolitan of corporate culture; CMA is a shipping company providing carrier service for transporting goods and Maoyu is a forwarding agency which in fact doesn’t have cargo but only work as a coordinator linking and smoothing the communication between shippers, carriers and other relevant links within the whole logistics network.

As located in Ningbo, Maoyu starts its business on the base of geographical advantage with local foreign trade economics and maritime economics. For one end, it has a big market of exporting customers; for the other end, the Ningbo port brings about a plenty of shipping companies to forward the products internationally. Maoyu as well as most logistics agencies find their business opportunity from connecting these links, so the communication efficiency is one of the most important tasks for them. As for routine duties, the different role in company has different job. For example, sells men to find customers, buyers to compare and negotiate forwarding prices with different shipping companies, and then, after order is placed, the documentation specialists to deal with booking, cargo trailer, customs declaration, commodity inspection and etc.

Because Maoyu is not a big company and quite a free styled privately-owned enterprise, the working environment is casual and eased. No formal dress is requested and non business talk is fine as well. Meanwhile, there is no KPI (Key Performance Indicators) or ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) to systematically measure the employees’ performance but only depending on customer numbers, profit margin, workload and working behaviour. The only visible measurement on site is clocking machine. Though the physical environment seems quite informal here, the working pressure still exists everywhere. For sells man, they have to keep good relationship with existing customers and search for new ones; for buyers, they have to negotiate lower prices from shipping companies so as to compete with other forwarding agency; for documentation specialists, their job is most detailed and trivial, so intensive concentration and well-organized personality are requested. For all of them, working over-time or working outside workplace is quite normal.

Besides with social ability, computer skill is also a very important way to increase communication efficiency. Instant massager like MSN or QQ are used to not only timely report updated information to customers, but also track and trace shipment from carriers. Other software like Cargo2000 as an internal data system and communication platform can help keep the orders systematically and follow up the processing more easily.

From the field observation of Maoyu International Freight Agency Ltd, we learned that such a small but well functioned company can also do a good job in connecting logistics network and keep every shipment forwarding smoothly. The only product provided by this freight agency is service. The service suppliers themselves is also another type of logistics, more preciously, the logistics of communication. While cargo is forwarding the goods between disconnected destinations, the labour of freight agency is shipping the communication within disconnected links in maritime industries.

Below is a short video recording the working state of a documentation specialist

(while keying in the information to data system on computer, she is calling for the update on QQ)

SA500013

Field Trip: Logistics (23rd April 2010)

Wu Yang and I visited Zhejiang Ningbo Maoyu International Freight Agency Ltd. The purpose of our visit was to find out more about operation in a logistic company, looking specifically at the supply chain of the company, employees’ performance measurement and working condition and the use of KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) or ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) databases.

About the Company: This logistics company consist about 20 employees and the purpose of the business is to act as the middleman communication between the customer who want to ship things and the supplier who offer the shipping service. This is a domestic company, which also deals with international destinations.

The main strategy for the business to be efficient is to communicate effectively with customers and suppliers and also to be accurate with the information they are providing. This would lead to building trust with customers and maintaining business relationship with them.

Making mistakes has been a stressful issue because once mistakes are made, employees have to do enormous amount of work to correct the mistakes for both the customers and suppliers. Due to the nature of the logistics work, employees have to both key in complex data into cargo software and also communicate with customers via MSN at the same time. Therefore, high attention to detail and being attentive are main skills to be accurate in their work.

The culture of the company is very informal. As the company is small, investments on KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) or ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) databases have not been done.  Employees use traditional clocking machine to record their working hours and the Human Resource department will measure their performance based on their work, working hours and their behaviour. There is no labour union in the company and therefore employees would seek government support if they have any issues with the company.

Further thoughts: Wu Yang and I realised that communication is the main success in logistics industry and the type of communication used by a logistics company would further indicate the transformation of a company’s or a country’s development.

The use of traditional clocking machine, spreadsheet, database and cargo software measured that the company had achieved the standard of logistics operation. As the nature and culture of the company has been like this, communicating via MSN, e-mails, telephone and text messages show that work also occurs outside workplace. This is another form of company culture which employees would need to accept even though they might not be willing to work outside workplace.

Further research: In order to further understand how the type of communication has transformed or developed the company, further research should analyse and evaluate on what technology or software were use in the past, what are being used in the present and what is possible to be used in the future.

Another case study on a middle size or big size logistics company would provide a significant analysis on operation in such industry.

Fildwork_ 22, April, 2010: Some thoghts on Soil Pollution—living in a toxic cluster?

This post just recorded an interview to an ex-specialist in Chinese Environmental Protections Authority and personal fieldwork on 22 April, 2010. In Ningbo, some residential clusters and creative industries clusters are built on the site which used to be factories that facing the risk of polluted soil.

 There are some key problems I observed.  First of all, there are no clear standards for soil background survey before the land used to be rebuilt. In additional, the ‘Polluter pays’ principle needed to be improved  to specify the responsibilities between the former and current users of the polluted land as well as to specify the roles of  different local government departments(Urban planning and construction authorities, Environmental Protection Bureau and the Health Bureau ). Case study will be done for Land of Beijiao Road 151, Ningbo developed by Younger Group for a high-end cluster. Another factor is the lack of public awareness. Especial in a crazy hot time for real estate, consumers don’t have any background knowledge and choices to evaluate the overall conditions of the property before they invest. Although there is little voice trying to question the environmental issues, most investors don’t realize they are in a big risk living/working in a toxic cluster. The aftereffect will be obvious in coming years.

Calls for improvement will focus on policy making and powerful implementation from local governmental level. Developers (companies) should also take responsibility in dealing with the polluted land including background survey before construction and controlling new pollution for the new clusters which are legal and moral requirement for responsible developers. In addition, idea of Environmental Insurance is useful for companies in the case when pollutions happen. Last but not at least would be that public education and media release will help raise the public awareness which might lead to campaigns by buyers or local civil society

Reference Mr. Tang Shiming, Interview on 22 April, 2010

website on China environmental law

http://www.chinaenvironmentallaw.com/feed/

How academic resource/ knowledge contribute to local communities

www.greenzj.com    is the link (in Chinese)of one major NGO on environmental protection in East China–Green Zhejiang Associations which is

•  engaged in public educations, children and students green summer camp and other social campaigns for EP.
•   issues a quarterly Green Newsletter which supposed to be the only one organization to do so
•  The team has also close networking with local mainstream media.
•  Members included university students, individual EP specialists and some organizations.
• used to be funded by several international and national Funds.

We can work together to arrange a lecture/speech on E-waste as in Topic  3  in our lectures to share the ideas with members there  some time in the coming months that our ideas might become their next campaign (Not sure July is suitable for its summer vocation for some students in the university, TBC)

Knowledge sharing and transformation to practice is a good  start for academic birds’ effort striving  for a better environment.

Fieldwork_02, April 2010: Why most cities like Ningbo need creative industries?

The Urban-Media Networks team visited Ningbo Hefeng Creative Cluster and later the Fortune Creation Cluster on 2nd April, 2010.  The initiate aims of the trips were to find out ‘the winners’ and ‘the losers’ in CI; the relationship between CI and Real- Estate industries (HOPSCA, Hotel+Office+Parking+Shopping+Convention+Apartment); and how the investment finance.

Findings 

Old factory, new economics

Creative industries have become the most favorite baby for local government and developers in the process of urbanization. One of the main reasons is Promoting Creative Industries is one of Ningbo municipal government’s strategies in industrial optimization. Another factor will be there is a big cake for industrial design.  According to a study, there is about 1,000 million (Chinese Yuan) demand for industrial design from Ningbo which contributed to other markets as Shanghai and Beijing due to lack of local competent design companies. In addition, there is a closer link with Real estate (esp. with a hot term as HOPSCA). In Hefeng, as the interviews briefed, besides studios for designers, there will also be other facilities as a fine hotel, offices, shopping areas, nice place as Cafe’s for designers’ network functions’”, apartments and etc. Same stories as we can see in Fortune Creative Cluster although it now looks like a shopping mall rather than what it supposed to be.

'All in one' HOPSCA

Hefeng Creative Cluster is a stated-own project. It’s financed by governmental investment which according to the interviewee that’ we won’t expect we can make a finance balance within 15-20 years ’. Anyway, we can still see some evidences for it’s a good deal in a long-term period, such as the land value increase, the cash flow from rentals and other service provide, relevant opportunities arise from the business named as CI… (More research on why Ningbo needs HOPSCA)

One of the advantages of Hefeng Cluster includes Good location-really downtown, good river view. Facilities like the Shell-Shaped T- Show hall, with big place and professional facilities which is another selling point to its target local clients. Textile\clothing companies as Younger, Romon, and Peace Bird showed their interests to it. According to their sales, key target customers include other big manufacturers in stationary and sound equipments.

→→→

Can a model be built to a real one?

Challenges being observed here including Market segmentation and strong competition from other newly set up CI clusters. Lack of Professional management which differ from the current system in residential real-estate management

Some Studios/Companies have started business here...

Learning for the field trips

1. Find out sufficient and proper interviewees. This really a big challenge and a must preparation before the visit. For instant, this time we can not find someone speaks for ‘losers’ …
2. Ability to control site visit and interview-to is flexible. Some designed questions can not be answered on spot.
3. Teamwork and time management. Team members   contributed to schedule making and arrangement to this first trip which is really a treasure and learning process for the next trips.

 Issues to be followed up on the topic

1. The Hefeng Cluster used to be factories and how the former workers relocated?
2. What other losers find frustrated when they face the new cluster (Aged people who have to move to places far away)?
3. To what level the small investors in the cluster loosing money, like people buying small offices but cannot find enough tenants in the Fortune Creative Cluster?

Logistics as a Technology of Governance and Measure

The primary task of the global logistics industry is to manage the movement of people and things in the interests of communication, transport and economic efficiencies. Central to logistics is the question and scope of governance – both of labouring subjects and the treatment of objects or things. One of the key ways in which logistics undertakes such work is through the application of technologies of measure, the database and spreadsheet being two of the most common instruments of managerial practice. In the age of cognitive capitalism, new sites of struggle are emerging. Everyone, in short, has the capacity to be produced as creative labour, since the measure of economic value shifts from a logic of scarcity (IPRs) to one of aggregation, recombination and storage that corresponds to the materiality of digital information and social production of value.

See: Neilson, Brett and Rossiter, Ned (forthcoming 2010) ‘Still Waiting, Still Moving: On Migration, Logistics and Maritime Industries‘, in David Bissell and Gillian Fuller (eds) Stillness in a Mobile World, London and New York: Routledge.

Related fieldwork questions:
How would you summarise the work of your company?

Is your trade or business predominantly or largely transnational or is mostly within China? If it’s transnational, does that mean between Europe, the US and China, or does it mean something more regional: East and South Asia perhaps?

Are there differences in supply chain integration depending on whether your business serves foreign or domestic markets? If your company engages both domestic and foreign markets, does this lead to any conflicts in how supply chains are integrated?

If your business is transnational is there a disconnect between Chinese suppliers and Western buyers in terms of business expectations? In other words, how does culture play into the movement of commodities and communication with clients?

How do you understand logistics?

To what extent does logistics impact upon the economy or profitability of your company?

Are there cases or instances when supply chain quality can ever be sacrificed to maintain deals or whether solid deals result in the solid execution of logistics integration? Is the emphasis on getting paid or on supply chain innovation? Or are there tensions here?

If your business is prepared to live with performance gaps for the sake of deals what are the implications for labour performance measurement?

What sort of software programs do you use to measure KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) or ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) databases?

What sort of time cycle operates with these KPIs – is it an hourly measure or maybe daily or even monthly? Or perhaps it’s a by-the-minute sort of measure on how products and activities are moving along supply chains?

Do you know if workers in your company ever feel under stress to ensure they meet daily KPI targets?

What happens if they don’t meet KPI targets? Are any disciplinary measures taken?

How does the company deal with hold ups in supply chains by partner associates? Are you aware of such holdups via information from the KPIs or ERPs?

Local Policy on E-waste management( in Chinese)

1. policy published in Ningbo Environmental Protection Bureau. See Chapter 5

http://www.nbepb.gov.cn/ZCFG_Show.aspx?ClassID=89&InfoID=6503

http://www.nbepb.gov.cn/Info_Show.aspx?ClassID=83&InfoID=79517

2. Essay on” E-waste in China’

http://eedu.org.cn/Article/eehotspot/E-waste/200706/14418.html

Field Trip_E-Waste Industries_20100409

On 9^th April, Ned and UMN team scheduled a second field trip for the e-waste topic. Since unfamiliar with e-waste industries at the very beginning, we have done the preparation with not so wise strategies. When I got contacted with one proposed observation spot, a metal waste treatment park, I asked directly about e-waste recycling treatment, and the park personnel denied immediately and explained that it’s because e-waste is illegal to import and the park is mainly dealing with the imported metal waste, so they don’t do e-waste at all. I followed a question of what exactly metal waste in the park. They range from discarded steel and copper to other semi-deconstructed metal waste, for example, some wasteful part of cars or an electrical motor from huge equipment. In fact, it’s hard to distinguish electronic waste from others. The personnel also admitted that sometimes their shipments may have some e-waste inside, but there is pretty small part otherwise custom would detect and forfeit the whole shipment. The final question is asked about that if those waste are not completely de-constructed and then how they deal with them. The personnel confirmed only manual redistribution by workers for current stage. With this telephone interview, as we were informed no e-waste spot could be available to visit, we gave up the original proposal. However, in the class discussion later on, our team member Angela provided some important information from her friend who works in the park confirming that there are some factories doing e-waste treatment informally.

The final field trip was to visit some second-hand electronic product (e-product) markets. In the morning, we firstly visited Tianyi Digital Plaza and then YiGao Digital Plaza. Both sell brand-new e-products, repair the broken, purchase the old and resell the second-hand. When we visited the floor especially bearing upon old e-products, we randomly interviewed some shop owners while not so many of them willing to answer our questions. We learned that currently the old product sources are mainly from domestic, and just a few from the foreign countries which is less and less because of the channel to get them is illegal (the same reason mentioned by the personnel from waste park). We also found even in a small market, there exist some business chains. For example, some only repair the chip-boards for second-hand e-product shops.

After team lunch, Mukda, Yulin and I visited South Gate Market, the biggest old product market in Ningbo. We could see a lot of old products sold or discarded by their previous users redistribute there, some lots of crashed televisions, some for air conditioners. We tried to search second-hand e-product shops, but, quite rare could be found before we jumped in the one introduced by a friend who had experience buying old stuffs here. Afterwards we understood that the declining number of second-hand e-product shops is because of less profit margin squeezed by decreased prices of new e-products and less customers. We chatted with staffs there and watched them working on the site. They introduced that after collecting back some old products, the first step is to de-construct each part and test performance. If any part is broken, they will try to repair or get a replacement. Then, it will be cleaned and reassembled to a well-functioned one for customer selection. Regarding those useless parts or unsold e-products, they consider them as absolute e-waste and move them out. Some junk man from Guangdong province or TaiZhou district would come and collect them. These e-wastes are sold per  kilogram, and the prices are quite regularly fluctuated and mostly decided by raw material market.  When transported to the following destination, these e-wastes will be crashed down in order to extract metal materials.

During this field, we found two different characters practically bound with these old e-products: e-waste and secondary resource. Regards with the industries chain or network, it might be the end of a chain as so called e-waste; on the other hand, it is the starting point as the secondary resource of a new industry chain.

1. Below are a few pictures of the field work.

TianYi Digital Plaza_Third floor for old e-product market

South Gate Market_ A shop corner storing old household electrical appliances

2. some videos from internet highlighting e-waste

HACK – E- Waste

One report investigating e-waste in Australia (then think about China status which is obviously more decades behind)

Pixels

An interesting video metaphorizing the potential destructive power of e-waste.

Field Trip_Creative Industries_20100402

On 2nd April, we, the urban media network team led by Ned Rossiter, carried out a field trip aiming to understand the current situation of Ningbo Creative Industries. Two spots were selected as samples for observation: HeFeng Creative Square and Fortune Creation Harbor. The former one is still on construction, scheduling to open in 2011. The later has on business since June, 2008.

HeFeng Creative Square is located in the east bank of Yao River, opposite to LaoWaiTan. Though only semi-finished architectural complex erects on site, the temporary enclosure wall presents impressive advertisements in order to attract potential companies and financial investment. The stuffs there briefly introduced the industrial property and business scopes of Hefeng Creative Square. With interviewing one of the staffs by Ned Rossiter, we learned the ambition of HeFeng is to establish a flagship industry in providing creative and innovative service to plenty manufactories in Ningbo area, not only compete with local service providers, but also those from Shanghai or others, even foreign countries. When Rossiter asked about what is the decisive advantage for them to compete with other creative clusters. The answer is professional guide and training provided by cluster committee plus the golden location, the center of downtown Ningbo. Since the square occupies a large plot, it will also be integrated with commercial-oriented use like restaurants, hotel, shopping centre, and entertainment.

Later on, we also visit a reserved building whose precursor was a workshop of Hefeng Cotton Mill. It’s now the temporary station for enrolled enterprises. Some are stylish design companies; some are arts and antique stores.

The second spot is Fortune Creation Harbor situated in the North Bank Fortune Centre near to Ningbo Great Theater. At a first sight of the North Bank Fortune Centre, we noticed that though it covers huge territory with several high-end complexes, some offices seem empty and few pedestrians could be observed on site. When we get close to Fortune Creation Harbor, the situation is exactly the same, some companies removed out, some with no clue or little connection towards creative industries.

Referencing to the initial design of Fortune Creation Harbor, it was once a key creative industries project promoted aggressively by JiangBei government. However, two year later, the place even shows more deserted than before. From the field observation, we could assume that Fortune Creation Harbor is somewhat a failure example of creative industries.

Below is the snap show of the field work.

Section 1-HeFeng Creative Square

The planning map showing a large area of territory covered ;

Current Registered Companies Name Wall;

The only one reserved part of old Hefeng Cotton Mill;

Some design companies;

Some art and antique centers;

Section 2-Fortune Creation Harbor

Promotion signboard of Fortune Creation Harbor observed beside Great Theatre;

Mapping North Bank Fortune Centre: a large area of territory and several complexes;

Countless office rooms up there.

The landmark of Fortune Creation Harbor;

Some companies already moved out;

Some show little connection with Creative Industries(might be culture related)