The last trip was mainly on technical works.

This time, we’re given the opportunity to get our hands on another aspect in the engineering field: sales and marketing.

NEPCON is basically an industrial electronic and automation exhibition. It is an effective way for suppliers to launch their new products and services to buyers, grow new businesses and gain new contacts.

Some sort like PC Fair la, except they’re selling larger guns machines and tools.

This is the second year Vanguard Electronic (the company I’m attached with) participated in the exhibition. Last year’s response was not very satisfying (according to one of my seniors la…), but this year seems to be better, despite the economy downturn.

One of our company’s products, almost cost a proton perdana

“Sales engineer” in action =P

The exhibition took 3 days and all of us was so exhausted, standing in the booth from 9am til 6pm everyday. Nonetheless, it was a great experience for us to get to know the market, industrial profiles and those “big boys with big toys” in the industry.

Farewell dinner

My lecturer once told us that as an engineer, we’d ended up dealing with only 2 types of thing: the dead (machines) and the alive (humans). Knowing our own strength and which of those is the best for us is crucial in determining our future.

Now I’ve been exposed to both, but I’m yet to decide which is best for me. The future still seems so blur…

On Thursday, our first station was Politeknik Sultan Abdul Halim Mu’adzam Shah (POLIMAS), Penang. Their “Rota Spray” machine was reported faulty, but after some checking, it’s just some pipes that were stuck, causing the sensor unable to work properly.

The second station was Politeknik Tuanku Syed Sirajuddin, Perlis. The campus is quite new and the environment is good (well, at least better than my own uni …). We didn’t stay long there as we’re just dropping by to return their after-serviced “Rota Spray” machine.

The third station of the day was Faculty of Engineering of Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), Nibong Tebal. The environment is even better than the previous polytechnic!

Didn’t managed to get any photos of the campus, but what I can say is their lab is way better than many local universities. It’s small but fully equipped with updated industrial PCB machines and they produced high quality boards.

On Friday, the second day of our trip, we proceeded to Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) Seberang Prai Campus to discuss with their technician regarding reallocation of their PCB machines in their electronic lab.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is another lab that is comparable to USM’s. They as well have all the necessary machines for producing fine PCBs, and their technician is very concerned and updated with the progress of other universities regarding lab improvement matters.

Our last station was Asian Institute of Medicine Science and Technology (AIMST) University, Sungai Petani. This is something like the Indian version of UTAR actually; with majority of their students are Indians. And the campus environment, what I can say is… fantastic! Especially their buildings.

They’ve recently bought some machines and equipments from our company and we’re here to conduct a seminar to teach the lecturers and students on the proper way of using those machines to produce PCBs.

Ya most of you’ll probably say “PCB again?!”. Well not my fault la pals, the company I’m attached to is dealing with this type of business. =P

Since my boss can hardly spare time to train us, he decided to take us along to train together with AIMST’s lecturers and students.

Got the chance to get my hands hot.

The trip was really worth it (since the company bear all our expenses… =P). Many of the universities and even polytechnics are advancing to become better. Unfortunately, I didn’t see anything alike going on in my uni. We’ve been stuck in old technologies for so long and yet, the uni doesn’t seems to care about it. Something is wrong…

Reached KL at 12am last night, and I’m back to work today.