Ningbo - New Job, New Home, New Friends

New life in Ningbo

Well, after 4 months with no contract in China, I finally got a new job. I'm now working in a city called Ningbo(宁波). It is in Zhejiang province, south of Shanghai, near the east coast of China. Ningbo has the second largest port in China after Shanghai. It is a very important export city.

The company I am working for is called Shenglong Automotive Parts Company Ltd. (圣龙汽车零部件有限公司). Here is their website: http://www.sheng-long.com/en/index.asp In the past, they have produced spare parts for automotive companies and currently make many engine oil pumps and some camshafts.

The reason they hired me was that they have their first big contract with Ford Motor Company to produce more than 400,000 transmission oil pumps a year for one of Ford's new truck programs. And they don't have a lot of experience with high volume production. They also wanted to hire somebody who could help them understand Ford and Ford's requirements and help with communication between China and America. One of my old bosses at Ford knew that I was in China and looking for a job and he suggested that they talk to me.

Even though I am making less money than I did in my last job here in China, Shenglong has made me feel very welcome. I really like the program manager and our team. They work very hard and very long hours but they have fun and enjoy their work. To me the people you work with are the single most important factor in liking what you do. I would much rather spend 12-14 hours a day working on a team like this than 8 hours a day with people who did not trust or appreciate me and where I did not enjoy what I was doing every day. The environment here reminds me of the job i had in Wales - my very favorite job ever.

The first weekend I was at the company they had a team building event for the technical department. It was a lot of fun and a good way to get to know the team members. It was amazingly similar to some of the team building I have done in America. Fall back into the arms of your colleagues, spider web or electric fence exercise, climb a pole and jump out to grab a trapeze bar with your colleagues holding a safety rope, human elevator lift the whole team one by one up a 12 foot wall. It was a lot of fun and taught us all a lot of teamwork skills.

We are in the process of building our first prototype parts which are due at a Ford transmission plant in Ohio in the US on January 2. We need to ship on Christmas day. And we have a lot of work to do by that time. We will likely be working every day till Christmas. But then I think we will have a big party. :)

And then my job really begins. I am launch manager for the program, responsible for leading the team to specify and purchase all the equipment for mass production and launching the process. We are building a new building which should be finished early next year. So, I will get even busier in the new year. It is going to be an excitng year. I'm really looking forward to it.

So, the new adventure has begun...