Do you know?
Yakult (ヤクルト, Yakuruto) is a probiotic product made by fermenting skimmed milk with a special strain of the Lactobacillus casei Shirota bacteria. Yakult Honsha Co., Ltd. (株式会社ヤクルト本社, Kabushiki-gaisha Yakuruto Honsha) was created by Dr. Minoru Shirota who graduated from the Medical School of the Kyoto University in 1930. It was founded in 1935 but incorporated on 9 April 1955.
Official claim states that the name "Yakult" is derived from jahurto, an older form of jogurto, the Esperanto word for "yogurt". The Japanese term for yogurt drink is "Yakuruto". Overtime, it evolved into "Yakult".
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Lecturers' Reflections:-
Ms Irene Ng, Lecturer of Cost Accounting...
On the whole, it was a fulfilling trip to see the actual production of the Yakult drink in action. All the "hear-say" about the company having a very good profit margin has founded its truth. The growth of bacteria is indeed low cost and all that consumers are paying for is really the milk and the bottling/packaging. Students enjoyed themselves and learned through the experience while enjoying the talk given by the presenter. Bringing our students and educating them about the goodness of Yakult may just increase their customer base by a little but it has also helped to build a good relationship between the school and Yakult. The process of bottling Yakult allows our students to visualise the manufacturing process, in particular the process costing, thus benefiting them in terms of relating the experience to the curriculum.
Ms Tham, Lecturer of Cost & Managerial Accounting...
As the organiser for this field trip, the students’ participation was definitely encouraging. Throughout the trip, I observed that our students not only enjoyed themselves thoroughly, but have also benefited from the enriching talk and factory tour conducted by the speaker.
Based on my observation of the students’ reactions to the “enlarged view of the dancing bacteria” and the screened documentary film, I could see that they have begun to appreciate the good that Yakult can bring to their body systems.
The sudden halt in the production process and the quick turnaround time to resume production turned out to be a pleasant surprise for all of us. From this unexpected event, we were amazed by the efficient support provided by Yakult’s Repair & Maintenance department. This encounter made all of us realised the importance of having efficient and timely support from other supporting departments in ensuring that the production process would not be delayed which could cause the company to lose money.
While touring the factory, we were equally fascinated by how the freshly produced bottles were transported via a vacuum-like pipe system. I recalled that we even had one brave volunteer from among the students to sample the freshly fermented but highly concentrated Yakult (with no sugar and flavouring added).
On the whole, this trip has certainly enriched everyone. From the learning reflections which the students have blogged about, I felt that they could now better relate what they saw happening in the manufacturing plant to the key concepts taught in school. They could even articulate about the different ways of classifying the manufacturing costs by functions and behaviour. The visit has benefited not only our lecturers and students, but also strengthened the relationship between the school and Yakult. The school is exploring to have more of such field trips in the future after receiving the positive feedback from our students. In fact, Yakult fever must have caught up with all of us as even the lecturers bought a hefty lot of them!
Students' 1-2-3 Reflections:-
1 most memorable experience from this trip;
2 ways the tour visit has helped you better understand the costing module; and
3 key learning points from the visit.
When we first heard of this trip during the lecture, some of us were a bit unwilling and apprehensive about whether it is going to be a worthwhile trip. However, that was before the trip. Eventually, we had to convince each other to go for the excursion as we knew we did not have I & E lesson in the morning as our I & E teacher, Mrs. Sue Tan was also coming along with us.
1 most memorable experience:One of our most memorable experience will be the display of the bacteria named “L. casei strain Shirota” after Dr. Shirota himself, under the microscope shown on the projector. This certainly caught our eyes as we were given a first-hand chance to observe the behaviour of the Minoru Shirota strain. We have never seen anything that tiny in size literally moving, thus making it an unforgettable and one-of-a-kind experience for us.
2 ways the visit helped in understanding the costing module:
Basically, this trip helped us to better understand the costing module as Yakult has a very straight forward chain of costs in manufacturing the drink itself. From cultivating the bacteria to making the mixture to bottling it up or to delivering it for sale, a cost is incurred in every single manufacturing step of the Yakult drink. Any other organisations out there would similarly have to incur some kind of expense, whether directly or indirectly, through buying of direct materials or to the cost of direct labour or to manufacturing overheads or period costs. All these costs are incurred as a result of their daily operations.
Another area that we had learnt during this Yakult excursion is that, every step and its associated cost in the manufacturing process needs to be recorded and monitored closely. This is absolutely necessary for the organisation to make strategic decisions based on the results, which would prove to be beneficial to the growth and development of the company in the long run. This ties in with what we have learnt as the four management processes: planning, directing operations, decision making and controlling.
3 key learning points:
Firstly, we learnt that the process of manufacturing a drink is very difficult and complicated. Research and Development work is involved to constantly monitor and improve the quality of the current product to satisfy the customers and to attract more customers.
At the same time, we realised that successful sales of a product is not just about procuring and processing of the raw materials to make a quality product. It also involves frequent maintenance of machinery and products in process. Manufacturers have to be stringent on the cleanliness of their staff, equipment and the environment, especially in the field of manufacturing food products. This might incur additional costs to the production. The total costs involved in the manufacturing of this product is relatively huge, compared to the low price of a single product since Yakult is being mass produced in a highly automated process.
Next, Cost & Managerial Accounting (CMA) as what we have learnt in school is barely what it is experienced out there in the world. Yakult itself already has so many processes that cover many key concepts learnt. Through this visit, we get to see how these key concepts were being integrated and "string together".
Lastly, such trip can let us better understand certain concepts and theories that may otherwise baffle us when first introduced in school. Seeing how things actually work allows us to understand their applications in the business world thoroughly and easily. Hence, it made the learning of CMA easier and make us realised that it is both meaningful and useful to learn CMA.
In conclusion, we were generally pleased with what we have gained and learnt from this excursion and wish that the School of BA would organise more of such trips for us so that we can relate the things that were taught in school to real world applications.
With thanks to all of our teachers who have brought us there.
Done by: Lin MingKai, Lui Jia Huey, Lee Teck Hui, Lim Hui Huang & Leonard Cheng (BS, Yr 2)
