A group of 60 STML students from the classes of Purchasing Management and Supply Chain and Operations Management organized a site visit to HR Manufacturing Sdn. Bhd, Mergong, Alor Star, Kedah on 6 October. They are assisted by 2 Senior Lecturers, Dr Adam bin Mohd Saifudin (lecturer in Purchasing and Supply Chain) and Dr Hidayah Abu (Operations Management). The purpose of the visit is to expose the students on the actual hands-on-it manufacturing product being produced and how the factory operation is managed. This site visit also is part of the final project assignment being assigned to the students for this semester in both classes.

The visitors were welcome by HR Manufacturing staff, Puan Noraida of HR Department, and there were taken for a factory tour after being served with breakfast. During the tour, they were briefed and shown the process of 2 main products of the company, the Kopi Misai Kucing and varieties of soaps made from goat milk. The process started from the warehouse delivery raw materials, productions process in filling, mixing, quality assurance and packaging. They were also shown the new machines of mixer and production floor in producing the varieties of soaps.

After the factory tour, they were gathered at the rest area for the Q & A session conducted by the factory General Manager, Encik Amri Hashim, assisted by Puan Suzana, Procurement and Supply Chain Manager. The session was moderated by Dr Adam. Lot of questions were asked and praised by Encik Amir as very good and intelligent questions. He hoped the answers given during the sessions would provide them to do well in their project reporting and presentation. En Amir added that, most importantly, this site visit is an eye opening for them to explore further in business especially in manufacturing after they finished the studies one day.

Program Director and fifth semester Operations Management student, Izzul Aiman Nor Azni said the program had a profound impact on participants and gave participants a lot of knowledge. Abdul Rahman Jahaan, a fifth semester Agri Business student, was excited about this site visit as this was his first time visit to a factory since studying in UUM. Indeed, this site visit was an eye opening of how the actual operations process was done and lot could be learned from here. Azwani Rejab, another fifth semester Risk Management student hope that this site visit could expedite the best knowledge for her group to prepare and complete the project report. Luthfiansyah H, an Indonesian fifth semester student studying Operations Management, could not hide his delightfulness in this site visit. He expressed that the site visit had really opened up his mind set of how the actual operations process were implemented and hope to come back here again to ask more about the products being produced.