Internship Experiential Report
May 2019 - April 2020

─Rad Ali, Electrical Engineering at Polytechnique Montreal
Taiyo Industrial Co., LTD.
661 ArimotoWakayama 640-8390, Japan
http://www.taiyo-xelcom.co.jp/

Submitted on xx/04/2020

1Company Overview

2History

2

Products and Services

2

Internship Overview

3

Department Roles and Responsibilities

3

My Role in the Department

3

Work Environment

4Knowledge and Skills Acquired

5Life In Japan

6

Living Arrangements

6Life in Wakayama

7

Travel8

Cultural Experiences

11

Conclusion

13

Recommendations for Future Students

13

Reflections

13

2Company Overview
Located in the capital of Wakayama Prefecture, Wakayama City, Taiyo Industrial Co.,
LTD. (hereafter referred to as Taiyo) was established in 1960. Taiyo specializes in Flexible
Printed Circuit Board (FPC) production and defect detection technologies.

History
Taiyo started off as a company that manufactured, engraved and electroplated
textile printing rollers destined for export to the United States. From 1981 onwards, Taiyo
started advancing in PCB manufacturing, building facilities to produce Flexible PCBs, andcreating quality testing machines for PCBs. Seeing success in the PCB inspection machinery,a department dedicated to PCB inspection research and development (Test SystemsDepartment) was created. Over the years, the Test Systems Department has developed
multiple circuit board testing systems, both physical and visual.

Products and Services
As the PCB development department experiences very low turnover times, theyspecialize in quickly developing prototypes for research and development departments ofother companies. The flexible circuit boards developed by Taiyo are mainly used in mobiledevices, such as phones or digital cameras. The Test Systems Department is activelyengaged in researching new PCB inspection technologies to speed up inspection times
while simultaneously reducing cost. Physical defect inspection systems like the DG/DS werecreated to test functionality of tested circuits, while visual defect inspection systems like theTY-VISION were created for faster inspections of any visible defects. This second type ofsystem is the section in which my internship took place. Thanks to the accumulated efforts
of fellow intern Marc and I, we have successfully created AIs capable of significantly
speeding up the defect detection process. These AIs are now being tested in real-world
situations and environments.

3Internship Overview
Department Roles and Responsibilities
During my 12-month internship, I was placed in the Test Systems department. Thissection of Taiyo is responsible for developing and selling the DG/DS systems as well as theTY-VISION series systems. Dividing the department in half, there is a separation between
the physical test section (DG/DS) and the visual test section (TY-VISION). While the visual
test products are still seeing upgrades and improvements, the physical test section limits
itself to production and maintenance of products.

My Role in the Department
Unlike many previous interns at Taiyo, I was not given multiple projects to work on
during my internship, but rather one long-term project to work on for the entirety of mystay in Japan. I worked with the visual test section team throughout this project. Prior to myarrival, Marc had started working on the groundworks for an artificial intelligence systemthat would optimize defect detection time by detecting real defects and ignoring false
positives that the TY-VISION system would create. For the first 4 months, I worked withMarc to find the most efficient ways to create AIs and seamlessly implement them in thealready existing TY-VISION environment.
After having successfully implemented the AIs in the TY-VISION system, I moved onto compatibility checking. Taiyo has multiple versions of it’s products currently in use byclients. This includes older versions that use programming languages that are no longer
compatible with their newest products. To allow all of Taiyo’s clients to benefit from thisnew AI technology, I was tasked with converting all the code Marc and I developed in theTY-VISION software to the oldest version still in circulation today.
To collect data from off-site locations to train AIs with, I was tasked with creating aprogram that collects and sorts the necessary files as quickly as possible. For the remainderof my internship, I worked on making the Deep Learning program (DeepTaiyo) moreuser-friendly and streamlining the whole process, while documenting the code previously
written to allow other employees and future interns an easier time understanding it’sfunctionality.

4Work Environment
For the first couple of months, I worked at a desk on the second floor of the Test
Systems Department’s office. Later, I needed to test out the code I wrote and so I moved to
the first floor of the factory, where the test systems are built and tested. The office setting
was very convenient when discovering the project that I was working on, as it is an open
office and anyone I needed to ask a question to was always sitting nearby.

Work station for the majority of the internship
One aspect of working at Taiyo that surprised me was the amount of meetings. My
past experiences made me expect maybe 1 meeting per week, however at Taiyo there wasa minimum of 3 meetings per day (I would participate in the last two). The first meeting wasbetween the managers of the Test Systems Department at the office level, ending withthem saying the company philosophy chant. The second was with the members of thesubsections of the Test Systems Department where the manager of said subsection would
announce any new information such as who is on vacation, on a business trip or on sickleave. This meeting also ended with everyone saying the company philosophy chant, while
being led by someone different each day. During the third meeting all the developers, bothfor the physical and visual test sections, and I would descend to the factory level. There, wewould explain what we had accomplished on the previous day or week and what weplanned to do on the present day.
Occasionally, there would be a fourth meeting where Maeda-Jichou,
Satomura-Kachou, Uemura-Kachou, Tanizawa-San, Marc (for the first four months) and I
would discuss the direction of the Deep Learning project and what changes needed to bemade. While Marc was still at Taiyo, he would translate parts of the meetings that weren’t
clear to me. After Marc returned to Canada, I had a bit of trouble understanding what was
being asked of me during these meetings, but my supervisors were very patient with me
and this motivated me to learn Japanese even more.

5Knowledge and Skills Acquired
My internship at Taiyo was my first ever internship and at first I was nervous,
wondering if my lack of real-world experience would prevent me from performing well.
However, everyone was very patient with me and they mostly let me decide for myself
when I would finish the tasks I was working on. This allowed me to research topics onwhich I had little or no knowledge and experience. My tasks mainly involved programmingin C++, Halcon, Javascript and HTML, while using JSON and CSS to make the code easier towrite. While I had university level experience with C++, I had never used any of the otherlanguages and tools that were involved in the Deep Learning project. The user interface
elements of this project were a great learning experience for me, allowing me to find out
for myself better ways to interact with users of my programs. I can say with confidence thatmy skills in these programming languages have greatly increased, as I can now give muchbetter estimates of the required time to accomplish a task and I am able to map out thenecessary steps to take much quicker than I used to.
Working with the TY-VISION software was a challenge at first, as there were tens of
thousands of lines of code that I was unfamiliar with. With the help of Marc andTanizawa-San, I was able to develop debugging skills that allowed me to locate a piece ofcode that I wanted to edit. School projects were often small and didn’t necessitate much
teamwork. In contrast, the projects at Taiyo were much bigger, both in size and in teams.
This allowed me to improve my teamwork skills and gain experience with the software
versioning and revision control system “TortoiseSVN”, merging my work with the previousversions.
Working with artificial intelligence was not something I was expecting when I applied
for this internship, but I am very grateful that I had a chance to experiment with Deep
Learning. I had very basic knowledge of AIs at first and creating error segmenting AIs forimages allowed me to gain a deeper understanding of Deep Learning and artificial
intelligence as a whole. I discovered how interesting AI can truly be and I am now
considering pursuing a career in this domain in the future.
While my Japanese language skills are not where I would ideally want them to be, I
cannot deny that I am much better than I was when I first arrived in Japan. My initial lack ofknowledge of this language really motivated me to learn fast, as nearly everyone in
Wakayama spoke to me in Japanese. There are still the occasional misunderstandings hereand there, but communication is much smoother after a year fully immersed in Japanese.
Of course, all these skills I’ve acquired have motivated me to try even harder when I
return to Canada to continue my electrical engineering degree, having had a taste of theengineering experiences that await me. The values of hard work and efficiency held by
Taiyo will no doubt stay with me when I move from the academic world to the professional
one.

6

Life In Japan
Living Arrangements
The dorm house I lived in during my internship was located behind one of thecompany buildings and it took about 5 minutes to get to work. The dorm room provided
was much more spacious than I expected, with all the necessities available in the house.
There was even a massage chair in the main shared area that we could use whenever wewanted. This main shared area acted as a kitchen, dining room and living room for myfellow housemates and myself.
For the first months, Marc and Hai (another foreign employee working at Taiyo) lived
in the dormitory with me and we would eat lunches and dinners together. Lunches wereavailable at the company cafeteria, where 3 different choices offered themselves to us
every day. However, my favorite meals by far were the dinners cooked by Ueda-San, one of
the sweetest people I have ever met in my life. These dinners were served at the girls’
unoccupied dormitory close to the company’s main entrance after work. Every day, shewould cook us something different and it was always delicious. It was always fun chattingwith her during these times.

Bento dinner that Ueda-San made me when I got sickOccasionally, company guests from other parts of Japan or Asia would stay in thedormitory and this was always a good chance to talk to people from different backgrounds
and cultures to my own.

7Life in Wakayama
Residents of Wakayama often asked me why I chose to come to Wakayama, sayingthat it was much less interesting than more popular prefectures like Tokyo or Osaka.
However, the more I explored this prefecture, the more their words seemed to bedisproved. I came to Japan to experience the living culture and Wakayama’s much morerelaxed pace and lack of masses of tourists allowed me to take my time in exploring
everything that caught my eye. The beaches of Wakayama were leagues ahead of what I
had experienced in Montreal and I tried to visit them as often as possible during thesummer. Overlooking the city, Wakayama castle was the most pleasant castle that I’ve
visited, almost having the whole castle to myself. To the east lies the famous Mount Kōya,
where I attended the Aoba Matsuri (Festival of Kobodaishi's birthday). The prefecture’s
western island of Togashima proved to be one of the most interesting places I visited, filledwith old military ruins and beautiful sights.

Tomogashima IslandOn Sundays, I would usually go to the Big Ai (ビッグ愛), where they hold Japanese
language and culture classes. This allowed me to improve my Japanese skills andunderstand the special holidays, events and cultural norms that we don’t have back inCanada. These classes were so worthwhile that I kept taking them for the duration of mystay in Japan.
Taiyo provided me with a bicycle from the beginning of my internship and this gaveme the chance to really explore the city the way I wanted to. During the warmer months, I
biked to the far ends of the city, reaching Marina City, where they hold many festivals andevents, such as whole tuna cutting shows and the ​Yosakoi​.
Another plus is that Wakayama is a fairly central prefecture and although most of
my free time was spent in Wakayama, travelling to other places in Japan was very easy andconvenient.

8Travel
Taking advantage of the convenient travel options, I used night buses, trains,
shinkansen ​and low-cost flights to get to all the destinations I wanted to visit. To avoid
weighing down this report with too much information, here are some photo highlights ofmy travels outside of Wakayama:-Okinawa-Kyushu

Festival preparations in Fukuoka | Kumamoto Ramen

9-

Hiroshima

Hiroshima Atomic Dome | View from Miyajima island-

Kobe

Port near the center of Kobe | Kobe beef
-Osaka10-

Kyoto

-

Fukui

Tojinbo | Ominato Shrine-Kanazawa

Kanazawa Station | Kanazawa Castle

11-

Shirakawa-go

Cultural Experiences
Being a part of Taiyo, I had the chance to experience Japanese business culture inways I did not expect. Every Wednesday, all employees, including interns, cleaned theirrespective working areas, while garbage was collected, separated and weighed to keep
track of company waste. This was not something I was used to in Canada, but I grew toenjoy these moments and now I find them to be quite relaxing. A few weeks after myarrival, they held a welcome party for all the new employees and myself at a restaurant.
There, we ate and drank while socializing and meeting the people I would work with for thenext year. I also participated in parties held for New Year’s and for a coworker’s retirement.
After New Year’s, Taiyo handed out ​zenzai to all employees to celebrate the company’s newyear. All the new employees and I took part in a bowling tournament with other companies
from Wakayama, and I ended up winning an electric kettle.
One of my favorite memories of Japan was participating in the ​Yosakoi ​and theBundara ​which are part of the summer festival ​Odorunya​. I am forever grateful to Taiyo forallowing me to participate in these events. The main events take place at Marina City andaround Wakayama Castle, bringing together people from all over Wakayama and thesurrounding prefectures. During this event, teams of volunteers dance a special
choreographed dance with their custom costumes. Taiyo employees start practicing for thisevent from June to August and then perform in front of thousands of spectators. At the endof the ​Bundara​, all the participants gathered in a big hotel hall and we all ate together incelebration.
Festivals in general are a big part of Japanese culture. During my stay in Japan, it
seemed like every corner of Japan had their own unique festivals and traditions as well as
the nation-wide festivals. Discovering these festivals with the food and special shows that
accompanied them was one of the most interesting aspects of living in Japan, with the most12
unexpected festival being at a temple about a minute’s walk away from the dormitory.
During this festival, volunteers participated in a karaoke show in front of the locals and at
the end, everyone attending took part in a raffle to win loaves of bread baked by a local
baker. I’m glad I had the chance to taste that special bread after one of my friends won aloaf.
The classes I attended at the Big Ai weren’t only theoretical, as I got to try out mostof the cultural elements that we learned about. I even participated in a cooking class where
I was taught how to cook ​oyakodon, a classic Japanese rice bowl dish. Most of the friends I
made in Japan were somehow connected to the Big Ai, whether they were teachers,
students or students’ friends. This led to me being invited to many other activities, likegoing to the birthplace of soy sauce (Yuasa), making my own plum wine, making a ​temariball, making traditional Japanese ribbons known as ​Kumihimo​, hiking trips, karaoke,
calligraphy and many more activities I never dreamed of doing. I was invited to a “gyozaparty” by one of my friends at the Wakayama Foreign Language College where I then met
many other foreigners who had come to Japan to study the language. Together, we madeindustrial quantities of ​sui gyoza​ and then ate them all while chatting.

13

Conclusion
Recommendations for Future Students
Whether Japan interests you because of the food, the music, the games, the shows,the technology or anything else, I would say the most important thing is to keep an open
mind and try as many new experiences as you can. Of course, learning some Japanese
before coming to Japan is very important as most people outside of the main cities can’t
speak English or aren’t comfortable enough to try. Speaking Japanese opens many doors toadventures that would otherwise be impossible. To fully experience life in Japan, I believe
you should make friends with the locals and share memories with them.
To the future interns at Taiyo, I recommend participating in as many of thecompany’s events as possible, as these are all enriching and very fun. These activities offer
opportunities to socialize and make friends! I have found my work here to be very fulfilling
because I put in a lot of effort to produce the best results that I could. To the future interns
heading to Wakayama in general, I recommend going to the Japanese language and cultureclasses I went to at the Big Ai, where you can always meet new people.

Reflections
Ever since I visited Japan in 2016, I had decided that one of my goals during myuniversity studies would be to land an internship in this country. After my year here, I cansay without a doubt that the three years of hard work leading up to this were well worth it.
Academically, I gained a lot of technical knowledge but more importantly, I gained a clearer
understanding of my final goals when coming back to Canada. As cliche as it may sound,
my experience in Japan and thus my exposure to a culture I was unfamiliar with has mademe grow and realize things about myself that I never knew.
My stay in Japan has been, through and through, the single most rewarding andworthwhile experience in my life. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to everyone
at the Canada-Japan Co-Op Program and Taiyo Industrial Co., LTD. for providing me withthis once in a lifetime opportunity and making this experience so memorable andenjoyable.