The Sika Experience

CHEERS TO ALL FOR SUCH A WONDERFUL EXPERIENCE !!!

And the Sika experience for 2013 has ended. What a great opportunity it has been to attend on such program. Not only did we learn a great deal about Sika’s Business processes and product range in China and Australia, but we developed great friendships with people from across the world. It was a pleasure spending time with the chinese student in completing such program.

In completing such experience my knowledge of what Sika does has broadened greatly. I have developed a great understanding of Sika’s product range and hope to personally utilise them in future endevours i wish to pursue.

I would like to thank the Sika Managment Team for allowing such program to occur as it has been a life thrilling experience.

Cheers,

Abraham Khoury

Sun is still shining brilliantly, sky is still so pure and blue, air is still so clean and clear. Everything is as usual in Parramatta, Sydney. But for all the students, this day(Mar.7th,2013) is unusual and a bit emotional, because this is the return day for all Chinese students, it also means the last day for the unforgetable Sika Experience 2013 – China & Australia. 3 students will take 10 hours flight back to China, back to their normal life… while the other 3 Australia students have already been back to campus yesterday.

Morning glimpse from hotel room

After arriving Sydney International Airport, 3 Chinese students took the waiting time to write down the feedback, essay draft…

YUAN Jin was writing down the feedback for this Experience trip

NIU Lin was thinking and composing the essay draft as a team leader

YIN Bo was doing his part as well…

Great, guys! Keep blogging… Looking forward to more stories to be told by you about Sika Experience from your eyes and mouths… be Sika’s volunteer branding ambassodor to the public!

We have just finished the Sika experience 2013 and I am so happy that I was a part of this. I believe it will help me very much in my business and academic life as well as personal life when I may use one the Sika’s DIY products in my flat. I would like to appreciate all organizers, specially Zoe and Jenny from Sika Australia and  Maryanne and April form Sika China.

This is the last night before we fly back to China. Compared the excitement of just arriving at Sydney, there are more thankful mood in my heart. Looking back the 5 days in Australia, I find that so many friends involved in our experience activities and gave enthusiastic help, e.g. carrying us to the visitiing sites, bringing us to dinner, as well as introducing the valuable details of Sika to us.

Especially today we were taken to have “Guangdong type tea” in fish market and never imagined that I could eat so authentic Chinese food in a foreign country. This afternoon, incredibly even Mohammedreza’s supervisor appeared and explained the equipment & projects of UTS to us in details. I really appreciate that because I undertand how busy the managers and tutors would be in working days and they also chose to share the valuabletime with us.

Also to the Australian friends, these days will be remembered all through my lifetime. I’ll miss you, friends in Sydney and Sydney !

It is the last day we stay inAustralia. We will fly toChinatomorrow. It is hard and sad to say goodbye .

We paid a visit to UTS.It is a beatiful campus.And a wonderful professer showed labs to us.

And finally it is time to say byebye.

Thanks a lot to Sika which provide us such wonderful and unforgettable journy. Thank you Maryanne April and Jenny. During this trip I learned a lot about Sika. I found that Sika is everywhere and Sika spirit is everywhere .—-innovation and sustainability. Even if the trip is over but I know that our friendship with Sika company will last forever.

Thank you Sika.

Thank you Australia.

We will fly back to china tomorrow, so I think today is the last day for our experience, actually, and we have already said goodbye to the AUS friends, sometimes it is so hard to say goodbye in especial that we have such a nice and wonderful trip together for 2 weeks. Thanks to sika very much to give us this chance to meet some friends, to learn some new knowledge, to experience some different culture, I am very lucky to join this project and heartily wish that sika experience will going on better and better!

And I also wanted to say thanks to everyone who helped us and contribute to this experience, everyone did a good job to make such a successful trip!

Today, we have been introduced even more to the Sika products range and their applications. We have visited Sika’s laboratories, admixtures production line and the main warehouse in Sydney. In the afternoon, we went for a site visit to one the Sika’s flooring projects. Same as all previous days in China and also yesterday in Sydney, I found today very interesting for myself. In the evening, we all had our last dinner together in a very cozy restaurant in Parramatta.

I am sure I will miss these days very much!

Today we had the opportunity to go on a site visit and discover Sika’s involvement in roof waterproofing. I had the opportunity to witness a new waterproofing product being applied onto a roof-top of a local council building. The product “Sikalastic”, is a newly developed solution for achieving waterproof tightness. It is simply applied through the use of a roll-on brush roller, or through the use of paint brushes in congested areas. In essence, one is painting on the product to the surface to be waterproofed.

Initially the product is diluted with a small amount of water to complete the first coat. A second coat is applied in an undiluted state.Reinforcement textile is then laid over whilst the surface is damp. Immediately following the laying of the reinforcement texile, a third application of the product is applied to bond the textile. The reinfocement allows for expansion to occur in the waterproofing surface. As such this inhibits the promotion of cracks in the waterproofing layer. If tiles are to be layed over a suface covered with Sikalastic product, the reinforcement textile may not need to be applied.

Application of the Sikalastic product range is much quicker than that Sarnafil product range demonstrated to us in China. Also, the cost of applicaion is much cheaper than the Sarnafil waterproofing product.As such, I beleive the waterproofing measures utilised in Australia provide greater competitive advantages to members of industry.Such product would be a more appealing alternative to customers.

I believe such site visit today greatly broadened my understanding of waterproofing measures utilised on roof-tops.

Today I am still experiencing some difference between china and Australia companies and learning new konwledge about construct technology from sika, and this may be one of the purposes of our trips here, and may be the main topic today is the laboratory, the machines and equipment are so different I think between these two countries, for example, the shape of the bottle to make examples is cylinder here, and we could see that every worker working with happiness and music which is much more different from Chinese factory, may be the reason is that foreigners like their job very much and enjoy to do it.

I am very interested in the topic that we learned this afternoon about the bridge fixing and I think this is good new direction for sika and a good innovation for technology, and it will be a new grown point for the business because I had never heard about such a completely and well process to rebuild a bridge and the fibers products impressed me a lot for the structural strengthening. I will learn more on this topic after get back to university.

Hope the innovative sika will have a bright future.

Today it is the second day we visit Australian Sika . Mr Pedram gave us an vivid introduction to technology department .

During this introduction Mr Pedram stressed the importance of sustainability which contained economy and social. Besides that there is another impressive detail. He mentioned that even when you use a credit card you can find the brand of Sika. It is amazing. It proves that Sika is everywhere. Do you know what they actually do? It is reducing carbon footprint, low VOC or VOC-free, green roofs and LCA of roofing. There is no doubt that Sika Australia pay more attention to green roofs than Sika China. Maybe that is the police which forms this phenomenon.

After that we went to concrete labs. They are almost the same in China. However, Australian’s are much more tidy than us. In the afternoon we paid a field visit. As usual workers are limited and we found that the roof is very flat even if it is very large.