從台灣的台積電，到世界的台積電

【縛雞之見】英文請拷到 Google / DeepL 找中文翻譯
Just like the globalization of religions or corporations, TSMC faces cultural shock amid the new factory in Arizona.  A local employee of TSMC Arizona who is receiving tense training in Taiwan posts his comment on the culture of TSMC, which includes overtime working and lengthy meetings.
TSMC managers will defend its traditional pattern.  After all, it has earned tremendous achievements in terms of IC foundry.  However, can the model work more effectively elsewhere than Taiwan?  It needs to find in from local employees. 
While most Taiwanese think TSMC is a company of western genes, the American employees see it as another Japanese corporation, in which loyalty comes first.
Maybe it signifies what Taiwan looks like in people's eyes.

來台受訓的台積電美國設備工程師心   FB 20211031

優點

可以到台灣受訓，可以在全球數一數二重要的且完全不同於美國文化的公司裡工作。我也學到了不少實用的技能，有利於我未來轉職。然而並不意外的是，台灣與美國的工作文化、學習/教學風格以及對其他許多事物的期待等等，還真的是不太一樣。我的 buddy (trainer) 只看到我的其中一面，而我想我對他也是如此。雖然有些落差，但還是可以努力改進的。

Was able to train in Taiwan, work for one of the most important companies on the planet that no one knows about, be exposed to culture outside the US, am being given skills I can take to lot's of desirable positions in the future. There are incompatibilities between work culture, learning/teaching style and other expectations from the US to Taiwan. This is to be expected. My trainer I think has definitely met me part way, and I believe I can say I have done the same. There's still a gap, but this can be worked on.

缺點

台灣的職場文化真的跟美國很不一樣。我確定台積電未來一定會將工時調整為每週五天且每天八小時，或是像其他晶圓代工廠那樣，上三天休四天，接著再上四天上三天之類的輪班方式。因為現在台灣這裡一天工時至少 10 小時，實際上大概可能到 12 小時，我說的還都是針對我們這些之後要回 Arizona 的美國人遇到的情況。至於對這裡的台灣人來說，他們的工時幾乎每天都超過 12 小時。此外也有夜班以及周末輪班還有平時也得值班(on call)等等，不過這其實可理解畢竟 Fab 是 24 小時都在跑。

The work culture in Taiwan is really different than in the US. I am sure TSMC will have to change to an 8 hour work day five days a week or do what other companies do with Fabs and run three days on, four days off, four days on, three days off rotations. As it is right now in Taiwan The minimum amount of time at the company is 10 hours a day, but realistically is running up to even 12 hours a day. This is for those of us who are American training to go back to the new operation in Arizona. The reality for people from Taiwan is that they are doing even more than 12 hour days often. There's also the night shifts and weekend shifts on duty and/or on call. That last part is understandable as the fab lives 24/7.

在這裡受訓的感覺跟好壞真的跟是誰帶你很有關係。雖然我遇到的事情有點雜亂，但基本上都不算太意外。我有想到一些方法去改善學習新設備與每天的工作，但坦白說我不知道這真的有用嗎？

The training in this experience really depends on one person who is your "trainer". My experience has lacked any structure, but had no shortage of expectations. I came up with some process to approach learning new equipment and daily tasks, but to be honest don't know that I've arrived yet.

感覺台積電並不重視所謂的個人自由。公司提供我們這些從美國來受訓的員工宿舍住，但有超多規矩要遵守的，像是還有門禁，超過一定時間就不能有訪客。如果你當初選長期住宿，那就會住得比較遠，會多花不少時間在通勤。

TSMC doesn't seem to enshrine a sense of individual freedom. The company provides housing for those of us training from the states, but has very much micromanaged everything we do in our living arrangement. There's a curfew with no guests allowed for example. And the long term housing adds another hand hour commute.

對管理層的建議

台積用的軟體實在是太老舊了。當然我相信台積不會是唯一一間這樣的公司，因為製造業並不像是軟體業那樣有著強烈的動機去改善軟體，讓所有程式都變得很好用。人們會喜歡那些簡單且有美感的軟體並不是沒道理的。雖然大公司不見得會想要把軟體做好，但至少可以做出一些有最基本功能且至少有那麼一點點美感的使用者介面，讓使用者可以有效的使用這些軟體以節省大家的上班時間、提升工作效率。甚至台積可以藉此擁有自己內部的軟體開發團隊，如果有的話那真的可以省下非常多員工的加班費。台積裡面的軟體有超多都是不必要的，一堆功能都相互重疊到。台積電應該要把那些用在不同任務上的軟體都縮減一下，設法過濾篩選出那些可以重複使用的軟體功能，然後整合成一個簡單的大家都能使用的單一軟體。

The software used by TSMC is dated. Of course TSMC may not be alone in this as industry doesn't have the same motivation in software decisions as the consumer driven market has, which results in amazingly optimized applications. The apps people know and love meet a minimalist and aesthetic criteria for a reason. Big companies don't have the motivation but minimalist software with an aesthetic UI makes people more efficient at what they're doing and can save the company time. TSMC could even justify having its own internal software development team, and it would save massive amounts of money in people's time. A lot of software at TSMC also seems to be repetitive. TSMC should reduce the amount of software it has for different tasks, find functions that are repeated across applications and reduce to a common application.

我加入台積的理由就跟我想當一名工程師的理由是完全一樣的。我想要做一些我有熱情且能長期改善人們生活品質的事情。半導體是非常神奇的東西，從過去到現在，半導體都一直在改善我們人類的生活。但很不幸的是，台積電對世界的影響似乎跟它真正帶給員工的並不一樣。台積電這樣的公司的支出其實只有非常非常小一部分是真的用在員工身上的，大部分的錢都是用在維修設備裝機以及那些實驗晶圓等等。台積一定是可以增加找到更多的員工來幫大家分擔工作，以讓每個員工可以回家，並且有符合常理的時間陪伴家人，同時也保有不錯的福利。我認為台積電至少得在 Arizona 廠做到這點，不然台積電在招募人才方面怎麼可能贏得了就在附近的 Intel 呢？

I joined TSMC for the same reason I became an engineer. I want to do something I'm passionate about and improve peoples lives in a lasting way. Semiconductors are a magic bullet that have changed and are changing our quality of life and the way we live. Unfortunately it seems TSMC doesn't enable the same outcome for many of its employees as the technology enables for the planet. The percentage of the budget going to pay employees at a company like TSMC is small compared to the cost of a fab, the equipment it houses, defective product and other issues. There's no reason TSMC can't increase the number of employees it has to allow people to go home to their families at a reasonable time each day and give them good benefits. I think TSMC might at least approach this in Arizona as it has to compete to retain and attract talent against companies like Intel right across the street.

每天真的花太多時間在開會。早會就是 review 昨晚或是昨天的工作，下午就是開會 review 整天的工作。一天下來很容易就花超過三小時再開會。我覺得只要軟體功能好一點就真的不用開這麼多的會了。我非常相信有一堆會議都可以"被自動化"。上一位碰這位機台的工程師直接記錄機台狀況跟調整過的東西，然後留下自己的建議。主管可以允許或是略過這些建議，接著下一班的工程師就只要看他們負責的機台，然後做他被賦予的工作，解決可能存在的假設問題。唯一真的需要花三小時監督這件事情的人就只有需要核准操作或是請工程師來做事的主管本人，有需要的話則是自己介入動手來做。其餘的員工就可以花 5-10 分鐘報告跟他們真的有關係的事情。台積可以用軟體把這一切自動化。這也可以解決高工時的問題。坦白說在台積電上班的台灣人真的沒有比每天只上八小時班的美國人還要有效率，大多人都把時間浪費在那些毫無實質意義的工作上面。

Too much time is spent in meetings to review the work from the last night/day in the morning, and to review what was done during the day again in the afternoon. These meetings add up to three hours in a day easily. That's a lot of the work day. Some of the solution may be in software. I truly believe most of these meetings could be automated. The engineer who last worked with the equipment would record tool status and changes, and makes recommendations. The manager gives approval to any recommendation or overrides, and the engineer coming into the next shift only looks at the tools they've been assigned to on this "hypothetical" application. The only person it makes sense to have three hours looking at this stuff is the manager who would have to make approval, hold engineers accountable or interject if need be. The rest of the staff should be able to cover the material that actually relates to them on their own in five to ten minutes. TSMC could automate this through software. This could also solve some of the issue with the long work days. People in TSMC Taiwan honestly are not being more productive than Americans on an eight hour work day. But tasks which don't contribute to what actually needs to be done in an efficient way suck up the employees time.

台積電用來培訓員工的 "e-learning" 系統超爛的，根本就該直接把它砍了。我認真覺得台積電應該要做對整體員工作匿名調查，而且要特別對來這受訓的美國人做匿名調查看看大家對這 "e-learning" 系統的使用心得是如何。因為這系統還有一堆中翻英的問題，這讓整個受訓變得更爛了。如果這調查真的是匿名的，那麼大家很可能會坦白說他們從來沒有在 "e-learning" 學到任何東西，他們只是在上面浪費了一堆可以用來學製程的寶貴時間。

The "e-learning" system TSMC uses to teach new employees is terrible and needs to be abandoned. I would seriously recommend TSMC to provide an anonymous survey to the entire company, but also specifically to the American hires as there are additional translation issues from Chinese which make the learning even worse. Chances are high that if the survey is actually anonymous people will confess they haven't learned anything from the e-learning, and it just wasted time they needed to learn their process.