Regional Head of Manufacturing, Asia-Pacific
Syngenta Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd. (Singapore)
June 2021 – Present
Re-joined Syngenta to lead seven manufacturing sites across Asia Pacific (plus ~40 contract manufacturers). My teams’ size is >1,000 employees, with ten direct reports, covering manufacturing strategy, lean and continuous improvement, contract manufacturing and operational management of the sites (all site functions). Strong focus on EHS, quality, team development, manufacturing strategy, lean and continuous improvement, automation and digitalization.
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Director, Business Process Re-engineering, Asia Pacific
Sysmex Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd. (Singapore)
June 2019 – June 2021
Re-joined Sysmex to lead the preparation and implementation of SAP S4/HANA across Asia-Pacific as Project Manager with key focus on Business Process Re-engineering. Leading a team of Business Process Experts, collaborating closely with Business Process Owners, local and global project team members, a large team business consultants, and end-users.
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Vice President, Head of Medical Plant
B. Braun Medical Industries Sdn. Bhd. (Malaysia)
May 2016 – May 2019
B. Braun is a family owned business with an annual turnover of 7.8 billion USD and more than 62,000 employees globally (2018). B. Braun Medical Industries Sdn. Bhd. is the regional Asia Pacific HQ with about 7,500 employees at the Penang site.
Reporting to the Senior Vice President, Operations, and Head of Global Center of Excellence for Intravenous Access.
Responsible for leading the global manufacturing of intravenous catheters.
Leading a team of >2,000 employees in the areas of QA, QC, EHS, Planning (RM, SFG, FG), Assembly, Packing, Warehousing, Sterilization, Automation, Industrial Engineering, Equipment Engineering, Maintenance, MES system, Financial Controlling and Training.
Reduced customer complaints by 23% within a year, reduced material wastage by 15%, maintained manufacturing production cost flat for the last 3 years despite inflation, higher raw material costs and unfavourable exchange rates.
Strong emphasis to improve employee capabilities, especially multi-skilling for technical areas to improve manufacturing operations.
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Director of Operations, Asia Pacific
Sysmex Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd. (Singapore)
August 2014 – April 2016
Reporting to the President and CEO of Sysmex Asia Pacific Pte Ltd.
Responsible for leading operations of two factories (in Singapore and in India), including production, production planning and control, material planning and control, quality control, maintenance, health, safety and environment.
Responsible for leading regional supply chain departments in APAC countries, including supply planning, order processing, warehousing and transportation.
Main emphasis on solving people issues and changing the philosophy and mind-set of the employees in Operations.
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Manufacturing Manager, ASEAN
Syngenta Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd. (Singapore)
October 2012 – July 2014
Syngenta is the largest globally integrated crop protection, seeds production and seeds processing company (more than 29,300 full-time employees (with many more part-time employees, as this is a seasonal business); annual turnover of about 15 billion USD, NYSE listed as SYNN). Main competitors include Monsanto and Cargill (main focus on seeds production), Bayer and BASF (main focus on crop protection).
Reporting to the Head of Production, Asia Pacific.
Responsible for leading six manufacturing sites across ASEAN, of which three are chemical formulation, fill and pack sites: Bien Hoa (Vietnam), Bangpoo (Thailand), Gunung Putri (Indonesia), and three are seeds processing sites: Lopburi (Thailand), Pangasinan (Philippines) and Pasuruan (Indonesia).
Responsible for seven direct reports and 900 to 1,300 indirect reports (~350 full-time employees, plus 550 (low season) to 950 (peak season) contract workers).
Responsible for fixed costs budget of 18.5 million USD and turnover of 670 million USD. Major emphasis on preparing for growth with almost 100 million USD investment projects over five year period.
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Production Excellence and Projects Manager
Syngenta Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd. (Singapore)
April 2011 – September 2012
Reporting to the Head of Production, Asia Pacific.
Responsible for leading Lean and Six Sigma programs in the nine crop protection chemical production sites and the five seeds processing sites across APAC.
Leading multiple project teams on material efficiency increase programs, resulting in regional savings of more than 2,000,000 USD per year.
Leading several projects on change-over optimization (with SMED methodology), resulting in reduced change-over times and up to 10% increased capacity.
Leading efficiency improvement programs, resulting in increased OEE of around 5-10% for each line (up to 20% efficiency increase in exceptional cases).
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Operational Excellence Manager
Syngenta Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd. (Singapore)
April 2010 – April 2011
Reporting to the Head of Supply, Rest of Asia.
Responsible to lead improvements in chemical crop protection production sites in Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Korea, Pakistan, Thailand and Vietnam.
Designing and implementing regionally standardized production reporting system, which measures and improves OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness).
Coaching production sites on production improvement opportunities, resulting at some lines in 20% improvement (annual savings of 115,000 USD).
Supporting ~30 local improvement projects to improve cost structure, efficiency, floor-space utilization and improvements in terms of health, safety, environment and quality. Improvement projects saved ~380,000 USD per year and delivered non-tangible benefits, such as improved working conditions (due to working in the chemicals industry, HSEQ is important in retaining the license to operate).
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Regional Distribution Manager, APAC
Syngenta Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd. (Singapore)
2009 – April 2010
Reporting to the Hub-Operations Manager.
Responsible for optimizing regional distribution organization. Main focus was on the distribution network for secondary logistics and warehousing.
Leading a project to minimize distribution costs in Australia. Achieved annual savings of 570,000 USD by change from rail to sea transport (Melbourne-Perth).
Leading a project to increase space utilization in sea freight containers (thereby reducing costs) by using software (Cape Pack), which helps to optimize loading patterns, and which can be used to design packages for better space utilization. Annual savings across APAC in excess of 200,000 USD.
Leading warehouse network optimizations for Bangladesh and Pakistan, resulting in reduction of number of warehouses, costs and manpower. Annual savings of more than 100,000 USD.
Leading feasibility study for warehouse management system (WMS module in SAP) for Korea (warehouse space 13,000 m2, several thousand pallet locations).
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Manager, Operations Support
Pepperl+Fuchs (Mfg) Pte. Ltd. (Singapore)
2000 – 2008
The company is medium sized (>6,000 employees, annual turnover 700 million USD), privately owned, electronics production, headquartered in Germany. Singapore is the regional headquarter for Asia-Pacific, which is the largest manufacturing location worldwide, employing > 2,000 employees in Singapore, Indonesia and Vietnam.
Reporting to the Operations Director, leading a department responsible for the material, production and capacity planning, logistics, the administrative and the technical support of a production plant in Indonesia, employing 600 employees.
Responsible for the coordination and support of the start-up of the plant in Indonesia, and later for new production facilities in China, India and Brazil.
Responsible for the implementation of an ERP system in Indonesia, China, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia and Vietnam in the areas of inventory and logistics management, as well as distribution order planning.
Leading several warehouse and logistics re-organization projects related to the implementation of the ERP system, resulting in supply chain improvements.
Leading a project to identify the most suitable manufacturing location in South East Asia. This resulted in the start-up of our manufacturing plant in Vietnam.
Founding member and President of the Bintan Industrial Estate Investors Association, responsible for Profit & Loss and Balance Sheet of the organization, as well as for the founding and the administration of the Indonesian association.
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Project Manager
Pepperl+Fuchs (Mfg) Pte. Ltd. (Singapore)
1998 – 1999
Leading project team of ten, proactively coordinating with other project managers, responsible for the successful implementation of enterprise resource planning (ERP) software Movex (Intentia), now called M3 (Infor), within 18 months.
Responsible for analysing requirements, designing the process flows, setting the parameters, documenting the settings and processes, and providing user training.
Responsible for functional areas of Material Planning, Purchasing, Goods Receiving, Incoming Quality Control, Warehousing, Shipping and Logistics and coordinating settings with other teams (Production Planning, R&D, Sales, etc.)
Implementations for “Singapore Manufacturing” and “Singapore Sales” company.
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Assistant Project Manager
Pepperl+Fuchs (Mfg) Pte. Ltd. (Singapore)
1997 – 1998
Responsible for co-managing a complete business process re-engineering project for a manufacturing plant with more than 500 employees. Leading several project teams, each about five members, in the areas of Material Planning and Purchasing, Goods Receiving and Incoming Quality Control, Warehousing, Shipping and Logistics. After the successful completion of the project, promoted to Project Manager, responsible for the implementation of the new process flows into an ERP system.
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Dissertation Internship
Pepperl+Fuchs (Mfg) Pte. Ltd. (Singapore)
1996 – 1997
Dissertation “Redesigning the material management processes to achieve Just-In-Time”. The dissertation was laying the foundations for the business process re-engineering project and the process implementation in an ERP system.
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Business Management Internship
Heidelberg Printing Machines (Germany)
1995 – 1996
Business management-oriented internship with Financial Controlling department in global headquarters at Heidelberg. Learning about financial controlling and creating a data base for cost control of new development projects for printing machines.
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Mechanical Engineering Internship
Mercedes-Benz (Germany)
1994 – 1994
Mechanical engineering-oriented internship. Attached to many departments, such as materials science laboratory, quality assurance, metal pressing and stamping plant, engine and gear box assembly plant, spot welding plant, facilities and maintenance, paint shop, mould making and other departments, gaining knowledge and experience in one of the biggest German car manufacturers.
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Alternative Military Service
Red Cross Organization (Germany)
1991 – 1992
Ambulance driver and member of rescue team after attending first aid and advanced medical aid courses. Gained qualification to be member of professional rescue team.