PangToon Tan
Electrical and Electronic Engineering
School of Electrical & Electronic Engineering
Summary
Nearly 20-year career at West Pharmaceutical Services across different functions in General and PL Management, Strategy Development, Operations, Quality, Supply Chain, Customer Service, EHS, Technology Transfer, Engineering, Product Development and Registration aspects.
After working 30 over years in Electronics, Pharmaceutical Packaging and Medical Devices Component industries, I am now planning to venture into new arena that I can continue to engage, challenge the status quo, share my experience, use my skills to help others and contribute back to the community.
Featured Skills
Work Experience
Mentor Apr 2023 - Present
Singapore Leaders Network SingaporeVice President of Operations Asia Pacific (retired end 2022) Jan 2004 - Dec 2022
West Pharmaceutical Services Singapore SingaporeSr Manager Manufacturing Nov 1993 - Dec 2003
Adaptec Manufacturing Singapore SingaporeDevelopment Engineer Jul 1991 - Oct 1993
Tritech Microelectronics International SingaporeEducation
Certificate of Attendance - International Management (Business And Management) Nov 2017 - Dec 2017
INSEAD Asia Campus SingaporeExecutive MBA (Business Administration) Jan 1997 - Dec 1998
Golden Gate University United StatesBachelor of Engineering (Electrical Engineering) Jul 1987 - Apr 1991
National University of Singapore SingaporeOther Skills
Q&A with PangToon Tan
What are some personal projects or ideas you have worked on or are working on now?
I am now working towards to spend more time in social work and contribute back to the community I live in. I would like to share the experience as a career mentor, volunteer my skills with non-profit charitable organisations.
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- Posted 1 year ago
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Describe a project or idea (not necessarily your own) that was implemented primarily because of your efforts.
Instead, I would like to share a project scope in a developing country was being changed due to my effort.
Based on the vision, business operating target and guidelines - I realised that the organization was investing too much in the project and would have very high chance of not able to meet the project business objective and profitability. As usual, conflicting opinions always exist.The local team was very excited with the local market size but they were not fully understood the business operating model and principle of an advanced organization in a developed country. I had to bridge the gap of understanding through numerous discussions with data, visits, references, etc - and finally the project scope was changed. With the change, the project was executed successfully and meet the objectives - referencing and comparing with another similar project with a larger scope which failed to meet the target and objective.
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- Posted 1 year ago
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Describe a time when you anticipated potential problems and developed preventive measures.
Risk analysis is key to identify potential problems, and that will lead to developing preventive measures as well as alternatives.
One example was the strategy to startup a green field construction and operations in India. There were many aspects to worry from recruitment, managing the project - timeline and budget, legal and regulatory, customer acceptance, etc.
While I could write many things related to this project, I would like to share something we did - that we hired a team from the target location that consists of all functions from managerial, supply chain, engineering, production and quality - and brought them to work in Singapore to learn about the products and processes, but more importantly the culture, policies and expectation. We could always build the best facilities with experts and consultants, however the success of the startup and continued operations is building upon a strong team that understand the expectations and embrace the culture.
With this plan, the project was well executed - on time and on budget, receiving customers acceptance, perfect safety record and turning to profitability in the second year of operations.
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- Posted 1 year ago
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How do you attempt to overcome your lack of knowledge in particular areas?
No one is the expert in all areas. One of the most important thing as a leader - is to build a team that can compliment each other knowledge and skills. Its also perfectly alright to seek help and advice from the experts. Last but not least, its an opportunity to research and learn more about new things.
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- Posted 1 year ago
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What achievements in your career are you most proud of?
I recruited, developed, motivated, and led a strong regional team to expand the operation in Singapore and started up operations in China and India, supporting and growing the business from $30M to $300M over the past 15 years.
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- Posted 1 year ago
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Describe a time when you were able to effectively communicate a difficult or unpleasant idea to a superior or a client.
One of the incident during my role as the site director was an intermix of 2 raw materials which are 99.9% similar and has no functional difference except the anti-oxidants used are different. Nevertheless, this is absolutely not acceptable in the pharmaceutical and healthcare industry. My focus was to lead the team to immediately understand what/where/when/how it happened and the containment action, as well as informing my superior and the affected customers. Daily communication and discussion was setup with the headquarters to ensure the stakeholders received the necessary update, and the local site got the necessary support such as legal and regulatory, etc. There were many difficult discussions where people tend to ask on who made the mistakes - but we need to bring the focus back on root cause analysis, open communication with data to support, and immediate containment action to eliminate or minimise the adverse effects to the end users and customers. While no-one was happy with this incident - the open, quick, frequent systematic communications with the stakeholders had won their confidence and recognition of the team capability and integrity.
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- Posted 1 year ago
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What excites you about the industry you are in?
The pharmaceutical and healthcare industry I am in the last 20 years - emphasises the paramount importance of the safety of patients as well as the employees. Everything we do is about improving the patients care and the quality of their life, and ensuring the employees going home safely everyday!
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- Posted 1 year ago
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What are some mistakes that you have made in your career? How did you deal with it and what have you learned from them?
I did not openly and explicitly letting my manager and the organization know about my ambitions, and did not raise my hand to ask for projects and opportunities. Hence, I missed out in the early part of my career. One of my mentor knew about it and advised me to tell and ask for opportunities openly.
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- Posted 1 year ago
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