S'pore unit makes 95% of global leader's products

Singapore

CONSTANT innovation is the key to the success of Sciex, the global leader in mass spectrometry. The billion-dollar firm supplies over 30 per cent of the world's market for mass spectrometers.

And 95 per cent of its global products are manufactured in Singapore, at its 90,000 square foot facility here which incorporates advanced manufacturing technologies like predictive maintenance.

It employs over 400 highly qualified staff in manufacturing, global research and development (R&D) as well as customer-facing facilities in Singapore, which is also its Asia-Pacific headquarters.

Maha Guruswamy, Sciex's vice- president and general manager for the Asia-Pacific region, told The Business Times that the Republic's good talent pipeline was the reason the company chose to set up in Singapore in 2006. It was the first company to bring a mass spectrometer manufacturing plant here.

Ever since Sciex was bought by US-based Fortune 500 science and technology innovator Danaher Corporation in 2010, Sciex has made innovation its culture.

Mr Guruswamy said that every product is created and innovated with the customer in mind, such as moving from providing just hardware to providing integrated and cloud-based solutions under one roof.

He said: "One of the biggest changes in the market trend is that customers used to buy the instruments to do research. Now the customers' mindset is more towards solutions . . . and ours is an end-to-end solution."

Continual improvement is employed in its plant here, which has bagged the award for best manufacturing plant globally within its parent company for the past three consecutive years, said Mr Guruswamy.

"We keep improving continuously, year after year. So it keeps going down in terms of errors, and keeps increasing in terms of quality."

Sciex, which was founded in 1970, has more than 500 associates spread across six continents.

Indeed, the company is ahead of the curve, registering many firsts - it was the first to introduce mass spectrometry for commercial use by industries to do research, launching its first commercial manufacturing of mass spectrometers in 1981.

It was also the first company in the world to introduce tandem mass spectrometry technology and also the first to offer integrated solutions.

The company is now eyeing future trends such as clinical diagnostics and precision medicine, on top of its traditional growth areas of pharmaceuticals and food testing.

Said Mr Guruswamy: "The industry is looking up very well in Singapore and in the Asia-Pacific.

"We are putting our strategies together in new segments like precision medicine to address the needs of the customers in terms of newer technology platforms and end-to-end integrated solutions."

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