Working up the value chain
Wong Fong Engineering wants to go from integrating systems built by others to developing products under its own brand name.
Mindy Tan
HEADING into its sixth decade, Wong Fong Engineering hit what one might call its mid-life crisis. Hampered by a triple whammy of an aging workforce, land and labour constraints, brothers Liew Chern Yean and Eric Lew - the second generation in the family business still headed by their father and uncle - pushed for a rejuvenation and reinvention of the business.
Mr Liew, the older of the two, is the chief technical officer at Wong Fong and handles the engineering projects; Mr Lew, a director, handles the research and development (R&D) and the marketing, and is also the executive director of the two-year-old Wong Fong Research & Innovation Centre (WFRIC).
The changes that the brothers have so far wrought have not happened overnight.
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