AN INSIDE LOOK: BESI APAC - HENK - JAN JONGE POERINK BE Semiconductor Industries N.V. (Besi) is a global company with its headquarters in Duiven, the Netherlands. It operates seven facilities for production and development activities, as well as eight sales and service offices across Europe, Asia, and North America. Besi is engaged in one line of business: the development, manufacturing, marketing, sales and service of semiconductor assembly equipment for the global semiconductor and electronics industries. Here in Malaysia, Besi APac, located in Shah Alam, is headed by Henk - Jan Jonge Poerink (Senior Vice President Global Operations & Managing Director, Besi APac). A graduate of University of Twente in the Netherlands with a Masters in Mechanical Engineering, Henk - Jan has now been with Besi for over 5 years. MDBC: Besi has an extensive presence throughout Asia and Europe. Could you share with us some of the differences between the Chinese and Malaysian operations? HJJP: Throughout the years, Besi has successfully acquired several companies originally based in Switzerland, Austria, USA and the Netherlands with their own unique operational style, identity, background and culture. The operations in the European sites were later on shifted to Asia and consequently, the Asian operational culture was blended in.
Despite different origins across the world, Besi is a global company that emphasizes strictly on the standardization and we portray ourselves with a single identity and image to our stakeholders. This is achieved through the utilization of the state-of-theart ERP tools such as SAP and IBM Lotus Notes in all sites that enables a common working database for activities like knowledge transfer, supply chain management, engineering change control, work instructions, production planning, etc. In terms of internal key process flows, it is a one to one ‘copy exact’ for both Asian operation sites coupled with the ISO 9001 compliances. In summary, there are no significant differences between the Chinese and Malaysian operations and key processes apart from the logistic aspect that the individual site is definitely closer to the respective customers located either in South East Asia and the Far East to provide a faster and efficient service. MDBC: Besi selected Malaysia as its first foreign production base. Can you share some of the history of Besi in Malaysia, reasons for selecting Malaysia at that time and your advice for other Dutch manufacturing companies who are currently considering Malaysia as a base of operations? HJJP: Fico Malaysia was setup in 1982 as a sales and service hub in Petaling Jaya to serve some of our main customers that opened several operational sites across
Malaysia. It grew gradually into a spares manufacturing facility in Shah Alam in 1991 and 10 years later, Fico Malaysia achieved ISO 9001 and 14001 certifications and began manufacturing machine modules for Fico Netherlands.
Top: Henk Jan Jonge Poerink Middle left to right: A selection of Besi machines available for a variety of functions. Bottom left: The Besi APac Headquarters located in Shah Alam Bottom Right (next page): Team picture of Besi APac at the completion of the first 88oo TC Machine
American businessman, Jim Rogers once said “If you were smart in 1807 you moved to London, if you were smart in 1907 you moved to New York City, and if you are smart in 2007 you move to Asia.” Besi has done precisely that! Equipment assembly was transferred from Fico Netherlands, Datacon Austria, Esec Switzerland, 20
MDBCONNECTS 3RD ISSUE 2015