Initiative expanded F&B worker's role, helped him get promoted

Tech worker Francis Pang started out in food and beverage firm SouperFoods in 2011, maintaining in-house applications and the firm's network infrastructure, but a new scheme has helped him expand that role significantly.

Being part of the Industry 4.0 Human Capital Initiative allowed him to broaden his job scope, which now involves tracking production activities and even collecting data from Internet of Things devices.

Mr Pang, 50, also helps to visualise the collected data so that department managers and supervisors can make informed decisions.

The initiative helps firms adopt Industry 4.0 solutions while redesigning job roles and upskilling staff.

Thanks to his expanded role, Mr Pang was promoted to assistant director of the IT department.

He said: "I come from an engineering background, so I did not face many challenges in learning the hardware part of the Industry 4.0 solutions."

But other parts of the programme, like working with the Internet of Things solution provider to extract real-time data from machines, required more work, he added.

During the eight-week training period, Mr Pang and his co-workers collaborated with experts from consulting firms McKinsey & Company and EY.

"We identified production bottlenecks and subsequently trialled a system to digitalise the recording of production data," he said.

"With this, the production manager can track ongoing and completed orders through a dashboard in real time, and that frees up his time to prioritise orders and maximise productivity."

But Mr Pang's learning did not stop there. On his own, he joined upskilling programmes, such as a specialist diploma in data science that he completed earlier this year. He is also pursuing a specialist diploma in big data.

"As we expect more data to be collected from Internet of Things devices and external data sources, I hope to pick up new skills in the areas of data security and cloud solutions," he added.