SINGAPORE: It was all chemistry.

That’s how Ms Jamie Neo had her start in engineering with globally renown technology stalwart HP about 26 years ago.

The 51-year-old product engineer and section manager for HP’s smart manufacturing told Channel NewsAsia in a recent interview that she had graduated with a Masters in Chemistry from the National University of Singapore (NUS) when she applied to join the tech company well known for its PCs and printers.

It worked. She got a job at HP’s wafer fabrication plant in Singapore, which dealt a lot with chemical compounds, and involved more multidisciplinary aspects. “I was kind of surprised they took me in,” Ms Neo admitted, given that her background was in chemistry and not engineering.

This was in 1991, and she has been in her first and only job ever since. In the more than two decades there, she has worked in a variety of roles from failure analyst engineer and quality assurance to product engineering and now manufacturing.

But it was not without incident.

Ms Neo recounted that when she first joined, she was the only female engineer at the company; another female engineer had left before she started. What’s more, her colleagues mistook her for an administrative staff when she started work, as they had been waiting on the latter to get started.

Beyond the initial hiccup, though, Ms Neo was keen to stress that gender stereotypes was not an issue at HP. In fact, “talent and performance” were given priority over other considerations and, “if people have good ideas, there’ll be someone who listens”, regardless if they are men and women, she said – a refreshing counterpoint to the regular reports of sexism and gender inequality today.

SUPPORTIVE FAMILY

Her achievements at work will not be possible without the support from her family, though.

Ms Neo said that she came from a “humble family”, and her father was a bus driver when she was growing up. But that didn’t stop him, or her mother, from encouraging her and her five other siblings to pursue their dreams.

“He would tell me: ‘The future lies in your hands’,” she shared.

The engineer was also given a helping hand by her father’s company, then known as SBS, as it awarded her scholarships to study at NUS, which helped pay for her school fees, she said.

Today, the mother-of-three continues to be inspired by her own family.

Ms Neo shared that one of her sons is a computer science undergraduate studying in London, and through their conversations, she gets “lots of ideas”.

One of these led to her introducing a Raspberry Pi challenge held across the Singapore office last year, which received “enthusiastic” response from her colleagues. Groups were formed to see how they can use the mini computer to improve workplace conditions, such as a real-time booking system for meeting rooms, she said. 

BEING INQUISITIVE HAS ITS PERKS

The HP executive shared that her sense of inquisitiveness and keen observation, which put her in good stead during her undergraduate years, also served her well in the initial HP years.

“When I was at NUS, there were practical tests, and I was particularly drawn to Organic Chemistry. We were given an unidentified compound, and asked to identify it,” she recounted. “I was usually one of the first to do so.”

Ms Neo said these traits proved handy when she was a failure analyst engineer.

“It was like a crime scene investigation,” Ms Neo shared, her passion animating her features. She was able to observe the processes to see why the quality of a product has dropped, for example, and pinpoint the areas for improvement – “like forensic investigation”, she said.

“The key is in asking the right questions,” she said.

More recently, she put these skills to work when she was doing business insights for HP’s manufacturing business, and figuring out ways to use the large amounts of data collected but not analysed.

For example, through the telemetry data collected by individual printers, she was able to discern how consumers were using their printers and ink cartridges. With that insight, she is able to segment the customer base and predictively forecast the amount and type of ink cartridges to produce at any given time.

Armed with this ability to analyse previously unused data, Ms Neo turned her brainchild into reality with the creation of HP’s Smart Manufacturing Application and Research Center (SMARC), which was opened on Wednesday (Dec 13).

Done in collaboration with Singapore’s Economic Development Board, the HP engineer said she hopes the laboratory-like facility will help “drive at least 20 per cent in efficiency” across various areas of manufacturing in the organisation.

She also hopes that with the new technology used at SMARC, such as 3D printing, robotics, data analytics and eventually machine learning, this would entice young engineers – whether male or female – to join a “traditional” industry like manufacturing.

As for her, the longtime HP engineer remains as passionate about her work as when she joined 26 years ago.

“As long as I still feel valued and I can still contribute, I’m happy to stay,” Ms Neo said.  

SINGAPORE: In the first 10 months of this year, about 600 Singaporeans turned up at the Tuas and Woodlands checkpoints either with a wrong passport, or without a passport.

While it may be a mistake, these travellers will be subjected to a thorough security check, causing a hold-up and inconvenience to other travellers, the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) said on Wednesday (Dec 13).

“After conducting our checks on him, we have to turn him back because we cannot allow him to depart. Because the land checkpoint is a restricted area, we need resources to escort him out,” said Superintendent Muhammad Nagib Ali, senior assistant commander at Tuas Checkpoint.

While the number is not big and a slight drop from the 622 in 2015, ICA said that these avoidable cases have the potential to lead to congestion, and require manpower.

About 3,000 foreigners also tried to enter Singapore with expired, invalid travel documents or no documents at all. 

ICA gave these figures during a media briefing at Tuas Checkpoint to give a glimpse into what is being done to manage checkpoint operations during the year-end peak period.

BRACING FOR INCREASED TRAFFIC

Traffic flow through the Woodlands and Tuas Checkpoints is expected to be heavy from Dec 22 to 26 and Dec 29 to Jan 1 next year, ICA said.

During the year-end period, about 430,000 travellers use the land checkpoints, an 8 per cent increase from the regular 400,000 travellers who use the checkpoints daily.

In order to improve the flow of traffic, ICA said it monitors real-time traffic to open up an appropriate number of lanes for the different modes of transport. On the roads are also officers to ensure that there is no “ballooning” caused by motorcyclists who try to cut the queues by coming in from the outer lanes.

Such ballooning can cause a jam as the motorcycles can potentially take up all lanes, preventing cars and buses from passing through.

ICA officers also put in up to 14 hours a day to handle the traffic that gets heavy as early as 5am. The authority also leverages on technology to ease the flow, with 164 automated clearance lanes in total at both checkpoints for motorcyclists. These counters speed up motorcycle clearance by up to 30 per cent, ICA said.

However, as much depends on motorists’ behaviour, Supt Nagib appealed to motorists to observe lane discipline.

SECURITY NOT COMPROMISED DESPITE HEAVIER TRAFFIC

Despite the heavier traffic, ICA said that security will not be compromised, as it brought the media on a tour of the security checks that are conducted.

At every stage of the immigration clearance process, officers identify travellers who may be smuggling contraband items and acting suspiciously.

Those who are suspected of carrying security-sensitive items such as arms and explosives are referred for more thorough checks.

From January to October this year, about 36,000 contraband cases were detected at land checkpoints. These cases, 118 on average a day, mostly involved the smuggling of cigarettes and drugs through methods like strapping the items onto the body, and concealing them in modified compartments.

As Tuas Checkpoint is the only one that allows the transportation of poultry and hazardous materials, cargo is also checked for chemical, biological, radiological and explosive materials, and potential viruses in the case of poultry.

“This is important because these substances can be used for self-made bombs or malicious intent, and cause damage in Singapore,” Supt Nagib said.