Managing Malaysia’s first EMC lab

Faces of Industrial Penang
This special series looks at local talents behind industrial Penang. From CEOs to strategists, managers to engineers, technicians to operators, and academicians to support services staff, it explores the passion and drive of these individuals, be they contributing to a greater Penang or living out their dreams in their beloved home state.

This month, we feature Chee Lay Heng and his team of high technology experts who left the employment of some of the largest industrial companies in Penang to manage Malaysia’s first and largest public-private Electromagnetic Compliance (EMC) Lab located at the Penang Skills Development Centre (PSDC). Armed with 17 years of experience, Chee formed Cisspr Sdn Bhd (CISSPR) in 2010, a premier test services and solutions provider in Malaysia. CISSPR is a young high technology start-up seeded for its first year of operations by the PSDC, and hopes to be a beacon for aspiring technopreneurs.

By Poh Heem Heem

Would you call yourself a technopreneur?
Yes. A technopreneur is a combination of an entrepreneur + technician. That’s me.

What did it take for you to decide to head the EMC Lab at the PSDC?
Three things – the timing, the promise of new frontiers and passion.

How often can I expect a huge opportunity to challenge myself in the field of my expertise and area of passion? To start up and manage the largest state-of-the-art EMC testing facility in Malaysia from scratch and turn it into an internationally recognised and accredited lab so close to home was a dream come true.

I am a Star Trek fan. I believe in new frontiers and I love to explore, seek and boldly go where no one has gone before! I also like to build, grow and motivate new teams.

With the exponential growth of electronics, wireless technology and high speed data, the field of electromagnetic compatibility is huge and increasingly complex. EMC is the study of the interaction of electromagnetic and radio frequency waves generated by electronics. To work with the PSDC to make this technology more accessible to local players is my inspiration.

How long have you wanted to do this?
For the last 10 years, I have been toying with the idea of doing something on my own. This is an opportunity that knocks only once, and the PSDC’s seed funding was vital. We need more venture capitalists. I feel that if more seed funding were available, there would be a lot more technopreneurs in Malaysia and we would be looking at a very robust ecosystem of local and multinational entities.

What is the nature of the relationship between CISSPR, the PSDC and the industry?
The PSDC-CISSPR partnership fits nicely with the PSDC tripartite model. CISSPR provides industry input; PSDC provides the seed funding and the federal government provides capital funding for the infrastructure.

Can you share the team dynamics and competency matrix of the CISSPR Team that manages the EMC Lab?
We have six personnel in CISSPR– a lab manager, a test engineer and four test specialists. As the lab manager, I am responsible for the lab, ensuring that quality standards are consistently maintained and that accreditation timelines are met, and working with the PSDC to build a customer base. The test engineer is the “User Interface”, working with customers to understand their requirements and to prescribe the tests required. An ongoing responsibility of the test engineer is to ensure the lab adheres to the ISO/IEC 17025 quality management systems. The lab manager and test engineer conduct the final validation process of test results. Test specialists conduct tests and result data collation required on the products.

The lab has been in operation for one year. What is its current capacity?
We run two shifts a day. With our current bench strength, we are able to simultaneously conduct testing for up to five projects at the same time, depending on complexity. Full capacity is three shifts. The lab will achieve its ISO/IEC 17025 accreditation by year end. Presently we conduct pre-compliance testing and we will conduct compliance testing as early as January 2012.

What are the implications of full accreditation versus pre-compliance testing?
When full accreditation is achieved, test data and test reports generated by the lab are internationally recognised and can be used for global-type approvals. This allows a product designed, developed and manufactured in Penang which has undergone and passed testing to be sold anywhere in the world.

What broad spectrum of products have you tested so far?
We have tested a broad range ranging from small portable handsets and desktop units to full-size vehicles. This includes walkie-talkies, light emitting diode (LED) lighting systems, car audio systems, speedometers and electric motor scooters.

What does it take for you to win over a customer?
This is a standards-driven industry. As long as we adhere to and meet the standards and accreditation requirements, half the battle is won. However to gain the trust of new users in terms of our internal standards, we conduct correlation activities. Product correlation activities are an informal lab qualification process. We invite users to test an existing product of theirs in our lab and allow them to compare the test results generated with the existing product profile.

What is your professional background and how has it prepared you for this position?
I graduated from the University of Tasmania in Electrical and Electronics Engineering. Subsequently, I worked at Motorola Penang for 17 years starting off as a design engineer for walkie-talkies. From there I had the opportunity to venture into Manufacturing Technical Operations, Quality and Reliability Engineering and, eventually, a leadership role in Product Safety and Regulatory Compliance.

Experience in design and manufacturing operations provided strong foundations. I was exposed to a strong base in wireless technologies, circuit design, trade-offs, tolerances, product reliability, design certification as well as knowledge of design processes and methodology. With manufacturing, adaptability and quick-thinking are critical. When faced with unexpected situations, a marriage of skills from people to processes is required.

One is never good enough for the job. Being good enough means realising that you have to keep working hard at being good enough. While my experience in design and manufacturing provides a solid base for me to lead the team, I need to be constantly up to speed with the latest in test and design solutions.

What are your dreams of growing and complementing the EMC facility?
My main goal is to work with the PSDC for the lab to support a full range of international standards from Land Mobile Radios (LMR), Industrial Scientific and Medical (ISM) and Information Technology Equipment (ITE) to the Household, Broadcast Receiver, Lighting and Automotive sectors.

The EMC lab is not a complete solution to the test and certification requirements of the local industry. Other facilities in various fields are required to fully support test and certification needs; these will complement the EMC lab and in turn encourage the growth of product design and development in Malaysia.

Penang first became the global hub for electronics manufacturing. We then became a global hub for electronics design and development. We also became a global hub for logistics to support the design, development and manufacturing industry. The missing piece today is a fully integrated test and certification system.

My dream is for Penang to become a global hub for test and certification. With this, we can become end-to-end providers, from design, development and manufacturing to test and certification, supported by a strong logistical infrastructure.

What are some of the biggest challenges you face?
We are aiming to be ISO/IEC 17025 accredited in one year. This is a very ambitious timeframe. This means we have a 12-month timeframe to be technically and standards compliant from commencement of operations, while supporting our existing business in the form of pre-compliance testing for our clients.

Being technically compliant means we need to coordinate, learn, install and commission hundreds of EMC test equipment, to make sure they work according to specifications, and ensure full calibration and correlation with other EMC labs.

Being standards compliant means being able to cover a full range of international EMC test capabilities. There are over 40 different international standards that we need to learn. We also need to learn how our customers’ products work and the best way to test them.

What has been the most rewarding moment for the team?
Managing a public facility is different. Our strategy is to bring unaffordable test technology to the public at competitive rates. When local companies conduct tests at our labs and realise the full cost savings of our set-up, we feel like we have made a difference. The most rewarding moment would be the “Ah-Ha!” moment. This is when clients discover and eliminate the root cause of the EMC issue that has been hindering their product development process –all done within our own backyard. Who would have thought this was possible a few years ago?

What is your message to budding technopreneurs out there?
If you possess ideas and technical expertise and are not afraid of hard work, then do not hesitate. Hard sell your ideas and pitch your plan; use existing networks and explore private and public channels for the strong possibility that you may be connected with a venture capitalist or a private fund.