Interview with Philip Ong, CEO of SP Manufacturing
Headquartered in Singapore, SP Manufacturing is a leading contract manufacturer delivering high-quality, end-to-end electronics and electromechanical solutions to global customers across the medical, industrial, telecommunications, and automotive sectors. With manufacturing facilities in Southeast Asia and a focus on operational excellence, SP Manufacturing integrates advanced engineering, stringent quality standards, and customer-centric flexibility into every solution. We recently spoke with CEO Philip Ong to find out how the company continues to invest in technology, partnerships, and people, offering scalable manufacturing solutions that combine innovation with simplicity and usability.
SP Manufacturing has earned a reputation for technological excellence. What are some of the most recent innovations or upgrades to your technology platforms or capabilities?
Our company has recently acquired two more SMT lines. The first is to be placed in our main facility in Batam, Indonesia, and the second is to replace some of the older equipment we’ve had in our facility in Monchengladbach, Germany. We always believe in staying at the forefront of SMT technology and looking ahead to invest in excess capacity for our customers.
As customer needs evolve, how is SP Manufacturing leveraging automation, digital tools, or data analytics to improve performance and precision across your operations?
Our company extracts a constant stream of data across our manufacturing equipment. The data extracted is used to help our engineers figure out the best way to run our facilities. OEE information for equipment traditionally has been computed in a manual process, but now this key information is available automatically without further processing from engineers. This gives us live data, which we can use to make manufacturing decisions.
Can you share how SP Manufacturing maintains engineering simplicity while delivering high-quality, complex solutions across multiple industries?
At SP Manufacturing, we keep it simple. Our philosophy is that the best customer is a returning customer. Therefore, by serving our customers well, by understanding their technical requirements, it makes it very clear to our management as to which areas of capabilities we should invest in. As a result, what could be a complex solution becomes straightforward as we deploy resources towards only customer-oriented solutions.
Your customers rely on both reliability and usability. How does SP Manufacturing design its product and service offerings to strike a balance between cutting-edge innovation and intuitive application?
Reliability is key in any manufacturer. The last thing we want is a product recall. Therefore, any products shipped from our doors are 100% inspected and tested. For higher volume products, some manufacturers choose to rely on sampling, which we feel is too risky for our company’s brand and reputation. As a result, we have won multiple quality awards from various customers over the years, which I think is no coincidence to our decision to insist on full testing across product ranges.
In a competitive global market, what differentiates your approach to quality and consistency in manufacturing from others in the industry?
I do not think there is a trade secret associated with quality and consistency. In fact, the opposite is true. By being completely transparent in our process and planning, any weakness becomes apparent and subsequent efforts to make improvements is second nature. Of course, a robust team culture around personal responsibility and continuous improvement are key ingredients for this to work.
SP Manufacturing operates in a space where collaboration is critical. Can you discuss how your partnerships, whether with customers, suppliers, or technology providers, are evolving?
Our customers have shut down factories and handed over 100% of their manufacturing to us. We are deeply grateful for the trust placed in us, and we have responded in kind. All our facilities are run under the philosophy that we are an extension of our customers’ facilities. We aim to be a large hyperscale manufacturing partner to all our customers, allowing them to focus on what’s important, that is product innovation, market and customer development. Leave the last-mile engineering to our company, in a collaborative partnership that spurs both parties on in the same direction.
What markets or customer segments are you currently focusing on as part of your growth strategy?
We have newly entered both the semiconductor capital equipment and the avionics segments. At SPM, we seek to be the EMS of choice for customers with mission-critical products, and nothing speaks more of mission criticality than both those segments. We have been qualified by several customers in those segments and look forward to attracting more and newer such projects in the future.
SP Manufacturing has a strong footprint in Southeast Asia and beyond. How are you positioning the company for long-term global growth?
Part of our company’s vision is to be a global manufacturing company. In recent months due to the Liberation Day tariffs being announced, we are glad to be situated in many locations aside from South East Asia. Having options to move manufacturing around the group is a big plus for all our customers, and this operational resilience that is built into our group is the way we repay our customers who have also placed the same trust in us.
How are you preparing the company and your team for the next generation of manufacturing challenges, from supply chain volatility to sustainability?
Agility is one of our core company values. We pride ourselves on being flexible to our customers’ every manufacturing need. It turns out today that great agility is also paramount to our company’s performance in this volatile environment. Being able to respond and pivot has helped us greatly to better position our supply chain today for the future.
