Arthur Tan
Arthur Tan, CEO and President of Integrated Micro-Electronics Inc., shares how the company is focused on manufacturing the next generation of products.
Integrated Micro-Electronics Inc. (IMI) doesn’t wallow in the past. The electronics manufacturing services company is constantly looking to the future, working out what products and solutions OEMs will need—in industries such as automotive, industrial, and medical—often before they even realise it. The vision is to have a purpose which isn’t merely focused on financial outcomes, but rather revolves around making a significant difference to people’s lives. It might sound like an impossible dream but for CEO and President Arthur Tan, it is one he believes IMI can achieve.
"I feel that we are in a position to actually enable the manufacture of products that, in the past, we would not be able to produce in a commercially viable way, or in a way that could benefit the larger portion of the global population," he states. "Everything has changed. Having IMI in the mix will now enable products to be built in a very cost-effective manner which can then be used with a high level of quality and reliability. I think that is the one key criteria that we can actually try to achieve in the near future.
"We feel that we are at the level now where we are at the forefront of automated driving; we are at the forefront of the next level of independent, artificially intelligent industrial machines that will be able to do work for people more safely and with more autonomy, and we are at the forefront of delivering medical devices that are not only available in hospitals but also in the home. We have the ability to be able to change the lives of a lot of people.
"We will be able to do that because we can implement these products in a cost-effective manner, using our own technology and innovations. This is the purpose that IMI is heading towards and I see ourselves becoming more and more involved in products and services that are no doubt going to be very important for the next-generation economy."
When Arthur joined IMI more than 10 years ago, the business was domestically focused, operating from its base in the Philippines. Today, it has a much wider reach with 15 established manufacturing sites in countries such as China, Mexico, Bulgaria, and the US. For Arthur, this change of route—transitioning from local to global—has been one of his proudest achievements.