[Internship in Taiwan] SHL Medical Internship Program
Mandarin version:
About SHL Medical
SHL Medical is a world-leading provider of drug delivery solutions. Founded by a Swedish entrepreneur, nevertheless, Taiwan has been selected to sever as the main manufacturing center. The fancy building on the cover is a hybrid of office area and production lines.
SHL Medical may not sound familiar to you. That’s because its major customers and business partners are those leading pharmaceutical companies, rather than end-users.
What does SHL Medical do
Remember some tense scenes in movies, the character quickly picks up a pen-like device and hits on someone’s lap. That’s what SHL does-Autoinjectors. Other than emergency devices, there are also numerous applications for chromatic diseases, such as diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, etc.
Internship Program Application
LinkedIn is a great source of international internships! I found this internship program on LinkedIn and learned a bit about SHL through their posts. As far as I know, my fellow interns from Germany found this internship through a student-guiding international organization. Of course, if you are interested in a company you already know, just go to their official website and look for openings!
The application process was not too complicated. Simply submit your resume, cover letter, transcripts, and some other supporting documents to whichever system you are applying on and wait for HR to contact you. I had one online interview with the manager with the HR specialist together with the manager of PMO (PM Office). Interview questions may differ from departments and people, but I am listing those I was asked. The interview was quite casual, more like a chat for us to get to know each other.
● Self Introduction
● Some questions related to my experience
● What can you bring to SHL?
● Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
The HR specialist will contact you for further notice and ask you for some essential documents based on your citizenship and status. If you are not from Taiwan, they will help you with the visa and housing. There were some student interns having trouble entering Taiwan to start the internship due to the pandemic, but I believe things are gradually getting back to normal and should not be that complex at the moment.
All set? Let’s see how my internship at SHL was like!
Newcomer Training
After onboarding, your calendar will be filled with training sessions. Some of them are for all employees, some are additional sessions provided by your own department. PM department has a more complete training schedule because project managers need to deal with all types of issues and work with different departments. There are some info sessions about each departments’ duties, lab tours, and device introductions. It’s the fastest way to learn about the company’s business flow and what we are actually making here. By the way, these trainings are not exclusive for interns, so you’ll get a chance to meet a group of full-time workmates coming in roughly at the same time as you.
Internship Project
The internship project has two major parts for PM interns: Individual Project and Project Support.
1. Individual Internship Project — Optimization of Change Control Management
It’s called “individual project”, but I was actually paired up with another fellow intern. It was more or less the managers’ tryout, to put interns in collaboration on more complex projects. In our case, that was change control.
Let’s talk about change control (CC) first. Medical device industry, just as the medical industry, is highly regulated due to safety concerns. CCs are essential to track and monitor changes in design, manufacturing, or other aspects of the business. A series of evaluations and documentation is required in the process, though critical, the CC process has long been a headache for most of the departments.
What could be the best solutions to cross-functional issues in a company — Interns!
As interns, we received a lot of supports on our seemly getting-no-where individual project. Interviewing colleagues having different roles in CC (those who oversee, handle, process, receive tasks, and even PM who suffer from delaying project timeline) helped us quickly build an overall picture and identify several pain points. One advantage of being an intern is that we were able to get their true opinions even on why conflicts occur between departments. Not to mention, our mentor and managers also provided some guidelines for running a successful project in the progress.
We ended up working on optimizing the monitoring process and automated tools to save unnecessary resources wastes. Let me further elaborate on this issue. The internal system has some deficits in record fields, data export, and data visualization. Whoever monitors CCs needs to manually export information (which refers to endless copy-pasting to excel or slides). Here comes the next issue, information managers or other task owners would not be standardized since everyone has a different way of working, causing confusion and frustration.
What we accomplished is to build an internal web tool providing quick data export, auto-reporting, data analysis, and visualization of the overall trends. Things did not go smoothly at the beginning, in fact, we hit a dead-end several times due to the limitations of connecting Microsoft 365 tools with internal systems. The ultimate solution was an R shiny dashboard. The interface was customized based on the needs of the users we had interviewed. On top of that, it provides means of data analysis for all records over the past 10 years without frustrating data collection (which no one would ever want to try). The reporting format is readily standardized if exported directly from our system. It saves hours of manual force wasting on excel sheets.
The work was introduced company-wise with our training session. It was next presented to the management level and was highly recognized, exceeding our expectations. (It even gave me opportunities to work in Quality Assurance Dep later!)
2. Project Support
The other part of my assignments was more relative to actual project management. I participated in various project meetings and gradually learned some terms and how project teams work upon joining the PM department. Some tasks were assigned from time to time, for example, product testing scheduling, preparing slides for regular meetings with Customers, etc. It was a bit random until I was fully engaged in a new development project.
It was a critical part of the company’s strategy to develop new testing methods on the products. I was excited to be part of this process, not to mention even taking the lead of a professional team of senior engineers and device designers.
A. Project Kick-off
It was a relatively new concept through the company. I took some time reading component drawings and got some pieces to study their interaction. Then, several critical factors were listed out and proposed to the team. The experienced engineers provided a lot of suggestions on the potential experiments for evaluation. Once the schedule was set, we began to organize all the sample preparation and testing.
B. Experimental Design and Engineering Studies
For example, one of the testings is related to a snap-fit feature on the device. The separation force was expected to have a dependence on the interference between components. DOE (Design of experiment) methods were applied. We collaborated with the manufacturing department and molded special components with some variations. The force was then measured with Instron machines and analyzed. In some cases, simulations were also used as supporting evidence.
The process itself was straightforward, however, the “human factor” added another layer of complexity. In a large corporation with a high degree of division of labor, it was hard for me to find the right contact. Lacking knowledge about their own process even makes it worse. My requests were often forwarded several times before getting to the right personnel. (I was extremely thankful for those intermediate who helped me all the way.) My mentor taught me a lot of skills in negotiation and how to put everyone together and clarify the confusion.
C. Results and Final Report
Many analytical tools were applied, including ppk, SPC control charts, ANOVA, Monte Carlo, etc. Risk scores, RPN (Risk Priority Number), were also taken into consideration in a thorough evaluation. These statistical terms, however, were all unknown to me. I spent some time watching some online tutorials trying to catch up on the conversation between other team members. During the WFH period, I completed some LinkedIn Learning courses which helped me a lot with the work (especially Six Sigma and Minitab).
The final step was to put every piece of evidence together and tell a story. It was also a great opportunity for me to look back and see how much I had achieved so far. The report was reviewed internally and sent out for customer approval. After a few back-and-forth discussions, it was signed at the very end of my internship! I was absolutely lucky to participate in the entire process and complete a crucial part of a project.
From PM to QA
Having worked with some QA engineering and managers along the way, I was invited to their department after getting an extension of my internship period (it is also possible for international interns once HR and you work out the visa problems).
QA in SHL has a high workload since they are the gatekeepers. Quality issues management, such as NCMR (Non- Conformance Material Report), Customer Complaints, and Audit Findings all go to QA. The management system has a similar deficit in design as the one for change control. The QA director and managers have long been seeking for a solution to solve inconvenience in handling and reporting. And thus, another dashboard became my main focus when working with QA.
The hierarchal data structure complicated the task, and this time, I did not have support from my partner. The previous experience helped a lot and I managed to build the dashboard step by step with even more advanced characteristics. One thing I was very proud of is a trend comparing tool that can give users almost all the graphs they need for a meeting or a regular report with customizability. It may not be permanent, however a quite powerful visualization tool until the installation of next-generation management tool. By monitoring the log history, I can see how this tool is transforming their way of work.
Meanwhile, I also supported some other projects and gained inspects of how it is like to work as a QA engineer and the way they look at quality issues. Sometimes PM and QA have arguments over issues, however, it’s just because of the difference in their duties. Ultimately, everyone is on the same boat and just wants the success of a project.
Life at SHL
- Transportation
LiuFu site is close to the highway, and there are buses to Taipei (Trust me, it is a much more fun place compared to Taoyuan). If you want to go to downtown areas after work, SHL also provides free commuting shuttles to a few downtown areas. Inter-site shuttles are also provided.
- Working Environment
LiuFu site just opened in recent years. The office area is bright and open. The coffee shop located on the ground floor is a popular working area as well. Some colleagues take their laptops downstairs or simply have a quick conversation with other people. My managers also took interns here for a coffee break occasionally. I miss the coffee and dessert here so much!
- Food
Paco’s kitchen, you may have seen this on SHL’s website. Usually, there are 2 Chinese cuisines, 1 noodle dish, 1 international dish for you to choose from. Some dishes can get very popular and sold out very early! I also recommend trying Foodpanda of UberEats for food delivery since you are in the kingdom of food — Taiwan.
- Time Management
“Flex hour” system is like withdrawal and deposit. If you work overtime some days, you can get your hours back the other day (you’ll notice the office becomes abnormally empty on Friday afternoon). Use your flex hours to explore this cute little island!
- Activities
PM Christmas party was one of the very few activities throughout the year due to COVID-19 policy. Hopefully, things get better and you’ll get a chance to experience Taiwanese year-end parties and some other team-building events.
SHL has some sports clubs as well, like basketball, volleyball, and badminton. It’s a good chance to know people you do not work with and relax of course.
Ending
I was reluctant to request a deferral for my graduate studies, but this 10-month internship at SHL Medical has changed my perspective and opened up my pathways for my future career. The medical device industry, project management, quality assurance, were all unknown to me. Something fascinating about this industry is that you can feel the sense of achievement of making unimaginable impacts on millions of people’s life.
Hopefully, this post helps you to know more about SHL Medical and what to expect to be an intern here. (Though I may not be able to share how refreshing is the life in Taiwan as I am way too local) Feel free to contact me on LinkedIn if you would like to learn more about it!
