What's your job about?
CSL Behring manufactures products for patients with rare and serious diseases – my role is to manage projects relating to the printed packaging materials (cartons, labels and leaflets) for the products. I manage a team of 3 to implement updates to our existing materials (e.g. add/delete sentences, change the shape of the materials). We make sure all of our systems are updated and ready to switch to the new version.
I resource plan for the team; I assess how much work we have, how much work we expect to have over the next year, and how we can change our processes to be able to handle a higher workload. I then streamline our workflow for upcoming large projects.
My role includes launching our products into new markets as a coordinator, by helping others to set up our systems and documentation for the new market and making sure we are on time. (Almost as cool as a rocket launch!)
I’m also responsible for product discontinuation, which means that I coordinate how we ‘clean up’ our system for products and materials that we no longer make or use. It’s not quite as simple as deleting everything, as we need to maintain testing capabilities for the lifespan of a product, so this can be a lengthy and interesting process. (Almost as cool as working out how to get a rocket back to earth without losing important parts.)
Okay, maybe my job isn’t rocket science, but I’d say it’s pretty cool.
What's your background?
I grew up in Melbourne, attended high school in Eltham (where I was a pretty big nerd), and then went to Monash Uni for a double degree in Engineering and Commerce. I studied abroad in Malaysia for a semester and travelled a lot. I did quite a few internships during my uni years, trying to work out what I liked doing.
My first job out of uni was with an engineering consulting company. I didn’t like it much, so applied for the CSL graduate program within Supply Chain. I had no idea what Supply Chain really was, except for what Google said. I thought I might be interested in learning about moving materials and products from source to customer, so I took a chance.
It was a great decision as I had several great rotations (planning and materials lifecycle/projects) and a role as a buyer. I have learnt a lot about how to get pharmaceutical products out the door and to patients. I’ve found that the grad rotation format is a great way to see a range of areas in a short period of time. CSL is also a fantastic company to work for; there is a lot of passion and patient focus which makes the work quite meaningful.
I had a great opportunity to jump into my current team lead role after just 3 years with CSL – a new and exciting challenge! I’ve now been in the role for about 5 months and I’m loving it.
Could someone with a different background do your job?
Absolutely! My background is in engineering and commerce – I personally don’t have an obvious background for this particular role. The key skills required are problem solving and being organised and proactive. An ability to plan for both the short and long term is invaluable.
An additional skill that is quite important is a continuous improvement mindset – if we can constantly improve and work in a more efficient way, it is an enormous advantage.
What's the coolest thing about your job?
This job is not highly technical, so it can lack some of the interesting detail relating to designing the materials so the packing line runs in the most efficient way. I use my development plan to get around this and learn more about the technical details.
Also, the pharmaceuticals industry is highly regulated (for good reason!) which makes it really challenging to initiate any change. We spend a lot of time scoping, planning and documenting any changes, so they tend to take a really long time to implement, which can be frustrating!
3 pieces of advice for yourself when you were a student...