Five Minutes with Catia Sham

Can you tell us a bit about your role as a Continuous Improvement Engineer?

My day-to-day looks different depending on what is going on within our business. I usually start the week planning around different projects, workshops, opportunities for improvement and customer complaints, all to complete actions and improve our business.

Having studied chemical engineering at university, I really got my brain into piecing puzzles together and solution building. Now, when I see things, that's automatically where my brain goes. Continuous improvement also helps other people's day-to-day and makes their work lives easier and better. I get a lot of satisfaction from helping other people.

Continuous Improvement engineering has absolutely met my expectations. I love that my role is so adaptable and that I'm continuously working with different people, departments and data sets. I'm constantly learning, growing and evolving, and that drives me a lot.

What do you enjoy most about working at SEA?

I love that everything is always diverse and different, and not one day is the same. I'm very fortunate that I get to work with all departments and on multiple projects, so my days are never boring!

My favourite part about SEA, however, is the work-life balance. I get to live in a more sustainable work-life environment now. SEA encourages both my strengths and weaknesses and makes the best of them for both the business and me. I thrive in a mixed environment, and the hybrid way of working gives me the best of both worlds. I feel like my life is nicely balanced on both ends.

What opportunities or challenges do you think organisations will face as they continue to modernise their business systems and processes?

One of the biggest challenges in Continuous Improvement is helping people embrace and sustain change. It's often possible to identify process issues and understand where things go wrong, but changing mindsets is more challenging. Even when people can see how a change could improve quality, provide greater control, or make day-to-day work easier, lasting improvement depends on people being willing to adopt and embed it.

As SEA has grown rapidly, we've built a great talent base, so there's continuous work needed on our infrastructure and ways of working to match that pace. I don't believe in change for the sake of it; change should improve quality, control, or make people's working lives easier. I see a lot of positives at SEA. We're a great business with talented people and plenty of opportunities ahead. If we can continue to embrace positive change, I believe there's very little holding us back.

What advice would you give to someone who wants to follow in your footsteps?

I would start with informal learning. Watch YouTube videos, complete LinkedIn Learning courses, learn the basics and then start implementing the concepts in your own work life. Continuous improvement is for every single person, and the more you use it, the more you strengthen the skill.

Continuous improvement is more of a mindset than anything else. You can learn the tools, but if you don't have the mindset, you can't drive it. I'd also recommend getting involved in as many continuous improvement projects as possible. Put your name forward, give suggestions and show how your ideas could make a change.

Thank you, Catia!