Working as a Serialization Project Manager – Thomas Santy

Thomas, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Thomas: Of course! My name is Thomas Santy. I’m 30 and I live in a small town in Hainaut with my wife and our baby.

What do you do in your spare time?

Thomas: Well, I spend most of my spare time with my wife and daughter. At the moment, I’m also revamping our house, which is quite time-consuming.

What did you study?

Thomas: I have a Master in Business Engineering from the Louvain School of Management, with a specialization in Supply Chain Management. The Louvain School of Management is the international business school of the Université Catholique de Louvain (UCL) at Louvain-la-Neuve.

Why did you choose to study Business Engineering?

Thomas: I was mainly interested in the wide scope of this academic formation. ‘Business Engineering’ combined technical fields of study like Chemistry or Physics with more soft-skills oriented courses like Management or Political Economy.

What is your professional background?

Thomas: I have been a consultant in the pharmaceutical industry almost since the start of my career, actually. At the moment, I’m mainly focused on managing logistics, operations and supply chain projects.

How did you get in touch with Pauwels Consulting and what was your first impression of the company?

Thomas: Pauwels Consulting offered me a nice project at a time when I was looking for some new and exciting challenges. Needless to say, the company made a good first impression. (smiles)

Can you tell us a bit more about your current project?

Thomas: At the moment, I’m working in the Program Management Office for a multinational pharmaceutical company in Braine-l’Alleud. We have to implement new regulations linked to drug serialization across the whole supply chain of our client.

“Serialization is not just a random number on a box; it’s a complex set of activities impacting the whole supply chain and business.”

What is the goal of this project?

Thomas: Our main goal is to be compliant with all the regulations related to serialization for all the countries receiving drugs from and selling drugs to our client. This has to be done on a tight schedule and in a constantly changing environment.

What are your responsibilities during this project?

Thomas: Our main responsibility at the Program Management Office is to provide the structure, guidelines and controls for all the projects that need to be launched as part of the program.

What do you like about this project?

Thomas: It’s quite challenging. I like that. The environment is changing every day because many countries are still busy creating the regulations as we speak.

Our project also impacts the whole supply chain, so the End-to-End process needs to be analysed and kept under control.

Thomas: I’ve learned that serialization is not just a random number on a box; it’s a complex set of activities impacting the whole supply chain and business.

Thomas: Well, I really want to keep learning and growing. In the future, I would like to stay focused on supply chain and operations.