00 Cover MrNgaiFong WF.indd - SBF Download Area - Singapore ...

Jul•Aug•Sep 201218SPH LibraryBiZ FeaturePRIMESTANDS FORPRODUCTIVITY, RESILIENCEAND INNOVATION FORMANPOWER EXCELLENCE.It is a multi-agency effort to gearSingapore companies towardssustainable innovation-ledand productivity-driven growth.THE AIM:To drive productivity initiativesat the sectoral, enterprise andworker levels.To develop a comprehensive,first-class national ContinuingEducation and Training system.To promote and entrench aculture of productivity, innovationand continuous learningand upgrading.Winson Press recently decidedto participate in the initiativeled by the Singapore WorkforceDevelopment Agency (WDA),in which participants fromthe manufacturing and serviceindustries are supported with up to70% funding on training fees.The aim is to improveorganisational methodologies andproductivity.“During the three-monthconsultancy project implementation(phase), our people learnt andapplied methodologies to improvequality and productivity in workprocesses. The projects have helpedus to cut down significantly on manhoursand wastage in operations,”said Mr Tan.“The improved processes enable usto serve our clients faster and better.Our employees have been trained as‘productivity managers’ and they arecurrently equipped with the skills tocontinuously improve productivityat work. The programme hasdefinitely benefited us,” addedMr Tan. •SBF-led PRIMEto boost productivityIn a national coordinated effort todrive productivity in Singapore, theGovernment and industry leaders,including apex chamber SingaporeBusiness Federation (SBF), have justlaunched the Productivity, Resilienceand Innovation for ManpowerExcellence (PRIME) programme.The initiative aims to gearSingapore companies towardssustainable innovation-led andproductivity-driven growth amida tight labour market and risingbusiness costs.Aside from SBF, the initiativeis supported by Human CapitalSingapore, the Singapore WorkforceDevelopment Agency and theEmployment and EmployabilityInstitute.PRIME comprises productivityand innovation conferences,master classes on productivity andleadership, productivity training,project consultancy, variousHR Singapore Workforce SkillsQualifications modules as well asother components.About 10,000 companies areexpected to benefit from thisprogramme over the next two years.Mr Ong Hock Leong,Managing Director ofSwee Hong EngineeringConstruction Pte Ltd“The employmentof technology andinnovations inconstruction hasgreatly improved ourproductivity. Wealways encourage ourteam to build a workculture that placesstrong emphasis onproductive work andcreative thinking.”ENHANCINGTECHNOLOGYThe use of technology is amongsome of the tools employed toraise productivity levels in manybusinesses.Swee Hong EngineeringConstruction Pte Ltd is one of manyhome-grown companies which areleveraging on a variety of tools andchannels to boost productivity.Given the labour-intensiveorientation of most constructioncompanies in Singapore, one wouldimagine that deploying smarttechnology would be a stretch.The company has takenadvantage of smartphone andvisualisation technologies to up theante in productivity – it has createdits own iPhone application.The in-house iPhone app wasdeveloped as a project managementtool, which includes a humanresource module for leaveapplication and a vehicle-usagemonitoringand asset-trackingmodule which allows the companyto track its vehicle movements,Managing Director Ong HockLeong told BiZQ.By implementing these appmodules to cover daily taskapplications that enable supervisors,project managers and themanagement in assigning tasks toemployees, the company was able totrack its business activities on a realtimebasis and, thus, enjoy higherproductivity levels.Concurrently, it also customisedand implemented its own BuildingInformation Modelling (BIM) toolto provide better visualisation ofconstruction sites and surroundingstructures and buildings.As a result, it was able to obtain amore reliable digital representationof the construction methodsavailable for design decision-making,high-quality construction documentproduction, construction planningand performance predictions.“The employment of technologyand innovations in constructionhas tremendously improved ourproductivity during the tenderstage,” said Mr Ong.