Welcome to the tenth issue of our e-newsletter.

Here, we hope to share with you the latest information about our Growing Enterprises With Technology Upgrade (GET-Up) initiative. It aims to help you make the most of the advisory and financial assistance schemes that we have tailored for local enterprises in the manufacturing sector.

“Have you NEMOed?”

This is a question that ESCO Audio Visual hopes executives at hotels, hospitals and other large organisations will ask one another in the near future, whenever they arrange meetings or plan events.

NEMO is ESCO’s new sophisticated facilities reservation system that uses interactive audio-visual displays and networked software to enable remote booking and management of rooms and venues, including across global locations.

The first product that ESCO has developed from scratch, NEMO emerged from the company’s 20 years of experience in system integration, having implemented some of the region’s most sophisticated and state-of-the art audio visual projects.

“We had wanted to go beyond swimming in the same small pond,” explains ESCO’s General Manager Angeline Tan of the company’s ambitions to tackle markets beyond Singapore’s immediate region. “Having worked with diverse technologies from all over the world, we had an idea of what could be better than the products available in the market,” she adds.

But the challenge was to take the idea from concept to reality.

Fishing for the best ideas
Help came from A*STAR research facilitators under GET-UP’s Operation and Technology Roadmapping (OTR) Programme.

Over three days, the facilitators engaged ESCO and its partners in intensive sessions to take NEMO from a mere concept to a viable commercial ‘roadmap’. This meant defining the technologies required, identifying the production and manufacturing needs, and developing a product line to cater to different market segments.  The end result - a 3-year product strategy with high market potential!

“Initially, we didn’t quite understand how a facilitator could stretch our minds within such a short time,” recalls Ms Tan. “But the process certainly helped ESCO to focus on key requirements and ground our ideas.” 

NEMO is on the brink of being launched in markets in Europe and US. Even now, ESCO continues to refer to the sequence and steps outlined in the roadmap.

Ms Tan is confident that any company can gain from OTR.  “It’s very hard to define the benefits until you go through it,” she says. “But I would like to tell those who haven’t gone through OTR that they should come with excitement, be ready to speak up and go with people with different views.”

The mobile phone you hold in your hand may just feature the award-winning technology of Singapore company Nanofilm Technologies International, thanks to the expert help it received under GET-UP.

Nanofilm designs and develops an advanced thin film deposition method known as Filtered Cathodic Vacuum Arc (FCVA). This award-winning coating technology offers high durability, uniformity and functional properties at a more competitive cost. The company has been successful in applying the technology to the hard disk drive industry for slider and media carbon overcoating, and to the precision engineering industry to coat items such as tools, drills and moulds.

It did not take long before Nanofilm started receiving requests for the technology to be applied to consumer products such as telecommunications equipment and mobile devices. This meant that the technology had to be applied to plastics. Even in this new area, the company found that its technology was effective.  For instance, FCVA produces a much more uniformed coating and the thickness of the film is more precise.

Developing a new product line
 “We had the technology and we knew what we want to do,” says Dr Cheah Li Kang, Chief Technology Officer of Nanofilm but “we needed a good researcher to offer us support to refine the process to fit the new application.”

Stepping in to help was Joshua Thong, a SIMTech researcher seconded to Nanofilm under GET-Up’s T-Up scheme. 

Mr Thong’s expertise was critical in helping Nanofilm characterise and validate its thin film for application to plastics, addressing vital questions such as how well the coating would adhere to a plastic surface and its conductivity for handling radio frequencies. In addition, he took the process from R&D to mass production, leading a team to set up the production line for the new coating system.

“You can say that he was in charge of all that especially in the beginning, from zero to where we are now, the stage where we installed all the machines,” says Dr Cheah. 

The end result of this two-year collaboration is a new factory in China, which now produces up to 20,000 piece parts a day for international telecommunications equipment companies. “Our method is able to produce higher throughput, better yield and cost savings for the manufacturer,” remarks Dr Cheah of the payoff for its customers and ultimately consumers of mobile phones worldwide.

When you are driving into unfamiliar territory, there’s nothing more reassuring than having a guide show you the way. For Advanced Materials Technologies (AMT) which entered the automotive parts sector recently, the guide was Dr Danno Atsushi, a Visiting Senior Scientist at SIMTech, whose advice the company is tapping under GET-UP’s Technical Advisor scheme.

Dr Danno brings with him decades of experience from Japan’s automotive sector. A former director of Toyota Central Research & Development Labs, Inc, he holds numerous patents as a result of his long-standing research in hot form rolling of stepped shafts and high precision gears.

His expertise is of immense value to AMT. The company is applying its speciality process, Powder Injection Moulding (PIM), to automotive parts to generate high performance components for mobile hydraulics, valve systems, fuel management systems and sensors.

Advice that paid off
“We were looking at one niche application that our process can value add,” says Albert Ngoh, AMT’s Assistant General Manager (Automotive).

Dr Danno sees a “very good match” between the components AMT can produce and important technical trends in the automotive sector such as greater environmental compliance, safety and fuel efficiency. In monthly sessions with AMT, Dr Danno gave advice on how AMT’s core technological competency could address such market needs.

Another lesson learnt was that AMT should focus on specific applications with high future growth potential rather than try to serve all markets. For instance, Mr Ngoh points out that the PIM technology can add value to automotive systems that favour more power and lower emissions.  

Other insights included how automotive clients expect suppliers to reduce costs steadily and improve quality throughout the component’s lifespan. According to Dr Danno, joint product development efforts between suppliers and customers are becoming vital in Japan to shorten the lead time in manufacturing.

Barely two years in the making, AMT’s automotive division contributes to nearly 20% of the company’s turnover, with customers in Europe and the US. The company has also renewed Dr Danno’s appointment as Technical Advisor for another year.

“The experience has been very pleasant for all of us,” recalls Mr Ngoh as he looks ahead to growing opportunities in the Asia Pacific. “The time spent was critical and we benefited a lot from the short hours together.”

A new programme by A*STAR’s Science and Engineering Research Council will have aerospace giants Boeing, EADS, Pratt & Whitney and Rolls-Royce work together to drive research and innovation to raise the competitiveness of Singapore’s aerospace industry and benefit local firms.

Called the Aerospace Programme, it brings together the four aerospace giants, A*STAR research institutes and local industry partners to engage in pre-competitive R&D across the aerospace industry value-chain.  With airlines in Asia predicted to double their aircraft fleet by 2015, the programme will give Singapore an edge to sustain its position as a global aviation hub. The collaboration will help cut down the barriers and time taken to bring research from ideas to industry application. Resources can also be pooled and risks shared.

The benefits to the local aerospace industry are tremendous. First, companies will have access to the R&D results to help them understand future industry requirements and take steps early to seize new opportunities. Second, the value-chain among the key industries of aviation, maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) and the precision engineering will be strengthened.

A total of 5 research areas have been identified under the programme:

1. Inspection & non-destructive testing
2. Manufacturing processes & automation
3. Advanced materials
4. Information & communication; and
5. Computational modelling & dynamics

It pays to be a member
Small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) can join the Aerospace Programme as a member. Membership will give them full access to the R&D results achieved as well as voting rights for projects. Member companies can also attach their staff to work on joint research projects with A*STAR’s research institutes. This invaluable access to research resources, infrastructure and market insights comes with many chances to network with potential clients and to seek opportunities for supplier development. Qualifying funding from SPRING Singapore is also available to offset the annual membership fee of S$25,000.

A*STAR is also arranging for a separate consortium to address local technical concerns and near-term needs to catalyse the formation and growth of value-chains amongst the global aerospace sector and local partners.

For enquiries on the Aerospace programme, email A*STAR_ContactSERC@a-star.edu.sg or visit http://www.simtech.a-star.edu.sg/index-aerospace.html.

In today’s knowledge-based economy, companies have to do more than just protect their intellectual property (IP). They must effectively manage the entire IP value chain that brings their new ideas to market through a process called Intellectual Property Management (IPM). A well-executed IPM system allows companies to identify and protect their intellectual assets, assess the assets’ potential value and develop appropriate strategies to exploit these resources.  

To help enhance the IPM capabilities of Singapore’s small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS), together with SPRING Singapore, has launched a S$9 million IPM for SMEs Programme. The programme is made up of two stages, where a structured IPM diagnostic tool called SCOPE IP^TM is used in the first stage to help companies identify areas for improvement before they proceed to the second stage of IPM capability development.

Companies on the GET-Up Programme can employ SCOPE IP^TM to better exploit the IP generated as a result of the various GET-Up technical assistance schemes.

Finding ‘SCOPE’ for improving your IP management
SCOPE IP^TM is an IPM diagnostic process where a business consultant and a IP lawyer work as a team to conduct a ‘health check’ to assess the strengths and weaknesses of a company’s IPM system as well as the state of its IP deployment. They then offer practical recommendations for improvement and possible strategic IPM measures, which may include branding, licensing of products and services, IP valuation or a strategic roadmap for IP development and exploitation.

Says Mr Viktor Cheng, Senior Assistant Director-General, Infrastructure & Capability Development Division, IPOS, “SCOPE IP^TM provides a tool for our SMEs to diagnose their current IPM system so that companies will be in a better position to make sure that their Intellectual Property generates greater value for their business.”

Under the IPM for SMEs Programme, SMEs can apply to IPOS for grants that cover up to 50% of the costs involved. These grants will cover services in both the SCOPE IP^TM diagnostic process as well as the subsequent phase during which companies initiate IPM capability development projects. The latter covers but is not limited to: IP Audits, IP Education and Training, IP Intelligence and Research, IP Portfolio Management, IP Strategy, IP Valuation and Licensing.