Welcome to the second 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.

On 29 May 2003, chairman of A*STAR Mr. Philip Yeo flagged off the second batch of 20 researchers to be seconded to 16 local enterprises. This brings the total number of researchers seconded to 32, covering 25 local companies. 

Mr. Yeo also said that the GET-Up team has already met up with about 200 companies in a short span of five months, on target to reach its goal of 500 for the year.

With the launch of Operation and Technology Roadmapping (OTR), local companies can now take advantage of the trained facilitators to bring them through a series of five half-day workshops.  The facilitators will help them develop a technology roadmap to give companies a competitive edge. Showing the benefits of having a one-stop shop in GET-Up, Mr. Yeo also announced that SPRING Singapore would extend its LETAS (Local Enterprise Technical Assistance Scheme) grants to the companies eligible for OTR.

He also unveiled the creation of the GET-Up Advisory Committee, consisting of seven heads of growth-oriented local companies to share their wealth of experience and frank views on the effectiveness of GET-Up strategies.

“With the Advisory Committee, multi-agency resources, R&D talent and the tenacity of our local enterprises, I am sure we will have many more 3G-enabled enterprises that will ‘GET-Up’ to Grow, Glow and Globalise,” Mr. Yeo concluded in his speech.

Click here for the full speech of Mr Yeo at the event on 29 May 2003.

Launched officially by A*STAR’s Chariman Mr. Philip Yeo on 29 May 2003, Operation and Technology Roadmapping (OTR) is a new tool under the GET-Up initiative, where experts from A*STAR’s research institutes will conduct five half-day interactive modular sessions of consultation and brain-storming workshops, to help SMEs assess their capacity to meet future challenges, identify technology gaps and plan long term capabilities needed for growth.

And to make sure that it is an affordable experience, SPRING Singapore will offer – under its Local Enterprise Technical Assistance Scheme – funding of 50% of the costs of the program. The cost of the OTR workshop is up to $20,000.

Dr. Chris Holmes, who is one of the principal facilitators of OTR said that the purpose of OTR is two-fold – to link industry to research institutes and vice-versa. 

OTR helps SMEs to think about long-term business strategy and to see where they can harness the use of technology – either developing new ones or embracing existing ones – to give them a competitive edge, he added. OTR is a complement to the RSE secondment scheme T-Up as companies that identify key technologies that they want to develop will often need the expertise of researchers to help realize the ambition.

On the other hand, by bringing researchers and companies together, the researchers can have a better understanding of industry needs and realities and can then hone their research into areas that can benefit the local industry.

 To-date, about 40 companies have been involved with OTR. Some have already completed the program while others are still at the preliminary stages.

 OTR consists of two main segments – the Operations & Technology Assessment workshop (OTA) and the Technology Roadmapping (TRM) sessions. 

Workshop 1 or OTA helps companies to identify their current operations and technology and to understand the current market situation. Some companies stop at this stage while others move on to the TRM sessions (workshops 2 to 5) where comprehensive sessions help companies explore business drivers, technology solutions needed and prioritizing investment of time and money.  

Dr Chris Holmes and his colleague Mike Ferrell are the principal facilitators of OTR but they will usually bring in a co-facilitator from one of the research institutes whose expertise is relevant to the company’s business and needs. That way, it also eases the migration to T-Up if the company decides to take advantage of T-Up to upgrade its technology.

 If you would like to find out more about OTR, contact:

David Loke knows when its time to recharge his business. In 1990, after his ship repair company had grown steadily over a decade to hitting revenues of $2.5 million, he knew it was time to steer the ship to a different course, or face the prospect of continuous negative growth.

So the managing director and founder of Tru-Marine Pte Ltd (Tru-Marine) made a strategic shift away from general ship repair services to specializing in repairing turbochargers – an essential component of all diesel engines that puts the engines into overdrive. And the move has paid off handsomely.

Revenues grew tenfold from $2.5 million in the early 90s to $20 million last year. Today Tru-Marine is a leader in its field. In 2001, Tru-Marine’s workshop in Singapore undertook over 3,000 repairs, making it the busiest in the world. Today, Tru-Marine is a global-player, with offices and plants in China, Australia, Europe and the US. And it has diversified into the locomotives, power plants and oil rig industries as well, as all of them also require the use of diesel engines, and correspondingly, turbochargers.

But Loke is not one to rest on his laurels. He has now come to realize that Tru-Marine is about to enter a trough in its growth and needs a second major overhaul to keep the revenues flowing and growing.

With the help of GET-Up’s OTR (Operation and Technology Roadmapping) experts, Loke and his team have charted out a new strategy for Tru-Marine which consists of what he calls “a soft and a hard technology.”

For the “soft side,” he is embarking on building a business-to-business web portal where his customers, partners and suppliers can interact and communicate with Tru-Marine faster and better. More importantly, it puts Tru-Marine onto cyberspace and instantaneously expands its market reach and opens up new business opportunities.

On the “hard side” Loke now wants to develop his own R&D in cutting-edge turbocharger repair technology and processes. In the past, Tru-Marine had to rely on overseas technology but Loke now wants to call it his own.

The business situation is that turbocharger manufacturers do not share the repair information and technology with others as they want their customers to go back to them for repairs. Some top turbocharger repairers in the world would come up with their own repair technology and then license the know-how to local companies like Tru-Marine. But that puts Tru-Marine at the back seat as these companies would often license the process at a late stage – often after they themselves have reaped the benefits from it. To aggravate matters, they might even license the technology to Tru-Marine’s competitors as well.

Tru-Marine now wants to be in the driver’s seat, and develop its own technology and process. To get started, it is hiring two RSEs from SIMTech under the T-Up scheme where the two RSEs will be seconded for a period of two years and 70% of their salaries subsidized during this period.

“It’s not just a matter of the funding,” says Loke. “What is more important is that T-Up provides the expertise for us to push ahead with our plans,” he added.

Loke also gave a firm thumbs up for the OTR sessions he had with A*STAR’s experts over a 3-4 months period.

“I strongly recommend any company that is looking for growth and new directions to try Operation and Technology Roadmapping. Entrepreneurs often survive on instinct. But sometimes, you need a clear and focused action plan to bring the ideas to reality,” he added.

Members of the Singapore Business Federation (SBF) got a first-hand experience about “borrowing the best brains” in May when SBF with the support of SPRING Singapore ran a half-day briefing about the T-Up scheme.

About 40 SBF members turned up for the event which gave an introduction to the recently launched government initiatives to help local companies speed up the acquisition and absorption of technological capabilities.

Two local companies – Ultra Instrumentation & Automation Private Limited and Prime Electrical Products – were also present to share their own experiences and ongoing efforts in using technology upgrading as a competitive strategy.

Dr. Lau Soo Khim is one of the pioneer researchers from SIMTech seconded to the industry under the T-Up scheme. She has been working with Resin & Pigment Technologies for about eight months now.  Dr Lau’s role is to help the company develop new products, train and build a team of personnel to support new product lines as well as to conduct product evaluations.  We managed to get her off her busy schedule to help us gain some insights into how the T-Up scheme is working out for her.

 1. What do you think of the T-Up scheme?

 The T-Up scheme offers good opportunities for the local companies interested

in upgrading their technological capabilities at minimum cost. However, in order to derive maximum benefits of having the Research Scientist and Engineers (RSEs) working for them, companies need to have some strategic planning on how to leverage on the skills of the RSEs.  Having clear business direction will help to set the direction and focus of the R&D activities.  It is also beneficial to the company to have basic equipment and manpower support available for the RSE to work with so that the pace of the developmental work will not be slowed down unduly .

 2. Does the scheme open up new opportunities to you? How has the T-Up scheme benefited you?

The scheme does open up new opportunities for me in several aspects. It gives me the opportunity to cover the subject much more extensively than I could possibly be able to at SIMTech.  The new job has placed me at the centre of the field / technology. It offers

the opportunity of working in a dynamic environment where various real-life factors- material types, cost, performance, processing conditions – consistently needs to be kept in check while developing new products.

On job opportunities, the secondment may probably be able to change the general perceptions that RSEs are too academic for activities in the industry and will have difficulty blending into the industry.  While this does not apply for all RSEs, it is not easy to change this perception. Thus, the T-Up attachment gives the opportunity to prove that perception wrong.

 3. How has your area of expertise benefited the company?

The job is interesting as it is dynamic.  There is plenty of information to pick and apply quickly.  That is where my research skill comes in handy, i.e. to source, filter, identify, analyse and design experiments to develop products.  Adapting to the job is not a problem as I am trained on both material and process technology.  Thus, I am able to relate material and processing conditions in analysis work.

 4. How is it different working at this company compared to your previous work?

In my previous job, while there is less coverage on a particular area, there is more in-depth research involved as we seek to work on cutting-edge technology.  Resources, both in manpower and equipment, are also more easily available to support each project.  The disadvantages are that we are often involved in a few research areas at each time.  The high degree of accountability requires strategic planning to ensure that the projects proposed can be of use to the local industry.  However, its setback is that to some extent, it limits general knowledge expansion on the area.  With R&P, opportunities are given to work on any topic under the subject area as long as it has potential to be commercialised. 

In March 2003, a seven-member GET-Up advisory committee was formed, with members representing leading SMEs in Singapore. Their role is two-pronged:

• to provide inputs and comments on the relevance and effectiveness of GET-Up strategies and action plans
• to help identify industry-wide technology issues facing local enterprises and propose solutions to help them overcome problems and grow.

 The seven members are as follows:

Dr BH Ng, Executive Chairman, Sunningdale Precision Industries
Dr Diana Young, CEO, Mil-Com Aerospace
Dr Ron Sim. Chairman and Group CEO, Osim International
Ms Olivia Lum, CEO, Hyflux
Mr Winston Tan, Managing Director, corporate brokers International
Mr P Bala, CEO, FTD Technology
Mr Choo Heng Thong, Managing Director, Spindex Industries

Hyflux is one company that has literally come a long way. Its CEO, Olivia Lum says that Hyflux started 10 years ago as a small company doing third party integration of industrial plants. Through the years, the company has encountered many obstacles and has in a sense, learnt the hard way.

“This is largely because there were not many schemes available to technologically based SMEs at that time. Over the recent years, we have benefited greatly from some schemes made available from EDB and SPRING Singapore in the development of our R&D projects,” said Ms Lum.

“Having all these experiences, I can provide the insights and advice on the relevance of GET-UP initiatives and how best to tailor them to suit the needs of our local enterprises. In addition, since I have also worked with many business partners in the electronics, biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries, I can provide advice on how the GET-UP team could help these companies get a head start in their pursuit of technological advancement, especially in the field of process and water treatment,” she added.

Another extremely keen member is Mr P Bala, CEO of FTD Technology.

He said of his role: “As CEO of a local SME, I am able to contribute in analyzing the needs of the SMEs and in proposing solutions to the strategies and action plans of GET-UP.   I can help by reflecting on the impact of the policies & strategies from an industry perspective.”

When Vincent Kho decided to pump millions into the research and development of an alternative to conventional tin-lead solder seven years ago (1996) he wasn’t sure if he would ever see his money back again.

At that time, the industry was still using conventional tin-lead solder and saw little impetus to move away to alternatives. The problem with tin-lead solder, however, was that lead was environmentally unfriendly and hazardous. Also, conventional solder often crack at high temperature due to the characteristic of the tin-lead alloy used.

With the gut instincts of a true-blue entrepreneur, the managing director of Singapore Asahi Chemical & Solder Industries Pte Ltd (Asahi) decided to take a bold leap forward into uncharted waters. And he came up with a world’s first for Singapore – lead-free solder that is able to operate at the same conditions as conventional tin-lead solder. 

After pumping $4-5 million dollars into R&D (and continuing), Asahi’s “Viromet” solder was commercialized in 1999. Today major consumer electronics manufacturers in the world like Matsushita, Thompson and Sony count as Asahi’s customers. And some of them – like Matsushita Panasonic and Thompson have replaced tin-solder with Viromet entirely in some of their manufacturing plants.

Kho attributes Asahi’s success to having a superior homegrown technology and a lot of luck.  “Our timing was right. When we commercialized our product in 1999, the entire semiconductor industry was suddenly migrating to lead-free solder. Some companies had no choice as legislation required the change. Others saw the benefits of lead-free solder,” said Kho.

But it was not smooth-sailing all the way. Pumping the initial $2 million R&D funds into the R&D of Viromet was a risk. And it was a substantial amount of money. Thankfully, the Economic Development Board (EDB) agreed to subsidise half of the initial $2 million.  

“At that time, the funding was very important to us. Nobody wants to take a risk with us into uncharted waters but EDB believed in us,” said Kho. “EDB helped us in the most difficult R&D initial phase and helped transform Asahi into a knowledge-based enterprise,” he added.

Keeping the temperature down

While Asahi is not the only manufacturer of lead-free solder in the world, it says it is the first and only one to have one that operates at the same furnace temperature as conventional solder, thus making it easier to migrate to the new solder without adversely affecting the manufacturing process or requiring extensive changes to the production equipment.

Other lead-free solutions in the market require the furnace to operate at about 10°C higher than traditional solder process. And that means unreliability and often a need to change equipment and process. 10°C may not seem like a lot but in the industry, it could mean a matter of life and death.

“The 10°C literally cost us $4-5 million,” quipped Kho.