SINGAPORE – The paint that clads a Hunter armoured fighting vehicle used to take a painter in a stifling protective suit two to three days to apply, but a robotic arm now completes the job in half the time or less.
And that, by the way, is with reduced paint wastage and greater precision, while the same painters now program and operate the arm from a safe distance without needing protective suits.
This is one of four projects at ST Engineering Land Systems that have received funding from the National Trades Union Congress’ Company Training Committee (CTC) Grant to raise productivity, redesign jobs and upskill workers.
The grant was launched in February 2022 and funded with $100 million from the Government.
Companies can apply to NTUC’s Employment and Employability Institute for the grant to cover up to 70 per cent of the qualifying cost of projects.
The labour movement provided an update on the scheme during NTUC secretary-general Ng Chee Meng’s visit to ST Engineering Land Systems’ Jalan Boon Lay compound on April 12, ahead of NTUC’s May Day celebration.
It said that as at March 2024, 3,062 workers across 150 companies stood to benefit from a further wage increase of 5 per cent on average beyond their annual increment, or from career development plans enabled through these projects.
NTUC also said that 727 or 25 per cent or so of these workers hailing from 61 companies with approved CTC grants worked in professional, managerial and executive (PME) roles. This was the first time NTUC had provided a breakdown of PMEs who have benefited from the grant.
The four CTC Grant projects led by ST Engineering Land Systems have impacted 77 employees, including 31 PMEs.
They are among the 150 workers across the wider ST Engineering group who have benefited from 12 projects.
The CTC Grant is part of the CTC programme launched in 2019 to encourage companies to form committees together with unions to map out what skills workers need to upgrade in the light of business and industry prospects.
NTUC noted that it had formed over 2,000 CTCs as at March 2024, and is on track to set up 2,500 by 2025.
Mr Ng said CTC Grant projects like those at ST Engineering Land Systems are a win-win arrangement that improve employee motivation due to the increased efficiency they can bring to jobs and the higher pay these entail.
“I’m really happy to note also that NTUC’s move towards representing professionals, managers and executives is taking a new step, because within this uplifting of working people, PMEs benefit too,” he added.
Mr Ng also witnessed another ST Engineering Land Systems initiative put in place with the help of the CTC Grant – a three-dimensional scanning system used to develop virtual 3D models for virtual reality applications.
Mr Andrew de Silva, head of operations management and control at ST Engineering Land Systems, said the time taken to develop a 3D model has shortened from as many as 14 man-days to four man-days.
He noted the positive feedback from those working on such models, as the innovation has made it much faster to complete what was a significantly more tedious task.
Mr Chen Guanhua, a 3D content developer executive at the company, has learnt to handle 3D scanning equipment and software, which generates models he can then refine further, instead of drawing the models from scratch.
He said: “I think this is highly beneficial because it will likely be the norm... in future.”
