Lim Swee Say wants Singapore’s economy to be “faster, better
-
Lim Swee Say wants Singapore’s economy to be “faster, better and cheaper”
TEMASEK REVIEW
PAP minister without portfolio and NTUC Secretary-General Lim Swee Say now wants Singapore to develop a “cheaper, better and faster” economy after calling on Singapore workers to do so earlier.
He stressed that “there is a need for both employers and employees to embrace the productivity drive and remove bottlenecks” in order to achieve the noble objective.
Speaking to Channel News Asia, he added that “it’s important to track the progress of the ‘cheaper, better and faster’ initiative so that companies and unions keep moving up the improvement ladder.”
According to NTUC, such initiatives had led to the breaking of three key bottlenecks over the past five years such high dependency on overseas technical support, low machine productivity, and low labour productivity.
What was not mentioned is Singapore’s chronic dependence on cheap foreign workers who has resulted in its low labor productivity compared to other developed nations.
It is strange that while both companies and workers are exhorted to be “cheaper, better and faster”, the same rule does not apply to PAP ministers.
On the contrary, they are getting more and more expensive with an expected hefty pay hike this year thanks to the strong “rebound” of the Singapore economy.
Despite the ever-increasing salaries of PAP ministers and senior civil servants, it is debatable if they are getting “better and faster” at the same time.
Unfortunately, there is no way Singaporeans can remove non-performing ministers from the cabinet. Regardless of how they screw up, they will still be “voted” into Parliament somehow at the end of the day.
-
Just boot out the dragon lady and the economy will recover.
The reserves are wasted through investment loss of her and her croonies.
As for the millionsters, the day they demand for million dollar pay, they lost the power to tell the people to be CBF.
They cannot even resolve simple issue of a hit and run accident by a diplomat.
-
Was it Dhanabalan who appointed her in the first place? Dhanabalan also should go.
these beaureacrats, what do they know about investing in the first place. appointing a wrong person to the top position is not only a costly mistake and affair, it is also a bloody waste of time. what does she know about investing and it was not her forte some more.
-
What Swee Say is actually saying is that I want all you locals to work your asses off so that you will all power the economy to greater heights. Neber mind if you die of exhaustion in the process. There'll always be foreign talent to enjoy the fruits of your labour!
-
Wow, I have been hearing the "cheaper, better and faster" thingy ever since I was born. He can very well make the same speech in 1980 and it still works. Does he really understand how our economy has changed?
-
how can miw cannot be cheaper?
-
Originally posted by Rooney9:
Was it Dhanabalan who appointed her in the first place? Dhanabalan also should go.
these beaureacrats, what do they know about investing in the first place. appointing a wrong person to the top position is not only a costly mistake and affair, it is also a bloody waste of time. what does she know about investing and it was not her forte some more.
no, it was LHL proposing to Dhanabalan to take his wife,...cos he is so sick of her around, Balan refused, and that is where LHL slapped Balan...so Balan lan lan take her in lor...pardon for my foul -
Originally posted by CheckmateA1:
how can miw cannot be cheaper?
talk is cheap, want cheap, also want fast and better....go geyland and find lah...where got cheap and better?? and faster. He wants better and faster movement, tell him it is not cheap lor -
Originally posted by angel7030:
talk is cheap, want cheap, also want fast and better....go geyland and find lah...where got cheap and better?? and faster. He wants better and faster movement, tell him it is not cheap lor
YOU KPKB because cheap worker does not benefit you -
Originally posted by angel7030:
no, it was LHL proposing to Dhanabalan to take his wife,...cos he is so sick of her around, Balan refused, and that is where LHL slapped Balan...so Balan lan lan take her in lor...pardon for my foul
how the hell you know -
Contact-lens plant makes cheaper, better, faster work
Every morning, workers at contact lens and lens care-product maker CIBA Vision are greeted with numbers on a television screen at the entrance to its Tuas factory.
The numbers reflect the monthly and yearly production-volume targets for contact lenses. Should the production volume stay on track, the company's workers would receive an incentive payout for the year for meeting the target.
These productivity targets, and other performance targets such as quality, safety and cost, were set after the company's successful adoption of the National Trades Union Congress' (NTUC) productivity mantra CBF, which stands for "cheaper, better, faster".
The labour movement launched the CBF drive last August to get companies to improve the productivity of every worker at all levels, as well as their work processes, with new technology.
Yesterday, CIBA Vision's Singapore-based manu- facturing and logistics plant reported an 82 per cent rise in labour productivity and a 42 per cent increase in machine productivity over the past five years.
This increase in output was achieved after taking "bottleneck- breaking" initiatives to identify and eliminate wasteful steps during manufacturing.
One bottleneck identified was a high dependency on overseas technical support, which resulted in a higher operating cost and a longer lead time in solving manufacturing problems.
Hence, a "made in Singapore" line was set up last year. Compared to the other nine lines in the plant running on German technology, it produced 15 per cent more output and was 20 per cent more cost-effective. Although it has been running for only two months, Mr Mark Chua, the general manager of CIBA Vision, said that it is "a long-term intention of the organisation to try to localise future lines".
Another bottleneck was low labour productivity, which was tackled by sending production workers for skills training to learn how to perform other tasks.
A third bottleneck was low machine productivity. To address this, engineers sped up the process time at slower stations, such as where lenses are dried.
In addition to production incentive payouts, Mr Chua also highlighted a reward and recognition scheme, providing bonuses based on employees' performance and contribution.
NTUC secretary-general Lim Swee Say said: "CBF is all about the business, relative to the competition. The concept is not new, but we came up with it to refocus our economy."
http://news.omy.sg/News/Local%2BNews/Story/OMYStory201006040037-157003.html1
http://news.omy.sg/News/Local%2BNews/Story/OMYStory201006040037-157003/2.html
-
Originally posted by CheckmateA1:
how the hell you know
must be, last time in school, i heard the teachers talking to each other that Balan got slapped, i went home and tell my Dad, my Dad told me to talk lno evil, hear no evil, see no evil, or he will slap me. -
Originally posted by CheckmateA1:
YOU KPKB because cheap worker does not benefit you
there is a price to pay for having cheap labour...you get peanut quality -
Originally posted by CheckmateA1:
Contact-lens plant makes cheaper, better, faster work
Every morning, workers at contact lens and lens care-product maker CIBA Vision are greeted with numbers on a television screen at the entrance to its Tuas factory.
The numbers reflect the monthly and yearly production-volume targets for contact lenses. Should the production volume stay on track, the company's workers would receive an incentive payout for the year for meeting the target.
These productivity targets, and other performance targets such as quality, safety and cost, were set after the company's successful adoption of the National Trades Union Congress' (NTUC) productivity mantra CBF, which stands for "cheaper, better, faster".
The labour movement launched the CBF drive last August to get companies to improve the productivity of every worker at all levels, as well as their work processes, with new technology.
Yesterday, CIBA Vision's Singapore-based manu- facturing and logistics plant reported an 82 per cent rise in labour productivity and a 42 per cent increase in machine productivity over the past five years.
This increase in output was achieved after taking "bottleneck- breaking" initiatives to identify and eliminate wasteful steps during manufacturing.
One bottleneck identified was a high dependency on overseas technical support, which resulted in a higher operating cost and a longer lead time in solving manufacturing problems.
Hence, a "made in Singapore" line was set up last year. Compared to the other nine lines in the plant running on German technology, it produced 15 per cent more output and was 20 per cent more cost-effective. Although it has been running for only two months, Mr Mark Chua, the general manager of CIBA Vision, said that it is "a long-term intention of the organisation to try to localise future lines".
Another bottleneck was low labour productivity, which was tackled by sending production workers for skills training to learn how to perform other tasks.
A third bottleneck was low machine productivity. To address this, engineers sped up the process time at slower stations, such as where lenses are dried.
In addition to production incentive payouts, Mr Chua also highlighted a reward and recognition scheme, providing bonuses based on employees' performance and contribution.
NTUC secretary-general Lim Swee Say said: "CBF is all about the business, relative to the competition. The concept is not new, but we came up with it to refocus our economy."
<!-- CONTENT : end --><!--end storybody--><!--end storybox-->
http://news.omy.sg/News/Local%2BNews/Story/OMYStory201006040037-157003.html1
http://news.omy.sg/News/Local%2BNews/Story/OMYStory201006040037-157003/2.html
<!--end storybody--><!--end storybox-->
Did swee sway asked Ciba if the workers are singaporean or foreigners??
-
All i can say is that it is a scam.......
i wish they would admit mistake and withdraw from it.
-
it is a production of NTUC and mediacorp
-
it like going KTV, wana amy yip boobs, lin chih ling looks, pay her $40 for sex.
in summary, i would like to advice Mr lim, go screw youself.
-
These people have been living in their white castle and wearing white underwears too long that they think white underwear is always white.
A few weeks ago, one of the sleepy was claiming that the economic recovery was due to the civil services.
They are fast becoming a joke themselves as they cannot justify the high pay that they are getting with zero contribution.
One of them can be so free that he can blog during MC.
He should get back to work immediately and his MC should be cancelled as he is not paid to write blog to entertain.
He better get his ass back to work.
-
To be cheaper, I took a pay cut, to be faster I bought a car, to be better, I have not really thought how.
-
lim swee say should be swee swee ho ho say...his slogan of cheap better and faster is very chim and not popular at all, i still prefer his upturn and downturn theme...especially the song..aiyo sia suay taiwan
-
If lim ss said want faster and better, I agreed. Cos every employers would like to see that in their company.
BUT, cheaper???? I stronger disagreed. Our cost of living is already very high, bills are high, every bills are high, how to be cheaper???
-
I will tell you why i said this is a scammed....
The Govt came up with " employment institute " they get folks some training grant and inform the people who take up the grant they must stay on the employment a minimum of 6 months for a pay of $1200 - $1500.
That is the reason behind this stupid Cheaper, Faster, Better.
Companies who participate in this program therefore bite into this notion of cheaper salary as a cost cutting measured.
I think after the 6 months term folks who take up the grant will leave the job they move to better pay job. A stupid measure of Rent seeking program not real productivity gain.
-
Productivity: Senior Minister, is it that simple?
SGPOLITICS.NET
At a Post-Budget 2010 Feedback Session held at Marine Parade Community Club recently, Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong revealed what it takes to be a productive worker. He used two cases to make his point.
First he used the example of a popiah skin maker who could only make 50 skins per hour. When his skill improves the next year he might make 100 skins per hour. This, as he explained, means the productivity has increased by 100 percent.
In another illustration he showed the difference between the typist who could only type with 1 finger and needing 20 minutes to type a page and one who could type with 10 fingers and could finish a page in half a minute.
In other words, if we could make a 70 year old toilet cleaner work twice as fast, our elderly hawker centre helper clean more tables in a given time and our taxi drivers double their speed, all of them would be very productive.
If working faster is basically what productivity means, then we are doomed for another period of the same economic malaise that has struck us. Though I am not an economist and have never studied economics in school, I do know that productivity does not simply mean doing a task faster. It would be, in the old industrial age prior to the advent of computers and the internet. It would be, if we still kept competing with third world countries using third world technologies to produce similar kinds of goods. But aren’t we in the First World now?
Though the government keeps talking about productivity, creativity and innovation, it looks as if our mentality is still stuck in the industrialized age.
The Meaning of Productivity
What then is productivity? French political economist, futurist and philosopher, Bertrand de Jouvenel, believed a man must be willing to change his way of working if he wants to increase wealth.
He said, “If he were always to proceed in the same way, he would always produce the same amount in the same time and thus fail to do his share to increase the flow of commodities.”
Furthermore he added, “An increase in the total flow of commodities is not, and cannot be, achieved by simply multiplying by a certain constant each of the specific currents of which the total flow is composed at a given moment.”
Finally he said, “Increasing production demands continual changes in the way the labour force is divided.”
Thus, to be productive, our workers must be mobile and adaptable. They must also have some independent thinking skills so that they will be able to identify and solve problems. However this does not mean just getting them better educated. This is because however educated a person may be, if he is conditioned to be passive and submissive he will always have this unconscious habit of waiting for instructions and cues from above in order to move.
Therefore, to produce creative and innovative workers, we need a nurturing climate. There must be the freedom to express without fear and the room to initiate action without psychological inhibitions. This is because a controlled environment will destroy peoples’ initiative, motivation, instinct and sense of purpose. It can only breed workers who can only be slotted into the various niches in society and just do the work required of them. This is the problem with Singapore. There is no culture of inquiry, debate and research that can make us become a nation of innovative and creative people.
A Better Example of Innovation and Productivity
The story of Ida Rosenthal should be an inspiration to the small person running a humble business. Ida Rosenthal was a dressmaker in a small shop in New York in the early 1920s. At that time women wore corsets and chemises as undergarments. To improve the fit for her customers, Mrs Rosenthal started to experiment with undergarments and finally came out with the first brassiere. Soon the brassiere became a permanent accessory to her dresses. It became so popular that she decided to devote herself to manufacturing brassieres. She later found a company called Maiden Form, the first bra-making company, and very soon all the women in the world were “dreaming in a Maidenform Bra” as an advertisement then went. This is real productivity.
It is not that Singapore does not have productive people. The very fact that our forefathers were prepared to uproot themselves and move to Singapore to start a new life from scratch shows we do have the productivity “genes” in us. It is just that these “genes” have been suppressed by the stifling climate and have not been allowed spontaneous expression.
This is one reason why our film industry has lagged behind the Korean film industry. All along I had thought that Korean serials only attract young girls until I had dinner with a university professor and a specialist doctor. During dinner, both of them were animatedly exchanging stories of the Korean videos they had watched. The university professor told me the Korean videos are watched all over the world including US, Europe, Japan and the whole of South-East Asia. The spin-off from the popularity of the serials is the increasing attraction of Korea as a tourist destination.
The university professor also told me that when she went to Korea for a visit, she insisted the guide brought her to all the Bay Yong-joon concerts and to the condo where he stays where she delighted herself taking photographs of his mailbox and all the fan mails in there (as the mailbox was not locked).
She also told me about another retired professor who not only owned all of Bay’s videos but who would also wait patiently at a hotel to catch a glimpse of him when he was in Singapore. Talk about the fanatic Filipinas and Japanese fans of Bay.
The love for Korean dramas is not confined to the lay person. I once asked an ex-TV actress why she preferred to watch Korean dramas. She said the Koreans are very good storytellers. When I commented that the local dramas are not as good because the acting is not on par, she said that we cannot blame the actors because sometimes the scripts do not allow them to act. I asked if that was because the scripts needed to be politically correct and she answered the question with a laugh which said it all.
No wonder the baddies and gangsters in our local productions do not look or behave like crooks and all the characters look and behave like one another.
Goebbels, the Reichsminister of Propaganda who adored the film Gone With The Wind, had these words for his filmmakers. He said, “If I saw a film made with conviction, then I’ll reward its maker. What I do not want to see are films that begin and end with National Socialist Parades.” To him, if you want to make films, make them entertaining.
What Needs To Be Done?
We are living in an era of vast information and knowledge where rapid changes can make demands on the individual’s ability to change and adapt. The need for the personal development of our students, therefore, becomes even greater. Where difficult decisions need to be made between unclear alternatives, the need for personal integrity and moral courage becomes even more important. This must be the basis of educating our young. Not only will such a person adapt well, he will also likely to have better work ethics.
We are now facing the problems of a developed country and the high costs will affect our competitiveness in many ways. What we really need to continue growing is to have people who can create new goods and services. Only innovating economies can expand and develop. We can no longer keep on churning out economic digits fit for an industrialized society.
However, we can only create new goods and services if we have creative and innovative people. We cannot have creative and innovative people if the climate continues to stifle us. We cannot have creative and innovative people if a lot of our people are just waiting for the government to dispense wealth in the form of upgrading and pre-election shares and rebates.
Our economy can no longer just depend on the few large corporations. In a city economy, it is vital that we have plenty of small and medium size businesses with a possibility of coming out with new ideas to create innovative work and services.
There may be other views on how to turn Singapore into a home of creative and innovative people. However it is hard to imagine that an innovative and creative population can be created by just making all the motherhood statements of higher skills, higher productivity and higher wages without giving people more mental space to dream and allowing more alternative voices to be heard.
For the policy makers and the people who run this country, it would be good for them to watch this video featuring an excellent talk by Sir Ken Robinson, who is an internationally recognized leader in the development of innovation and human resources, to get an idea of what we are facing and what needs to be done:
-
Cheaper, better, faster.
Cheaper, better, faster.
Repeat until it gets drilled into everybody's head.
-
I'll say tis again and again and again.
The mini stars own themselves. Back in 1979, it was announced we adopt a higher wage policy to improve productivity, to go value added industries simply because we cannot compete w/ other countries in wages.
So lower wages can improve productivity?
So should be asking all mini stars to cut their annual wages by 30%.