A Report On Singapore Technologies Engineering Information Technology Essay

1.1 Company Profile

Singapore Technologies Engineering Ltd (ST Engineering) is an integrated engineering group specialising in innovative solutions and services in the aerospace, electronics, land systems and marine sectors.

The Company is formed by the amalgamation of Singapore Technologies Aerospace Ltd, Singapore Technologies Automotive Ltd, Singapore Technologies Shipbuilding & Engineering Ltd and ST Electronic & Engineering Ltd, effective on 6 December 1997. Upon amalgamation, the four companies became its wholly-owned subsidiaries. Singapore Technologies Pte Ltd is the Group’s holding company. In late 1999, the Group acquired Chartered Industries of Singapore (Pte) Ltd

As a leader in each of their core business, ST Engineering leverages its multi – sector capabilities to develop advanced solution for their customers across industries. They serve both commercial and defence customers in over 80 countries, through a global network of over 100 subsidiaries and associated companies in 23 countries and 44 cities spanning the United State, Europe , Asia and Australasia.

1.2 Company History

The development of ST Engineering started off in 1967 where a small company in Singapore called the Incorporation of Chartered Industries of Singapore Pte Ltd, a pioneer indigenous defence company making military weapons systems for Singapore Armed forces.In 1968, incorporation of Singapore Shipbuilding and Engineering Pte Ltd was formed on 7 May 1968, now known as ST marine.

In 1969, Incorporation of Singapore Electronic & Engineering Pte Ltd (SEEL), forerunner of ST Electronics, providing electronics support at Sembawang.

In 1971 Singapore technologies Automotive Pte Ltd. Was formed.

In 1975 Singapore Technologies Aerospace Pte Ltd was formed to support Republic of Singapore Air force.

Follow by 1990, Singapore Technologies Aerospace ( ST Aerospace ) and Singapore Technologies Marine ( ST Marine) were publicly Listed. A year after, Singapore Electronics ( ST Electronics ) and Singapore Technologies Automotive ( ST Auto ) were also Publicly listed.

In 1997, ST Aerospace, ST Electronics, ST Auto (Known as ST Kinetics now), and ST Marine merged to form Singapore Technologies Engineering (ST Engineering), a S$2 billion listed holding company.

In recent years the achievements and successes of ST Engineering over the passed few years allow the organisation to rank among the largest company listed on the Singapore Exchange with a market capitalisation of about $10billion.

1.3 Awards

Below are some important or well recognized awards that contributed to the successes of ST Engineering, these awards were awarded to the organisation to prove that they have excel in their business and work, their hard work were certainly paid off and recognized.

Source Extracted from : http://www.stengg.com/aboutus/awards.aspx

Singapore Quality Award with Special Commendation Award

ST Engineering is the first public-listed company in Singapore to receive the Singapore Quality Award with Special Commendation which is awarded for the first time this year to Singapore Quality Award (SQA) winners who won the award at least five years after winning the SQA. The SQA with Special Commendation recognises past SQA winners for scaling greater heights of business excellence and for demonstrating global leadership in key business areas.

Innovative Organisation of the Year

Innovative Organisation of the Year, Singapore Innovation Awards 2003, organised by Spring Singapore.

ST Engineering was recognised for having put in place integrated systems and processes to strengthen its innovative capabilities. Some systems noted were the strong emphasis on staff involvement in innovation with as much as 15% of staff time spent in this area. The company realised savings and value creation in excess of S$25 million in 2002 through such efforts.

Best Managed Boards

The Best Managed Boards has been launched to recognise the initiatives taken by the boards of Singapore listed companies towards good corporate governance.

This award underscores people practices at the Board level, more than mere legal compliance and transparency. Such practices include the independence of directors, director skills mix, director training and continuing development, management oversight, performance focus, accountability, and appropriate reward strategies for directors and senior executives.

Innovation & Quality Class (IQC) Award

ST Engineering received the Outstanding IQC Organisation Award 2002 by SPRING Singapore in recognition of the Group’s outstanding contribution and commitment to the IQC movement.

In addition, Singapore Technologies Kinetics’ (ST Kinetics) project team, Dynamics, was conferred the Eureka Award for its innovativeness and employment of unique methodology and techniques, while Singapore Technologies Electronics’ (ST Electronics) senior manager, Ms Yasmin Sin, was conferred the Outstanding IQC Manager Award.

People Developer

The People Developer is Singapore’s quality standard for human resource development. It gives recognition to organisations that bring out the best in people for better business results. Launched in December 1997, the People Developer Standard offers organisations a systematic process to review their people practices, develop staff and improve training effectiveness.

1.4 Vision , Mission and Value System Of ST Engineering

Vision

To be a global defence and engineering Group

Mission

An integrated engineering group that bring value to the customers and partners through delivery of total, integrated quality solutions and support

Value System

Integrity

The foundation of the business success rests on unyielding honesty, trustworthiness and responsibility for every action made.Striving to do the right thing and to fulfil promises to one another, customers, partners and stakeholders.

Value Creation

To grow their people, markets and business around the world to consistently create solutions that win in the marketplace and meet, or even exceed, our customers’ expectations.

Courage

Empowered through small and large acts of courage in everyday work and at more challenging moments of uncertainty, without fear of failure or the desire to stick with status quo.

Commitment

Determined and energised to achieve shared vision, mission and strategic objectives. Dedicated to a common purpose stands the commitments to customers, and partners to achieve excellent results.

Compassion

Passionate to succeed and prosper as individuals, teams and a business.Reach out to express genuine care and responsibility for one another, and the communities by helping those in difficulty with time, energy and money.

2.0 Analysis

2.1 The business of ST Engineering

Like every other company, ST Engineering has its own specialty in their own business and a huge and old organisation like ST Engineering contain different sector that provide solutions and services in the aerospace, electronics, land systems and marine.

ST Engineering is split into 4 sectors mainly ST Aerospace , ST Marine , ST Electronics and ST Kinetics that specialized in their own commercial. Here is a brief explanation of each sector’s business.

ST Aerospace

Singapore Technologies Aerospace is one of the largest independent aviation repair and overhaul company around the world, serving its customer around the world with advanced air forces, leading airlines and freight operators. ST Aerospace also provides defence and commercial customers with aviation support system, extensive capabilities in engineering and development, life cycle maintenance, materials and component supplies, refurbishment, customised modification and upgrades. One of the major capabilities for this sector is Aircraft Maintenance Modification ( AMM) which provide heavy maintenance, structural repair, and aging modification work for military helicopter and aircrafts to customers such as Delta Air Lines, FedEX and United Airlines.

ST Marine

ST Marine, also known as the Singapore Technologies Marine is a premier shipyard providing turnkey shipbuilding, ship conversion and ship repair services to customers around the globe in naval and commercial markets. Its capabilities include production of coast guard patrol vessels, landing and supply craft and landing ship tank for the naval, Cargo container vessel, floating dock and fuel oil bunkering tank for their commercials.

ST Electronics

The Electronics sector has core capabilities in design, development and integration of advanced electronics systems such as broadband radio frequency and microwave communication, e-government solutions, rail and traffic management, real-time command & control, training and simulation, digital media, intelligent building management, and information security and mobile commerce solutions. Specializing in Information Communication Technologies ( ICT) and Information Technology ( IT),ST electronic succeed being the first ICT system integrator and provider in Singapore to have achieved the S$1 billion revenue mark in 2007.Nevertheless, ST Electronics will continue to strive hard to satisfy its customers with quality and innovation products with the focus on the communication & Sensor systems, satellite communication and interactive digital media.

ST Kinetics

The last sector known as the Singapore Technologies Kinetic is major in land systems and specialty vehicles arm of Singapore Technologies Engineering. Their capabilities includes design and development, systems integration, production, operations & support and through life management of a wide range of specialised land systems equipment and specialty vehicles mainly servicing homeland security and defence market in Singapore. ST Kinetics is made up of three business groups, namely the Land Systems & Solutions Group; the Specialty Vehicles & Services Group; and the Total Support & Services Group.

Overall, I think that the group has a diverse commercial activities or business in the aerospace, electronics, land systems and marine sectors which made them a company with many customers regarding to airlines, shipping lines, transportation service providers to truck leasing operators. The company have been working with these customers and partners for a long time therefore there will be a strong business relationship between both parties that will allow ST Engineering’s profit to be much more stabilized than a organisation that just started operating, it also brings in new customers which will result in profit earned year after year.

As shown below is the recent net profit of ST Engineering with 4 different sectors.

Extracted from: http://www.stengg.com/investorelations/pdf/2qtr10fyppt.pdf slide 30.

As we can see from the above figure, the profit that they earned by different sectors have increased from 1st half of 2009 to 1st half of 2010.Other than that I realise that the net profit from Aerospace sector is the highest compared to the rest of the sector that have profits which have close percentage with one another. This tells me that their Main income comes from Aerospace department, this maybe the result of certain countries developing economy such as china, where the economy of china is currently advancing very fast thus people would need to make use of airlines for business or travelling which increase the work or business contract of aerospace department that cause them to have the highest percentage of profit.

We can also relate that ST Engineering having several variety of business helped them to secure a strong stand in the society, if one of the sector is ever affected with bad economy crisis, the impact on the organisation will not be that great as there are other sectors that could support them. Therefore we can conclude that the business in ST Engineering is in a good state which prove that the company indeed provide quality solutions and product that satisfy its customers and partners during year 2009 and 2010. With quality products and results, it will gain the trust of the customers which will then come with profits and new partnerships.

2.2 Impact On society

Since early 2000, ST Engineering had participate many projects and business that lead to a great outbreak and huge success. One example will be in 2004 during the SARS crisis, the electronics department created the Infrared Fever Screen System ( IFSS) which was used at the border checkpoints, this was a huge contribution to the society in Singapore and for other countries as well. How it works is actually very simple, it operate like a video camera which uses passive infrared imaging technology to take the thermographs of people. The thermographs will provide pseudo colour reading of varying body temperatures, which allow people to identify those with high fever.

It prevent further spreading of the virus as it is able to detect people with high fever, at that point of time people who have fever are debar or from the country as fever was one of the symptoms for SAR virus. This way, all potential SARS victims or carrier will go through further medical test and be separated from healthy people. The countries will then be able to control the spreading of the virus with the precautions made using the Ifss.

The key points that made this technology a success is because the IFSS are able to provide a non intrusive and reliable means of screening large groups of people simultaneously which is more convenient compared using thermometers to take everyone’s temperature which is time consuming and waste of time. This system is able to provide reliable and instantaneous results in just a matter of seconds. Another factor is, the IFSS is easy to operate where no special training is required or complicated procedures to follow. It contains the fully automated system , therefore all we have to do is just to watch the screen to view real time images and identify those with fever.

If Infrared Fever Screen System is not created, SARS may have greater destruction towards people, and eventually it will affect the economy and society as the possibilities of people will be infected by the Virus will increase thus disabling workforce of companies, and industries. This technology is one of the famous achievement from the Organisation where the IFSS was awarded the US Tech Museum Award (Health Category) in 2004.

Below is a picture of the (IFSS) Extracted from : http://www.ifss.com.sg/

Another contribution to Singapore society was the Visual Passenger Information System (VPIS) for the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) and Light Rail Transit (LRT) systems in Singapore. This technology had greatly increased the convenience for both the operator of the MRT and LRT and the passenger. The VPIS solution provided by ST Engineering is based on ST Electronics’ in-house Intelligent Rail Information System (iRIS) product which allows rail transit commuters in the trains to view live messages on LED displays and multimedia, this way if there is any case of emergency, passengers will be notified as soon as possible and precautions will take place faster and more efficient. This system also provide information updates for the benefit of the commuters such as displaying video clips and messages which include weather forecasts, rail arrival and departure time and advertisements.Recently, ST Engineering provide this Passenger information system to other country such as Brazil’s Rio de Janeiro Metro ( A underground railway that operate in Rio De Janeiro of Brazil ).

Here are some Pictures for VPIS from : http://www.stee.stengg.com/lsg-grp/capabilities/pdf/transport/rail/VPIS_Eng.pdf

Here is a news in 2008 about how ST Engineering had made an impact on the society over the globe that existence of this organisation cannot be ignored or Unknown.

Reference from : http://www.procurement-online.com/news/5068

ST Engineering had landed Major Overseas contracts where ST Kinetics and ST marine Secured contracts abroad valued at S$44.8 million and S$28 million. The ST Kinetics has been awarded a contract worth of S$44 million by a middle eastern customers where they have to provide mobile mortar systems and involves the supply of ST Kinetics’ patented 120mm Super Rapid Advance Mortar System (SRAMS).This system bought by other countries will help them to increase their defences and also secured alliance. In a case if there is a terrorist group that plans to destruct global economy and society, the defence over the globe will be well balanced thus making the terrorist invasion a tough one.

On the other hand, ST Marine was awarded a S$28million contract by Norway-based Waveship AS ( WaveField ) for the complete outfitting works on its seismic research vessel called Geowave Voyager where ST marine is tasked to install machinery, piping system, electrical systems and accommodation on the vessel. “We chose ST Marine based on their track record in marine seismic vessel conversions of this magnitude. We look forward to a successful working relationship with ST Marine, and an end product that surpasses our expectations,” quoted Atle Jacobsen, CEO, Wavefield-Inseis. This is another factor that shows that ST Engineering had already made a global presence where most organisation recognize its capabilities and due to the good reputation that the organisation had made in the past, helps them to gain new business contract from other company such as Norway. I believe that a few years down the road, ST Engineering will be well-known not just in Asia, but over the world if they continue to make achievements and work hard towards their goal being the global defence and engineering Group.

Quote extracted from: http://www.oilpubs.com/oso/article.asp?v1=7188

2.3 SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis is a strategy model that is used to help in understanding the strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats of all sorts of situations. Each aspects of the analysis would enable us to be able to see more about the problem given.

SWOT ANALYSIS OF ST ENGINEERING

STRENGTHS

Won numerous well recognised awards in such as Singapore Quality award with special commendation award and innovation & Quality class award, People Developer award and innovation excellence award. These will provide the company with good reputation and credibility that will attract or sustain their customers.

With over 100 subsidiaries, joint ventures and associated companies across 44 cities in 23 countries.

Long presence in the Engineering & technology industry thus able to maintain business with its regular customers and attract new customers.

Many achievements which increase the reliability and awareness of the organisation.

WEAKNESSES

Some of the projects may take a few years to complete even with the current technology we have.

Well- known in Asia but not in other European countries.

Big Organisation with many sectors, maybe hard to organise and it may take a long time for proposal to reach the Head of the company.

OPPORTUNITIES

Merging with other engineering and technologies group to reduce production time.

Create new technology that are more advance than other engineer group, to outdate the old ones.

Ability to invade to overseas’ market

THREATS

Other competitive technology and engineering company like:, Engineering Technology Associates INC , MJC Engineering and technology INC and SIA Engineering Company (SIAEC)

New Products produced by other company that surpass their own.

Some other company might offer better deals which includes cheaper price with the same product provide by ST Engineering.

3.0 Outlook for 2nd half 2010

After Looking at what the Organisation had achieved recent and in the past, let us take a look at what is it going to do in the 2nd half of 2010 and in the future.

The Aerospace sector ( ST Aerospace) is helping out San Antonio International Airport in the city of San Antonio, Texas to open its eight hangar. The group planned to finish building the hangar by the end of 2010.As San Antonio is the most visited city in Texas , it would wise that the airport in the city will be operating at its best by receiving as much tourist and businessmen as possible.ST Aerospace participate in this work to help building its reliability and also relationship with San Antonio, this will also allow ST Engineering to be known and recognise in the United States.

Follow up with the Electronics Sector( ST Electronics), this sector will be in charge of the design, manufacturing, supply, installation , testing and commission of the half height platform screen doors for Land Transport Authority’s Circle Line which has been recently started operating in early 2010.The installation of these platform screen doors are still currently at work in a few stations of circle line that have not start operation, and it was planned to finish at 2011.When the circle line is fully opened in 2011, this fully underground line will become the world’s longest fully automated metro line with 35.7km long with 31 stations.

ST Kinetics will continue to pursue key defence programmes in the second half of 2010 to provide our country military system with the best defence. They will also continue to extend specialty vehicle market reach, to expand its sales and gain recognition over different countries. Lastly they will continue to deliver weapons and specialty vehicles to Singapore Army as well as other munitions for this second half of the year.

The Marine sector will continue to pursue business opportunities in the naval and government industries and its current focus will be on its delivering to the customers .

I believe that the organisation will continue its remarkable business with their customer locally and globally even in the future, as the economy is currently advancing in a fast rate, ST Engineering will upgrade themselves to provide their customers with innovative products that will meet or even exceed their expectations.

4.0 Conclusion

After doing a fair amount of research about ST Engineering, I think that this Organisation had gone through a very long way since 1997 and years of hardship in order to achieve what they have succeed over the past few years. In the SWOT Analysis, they had won numerous awards which proved that they their work had been paid off fair enough. With these Achievements up till date, more and more organisation over the globe will eventually know this company’s well business and reputation, thus attracting them to collaborate with the company. This will provide more opportunities for them to work on and strive even more successes to live up their name as the global defence and engineering group.

As we know that there are many engineering and technologies organisation out there in the world which compete for business in this particular field. In 2007, a financial crisis hits hard around the world which was triggered by a shortfall in the United states banking system, this crisis had cause a lot of downturns for many companies and organisation, and of course it affected ST Engineering as well such as bankruptcy of certain customers which created bad debts for them. Still the Organisation stand strong and determined as they continue to pursue innovation and relentless new business since 2007 to the present, this help them to mitigate the impact of the crisis.

As the global economy is slowing recovering from the crisis , this marks as a fresh start for ST Engineering to make a comeback and surprise the globe even more with its quality business. I believe that the organisation will increase its efforts in search of suitable acquisition opportunities and seek collaborations with partners to prosper in the future global economy, for this to happen, the group must work closely with customers to address their changing needs in order to stay relevant in the current economic climate.

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