ENHANCING INNOVATION BY SPREADING IDEAS

"Having the right mindset lays the foundation for innovation and creativity to flourish in an organisation."

Chief of Navy Rear-Admiral (RADM) Ng Chee Peng said this in his keynote address at the MINDEF Innovation-in-Action Seminar (IAS) held on 1 Nov at Pasir Laba Camp.

He said: "In the process of cultivating the desired mindset, we must continue to try new ideas, constantly experiment and be prepared to take calculated risks at all levels of the organisation."

RADM Ng, who is the Chairman of I-Learn (Innovation through Learning, Empowerment And ReNewal) Committee, highlighted the importance of innovation in enabling the Ministry of Defence (MINDEF) and the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) to achieve higher levels of operational readiness, reap substantial time and cost savings, and fulfil missions more effectively.

To help servicemen and work improvement teams develop and test good ideas, RADM Ng said MINDEF was collaborating with "Institutes of Higher Learning, where expertise and facilities are readily available to help our servicemen achieve technical breakthroughs and develop prototypes for trial and experimentation".

At the seminar, a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed between MINDEF and Nanyang Polytechnic, which, RADM Ng said, formalised the "extensive collaboration between the two agencies to aid MINDEF and SAF WITS teams while providing Nanyang Polytechnic's students and staff with access to real-life cases to enhance their future learning".

Themed Spreading Ideas, Pushing Frontiers, this year's seminar also saw the launch of the Idea Provocateur Network, which is a new initiative aimed at facilitating the exchange of ideas across MINDEF and SAF. A discussion was held to engage would-be Idea Provocateurs on how to sustain and expand the Idea Provocateur Network.

Ms Jaslin Teo, who helped to facilitate the implementation of the network, said: "We want to bring these innovators together and link them up through a network so that they can communicate with one another, and increase the connectedness in terms of information, resources and ideas."

The I-Learn Secretary added: "Having this network allows people with the same interests to build on each other's ideas and information can be disseminated faster... it allows us to have more innovations at a faster rate."

Following the discussion, RADM Ng presented the IAS awards to recognise MINDEF and SAF personnel for their contributions to the organisation's innovation efforts.

One of the award recipients was Team Five Stars from the Force Readiness Squadron of the Republic of Singapore Navy (RSN), which represented Singapore at the American Society Quality (ASQ) World Conference on Quality & Improvement (WCQI) 2012.

Their project, titled, "Reducing Repair & Servicing Time of FCU (Fast Craft Utility) Gearbox", reduces the time required to repair defects on a ship, which translates into swifter and more efficient support of the RSN s missions. For their efforts, the team was awarded the "Attendee Choice for Complex Project" at the ASQ WCQI.

"We are very honoured to represent Singapore at the international stage, where we were able to compete and share with the best (innovative) companies around the world," said Military Expert 3 (ME3) Poh Choon Guan, who is the squadron's PRIDE (PRoductivity and Innovation in Daily Efforts) facilitator.

The Lead Engineer from Force Readiness Squadron added: "The ASQ has enhanced the team's way of seeing things and broadened our perspectives, such that we have matured to become better innovators and idea facilitators."