Page 6 - AAA NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2014 Online Magazine

SPECIAL FEATURE MRO ASIA

MRO companies,” the minister noted. savings in the transportation time within
The minister, welcoming multinational its manufacturing facility compared to
aerospace companies to establish their traditional cranes and castors.
facilities in the country, said, “Our efforts These productivity improvements
have yielded some encouraging results mean better service and more competitive
and companies have continued to invest costs for customers, the minister opined.
in Singapore in the past year, including However, she pointed out that the
Airbus Asia Training Centre, Boeing future of Asia’s growing aftermarket
Asia Pacific Aviation Services, Satair and services industry will be determined
Vector Aerospace.” by both the quality and quantity of its
The government, she said, is well manpower.
aware of the need to provide greater value “The ability for the MRO industry to
for the customers in order to remain push ahead and value-add will hinge
competitive, such as through shorter heavily on the quality of our manpower.
turnaround times for aircraft repair. “To The Singapore government is deeply BELOW LEFT: MROs in
this end, Singapore strives to explore new involved in the training and provision of a the region are expanding
ideas that can improve our productivity first class local workforce for our industry, facilities to absorb more
despite constraints due to our tight labour one that is well versed with the technical work and grow their
market and limited land space.” and engineering competencies required.” presence
MRO industry in Singapore has The aerospace sector has consistently BELOW RIGHT: Singapore
been rising to the challenge. Under attracted a large local workforce. In Senior Minister of State
SIA Engineering Company’s Cheaper universities, polytechnics and Institutes for Finance and Transport
Better Faster (CBF) strategy launched of Technical Education (ITEs), aerospace- Josephine Teo said the
in November 2009, it has achieved related courses have been over- Asia Pacific region is the
productivity gains of $28.5 million in subscribed and are typically able to enrol centre of growth for the
less than five years. One of its recent students who are strong performers in aviation sector
efforts is the introduction of an aircraft their cohorts. As is the case of all subject
washing robot that reduced manpower disciplines, not all graduates take up OPPOSITE PAGE:
requirements from 11 men to eight men jobs directly related to their training but Singapore also plans to
simplify education and
per aircraft wash. Also noteworthy is the leakage is generally lower among training processes for
Rolls Royce’s “Flying Carpet” - a floating aerospace-related graduands. This is engineers. The current
pallet to move 12-ton aircraft engines perhaps not surprising as the sector standards “can deter
that has led to a 60 per cent time- offers competitive pay packages and some students,” said Teo

6 ASIAN AIRLINES & AIRPORTS NOVEMBER / DECEMBER 2014 WWW.ASIANAIRLINES-AIRPORTS.COM