Speech by Second Minister for Defence at MINDEF PRIDE Day 2017, at the Singapore University of Science and Technology

SMS Maliki
Chairman, Government Parliamentary Committee for Defence and Foreign Affairs, Mr Vikram Nair
Member, Government Parliamentary Committee for Defence and Foreign Affairs, Mr Cedric Foo
Permanent Secretaries 
Service Chiefs
Ladies and gentlemen

I am delighted to join you this afternoon to celebrate your achievements and contributions to the PRIDE movement. My heartiest congratulations to all award recipients. This is the second year I am attending.

The Imperative Remains

The PRIDE movement started 36 years ago as a way to engage the entire MINDEF and SAF to find better ways to do our work, by building a culture of productivity, of innovation and organisational excellence. We recognised very long ago, those were the days with the productivity bee, that productivity and innovation are critical enablers for us to stretch each defence dollar, optimise manpower and become more effective in whatever we do. 

Today there is no more productivity bee, but that imperative is stronger than ever, for reasons we are all very familiar with. But if I may just briefly list them: First, security threats have become more complex, because of cyber warfare, because of terrorism, it is different from before. Second, we are facing a crunch in manpower, as cohort sizes fall, as fewer babies grow up, national service intake will shrink. Third, technology is advancing in exciting ways that democratise computing power, robotic capabilities to every solider, presenting us with tremendous opportunities to improve. 

Today, we recognise 128 worthy winners from across MINDEF/SAF who embody this collective commitment to productivity and innovation, making an impact in the way we leverage technology, capabilities and teamwork to tackle our future challenges. You saw a few of the examples on the video, let me elaborate their stories.

 
Examples of Innovation

The Second People's Defence Force or 2PDF protects key installations 24/7 and conducts security operations for major national events, such as the National Day Parade. These security operations involve patrols conducted via vehicles and also on foot. To fulfil their mission, there is a need for information to be shared across personnel in the unit, in a timely and effective manner. The traditional way of doing this is through tactical radios. But 2PDF saw a better way. They developed a communication and collaboration tool that made use of 4G Cellular Services, and secured their communications with encryption. This allows for faster decision-making and responses. Simple, effective, you can even say obvious, but it rides on existing available technology and does not reinvent the wheel. This innovation has generated cost savings of more than $350,000 a year.  
 
Another winning team today is from the Air Engineering & Logistics Department in the Air Force. They were not convinced that a damaged component of the Apache Sighting System could not be repaired and had to be replaced. Using their engineering knowledge and armed with absolute stubbornness, the team convinced the original equipment manufacturer that the component can indeed be repaired. Then, they proceeded to work with industry experts to develop a procedure to successfully repair the component and certify it airworthy. As a result, we saved more than $2 million.
 
Now let me move to innovation at sea. The computer servers in the Frigate's Ship Management System encountered some problems, which were attributed to overheating. The Navy's Naval Logistics Department and Naval Logistics Command worked together to study the issue extensively, and then redesign the server cabinets to provide a cooler operating environment for the servers. Besides reaping savings of almost $1 million a year, this server cabinet design is now the new standard adopted to house shipboard computers. 

All in all, such innovations and improvements achieved almost $200 million of savings for the SAF

There are also good examples of innovation leading to greater effectiveness. Many of them involve inter-service collaborations. We have to expect that, because innovations always happen at the junction and at the intersection of different disciplines.  

The Autonomous Security Responder (ASR) is a collaboration between 2PDF, the Future Systems & Technology Directorate (FSTD) and the Defence Science & Technology Agency (DSTA). Currently undergoing trials, these autonomous unmanned ground vehicles are armed with a suite of sensors. They can conduct patrols and provide real-time situational updates to commanders. This will enable our commanders and security forces to assess threats quickly and respond by deploying the appropriate resources.

The team in 3rd Army Maintenance Base (3AMB) was drawn to the idea of solar panels, in place of generators, to power equipment for surveillance operations conducted in open fields. So the team set out to first learn how solar panels could charge high-density batteries, and how to use the stored battery power for powering the surveillance equipment. By acquiring new knowledge, they have made the "Off-Grid Power System" possible. And I hope this capability can be extended to other operations. 

Now, how do we keep this momentum of innovation going, and growing? We have seen and heard about organisations, companies, industries that are constantly on the move, constantly coming out with new ideas, new products, new services that change our lives constantly.  New software, new drugs that cure diseases, new gadgets that make life easier. Some of these inventions are brilliant and when they are adopted, we see them snowball very quickly; but others will also fizzle out.  Some of the top tech companies in the past, today they are no more. 

The Pivotal Importance of Organisations

But daring to try and then fail are part of the DNA of such organisations. Having done your best and failed, is a badge of honour and a rite of passage for these companies, because it is testimony that you learnt something they did not teach you in school, and that you will do better next time because of the failure.

At the same time, we also see organisations and industries where nothing seems to be able to move or change, and they are stuck with the status quo. Every experiment is derided, is resisted; Newton's Law applies in those organisations, every change is met with equal and opposite force to say "do not change".  In the nature of experiments, they are never perfect. But we must support experiments so that we learn, we adjust, we compensate, and continue to move forward. If we stand still, we will be frozen, ossified and will be out of the game.  

What determines the agility and ingenuity of organisations is therefore not just the understanding of technologies. We know about technologies.  We can build them, we can also buy them. Innovation, I think, is fundamentally an organisational problem. For large public service organisations, it is first about leaders setting audacious and exciting goals and vision, and communicating them so that most people, if not all, buy into that vision.

It is about middle management empowering your staff to contribute in ideas and deeds, and accepting that a big vision is not realised in one big step  according to some big  master plan, but a long series of often uncharted moves in a journey full of twists and turns. It is incumbent upon middle management to accept messiness and imperfections, to feel somewhat out of control, to accept and even celebrate the right kind of failures, and recognise results arising from risk-taking, instead of merely rewarding no mistakes. 

To me the most important quality in fostering innovation is the ability to exercise judgement. In many operations and activities, it is important that we follow manuals and procedures, especially when safety is involved. But if this becomes everything we do, if this becomes the only approach that we do things, then we will kill innovation. Hence judgement must be exercised from time to time, to decide when we suspend the rules, when it is time the rules are reviewed and rewritten. And as leaders, we judge when an idea is worth trying, when it is best to pull the plug, when we should compliment and recognise, and how we should treat setbacks and failures. Our decisions and actions set the tone of the organisation, and inform its members whether there is a license to try or there is no license to try.  
 
Today we are also recognising individuals and organisations that have done well under the PRIDE Movement. Corporal First Class Ong Yong Shun is from the Training Section in HQ Singapore Combat Engineers. Yong Shun formed a team and used his computer programming skills to develop an Integrated Training Analysis & Management System in-house. This system provided a more efficient way of managing and tracking the training of personnel, reducing the time required for the task by almost 80%. The credit does not just go to CFC Ong but to the entire unit, his supervisors, because there are very few organisations where a junior staff, in this case, a CFC, gets to exercise his skills and do something for the entire organisation. In many organisations, the junior person is deemed as not knowing what he is doing, must be supervised, and rarely empowered. But in this unit, in CFC Ong, we saw a soldier who is empowered. 

Recognising that innovation is largely a function of how an organisation is run, I would like to congratulate 6 Air Engineering & Logistics Group (AELG) from the Air Force for winning the Minister for Defence Award two years in a row. It is the highest honour accorded to a unit for their outstanding achievements in the PRIDE movement, and an affirmation of the strong culture of productivity, organisational excellence, resource optimisation and staff-wellbeing in 6 AELG. The Air Combat Command as well as Fighter Group from the Air Force also won almost all the MDA awards in the combat category. 
 
To further support the PRIDE movement, MINDEF/SAF will be making some enhancements to the Unit WITS Management Scheme and Unit Suggestion Management Scheme. These changes will encourage innovation from all sources, including those generated through multi-disciplinary cross-department teams, crowdsourcing or make-a-thons. The MINDEF Information Systems Division also recently introduced 5 digital platforms to provide tools for MINDEF/SAF organisations to experiment with new technologies. 

Conclusion - Our Burning Platform

In conclusion, Ladies and gentlemen, we are all standing on a burning platform. It is caused by evolving threats, and our rapidly shifting manpower situation. What we do here in MINDEF/SAF can be an important reference point for our whole nation, within and outside of the public service. It starts with recognising the strategic importance of innovation and productivity, it happens when leaders take a personal interest to drive it, and it proliferates with the right organisational processes and culture that empower every individual. Don't forget that, because for MINDEF/SAF, this is literally a matter of life and death.  
 
I wish everyone a productive and innovative year ahead. Thank you.

More Resources

MINDEF Achieves Savings Exceeding $197M Through Productivity and Innovation