one of the sectors to be covered by this initiative with productivity roadmap launched in 2011 with a 10 year horizon. The key highlight from this roadmap was setting a productivity target, aiming to reach, by 2020, an average 178.000 SGD level of value-added (VA) per worker in the industry, from the baseline level of 67.000 SGD in 2008. To support this goal, a 52 million SGD budget was set aside from National Productivity Fund (NPF) to support skills upgrading activities for the precision engineering workforce. This included the creation of a Master Craftsmen Programme to offer advanced vocational training and recognition for PE professionals. The roadmap consisted of three major priorities (“thrusts”): growing higher value added activities; improving firm-level operational efficiency; and further upgrading PE workforce. Growth of higher value added activities was seen to be achieved by broadening and strengthening manufacturing capabilities for larger scale operations, designing, developing and production of highmix low-volume manufacturing equipment and other advanced technologies and know-how as well as diversifying as history showed, to become a supplier to a broader mix of industries including aerospace, medical devices or offshore equipment. The improvement of firm-level operational efficiency was aimed to be reached via increasing capital productivity, automation, process improvement and job redesign. The enhanced Productivity and Innovation Credit (PIC) was to be used as an important measure supporting such transformation activities and reducing their costs. The promotion of higher skills for the industry – the third and last priority of the productivity roadmap, saw the proposal of establishing a Master Craftsmen Programme at Nanyang Polytechnic, reserving for this initiative 52 million SGD from the NPF. Modelled on successful examples of vocational training programmes in Europe, this programme was expected to provide a new pathway to attract talented individuals to PE carriers and equip them with necessary skills to support productivity upgrading of the industry. The progress of productivity upgrading in PE has not been sufficiently rapid to enable achieving the productivity targeted, furthermore it was highly influenced by the one-off jump between 2010 and 2011 in output and value added, also driving up productivity level. Besides this jump, since 2011 sector growth and productivity upgrading has been very limited, with value added per worker increasing by 10% from around 88.000 SGD in 2011/2012 to 97.000 SGD in 2014/2015.
4.3. PE Industry Transformation Map In October 2016, following the announcement of Industry Transformation Programme earlier in the year, the Industry Transformation Map for Precision Engineering industry was launched by the Minister for Trade and Industry. It set a number of specific targets, to be achieved by 2020, including the creation of 3000 PMET jobs, expected growth of the value added created by the industry from 8.8 billion SGD in 2014 upwards to 14 billion SGD in 2020. By 2020, the share of PMET jobs were also set to increase from 48% to 58% while the overall output of the sector is expected to grow from 32 billion SGD to 42 billion SGD. Key elements supporting the implementation of the ITM include the complementarities with Research, Innovation and Enterprise (RIE) 2020 plan, in which 3.2 billion SGD were set aside for R&D in Advanced Manufacturing and Engineering; the 450 million SGD National Robotics Programme announced in 2016 budget; the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Cluster (NAMIC) housed
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