PSA believes that building a strong corporate culture that embraces inclusiveness, diversity and innovation is central to our long-term competitiveness and success. We encourage positive behaviours through the FISH! principles of Be There, Make Their Day, Choose Your Attitude and Play, and the FISH+ principles of Stretch, Support, Self-Discipline and Trust. Together, these create an environment where employees feel safe to think out-of-the-box, share ideas and have autonomy to innovate, in order to achieve our organisational goals.
INNOVATION IN OUR DNA
In 2018, we had put in place a four-year roadmap called ‘Innovision 2022’ to support our aspirations for PSA to become a globally-recognised innovative enterprise. The hallmarks of a successful culture of innovation at PSA, would be individuals who proactively embrace innovation, and leaders who drive innovation excellence across our businesses.
Four years on, we have established a strong foundation, comprising employees and teams across PSA who are empowered and committed to finding new ways of stoking the flames of innovation.
In 2022, more than 900 participants joined the Group Innovation Webcast, in person and virtually, from around the world. The event was themed ‘Innovation at Our Core’, and marked the launch of Innovision@PSA – the next phase of our roadmap to strengthen our innovation culture, or what we coin as ‘PSA’s DNA’. This ‘DNA’ determines our mindset by embodying the principles of Daring to innovate; Never stop trying; and, Accepting failure as learning. In turn, the principles shape our identity and deepen our focus to Driving excellence and value; Nurturing an innovative mindset; and, Acknowledgement as a global champion.
RECOGNISING PSA INNOVATORS
The annual Kua Hong Pak Innovation Awards (KHPIA) recognise and reward the creativity and ingenuity of PSA innovators who dream up novel concepts and turn ideas into fruition. Proceeding into its 10th year in 2022, we received an impressive 549 entries from 46 business and functional units. The diversity of projects, ranging from port and supply chain optimisations to everyday work process improvements, is a strong testament to PSA’s spirit of innovation. The projects also reinforce the importance of Innovision@ PSA for driving breakthrough innovations from the core of our DNA.
A key enabler of the vibrant exchange of knowledge and ideas across PSA’s global business units is our iCAN online platform. Developed and launched in 2016, iCAN grew its membership to more than 13,000 and generated more than 4,000 ideas in 2022. The top iCAN ideators and power users in this collaborative virtual space received commemorative plaques and a small incentive to convey the company’s gratitude for their enthusiasm as well as contributions towards advancing PSA’s innovation culture.
At PSA, we recognise the important role of data in our enterprise. In 2022, we launched the Data to Knowledge (D2K) Challenge, a group-wide knowledge discovery competition where teams from various business and functional units ideate and propose the most compelling and challenging problems amenable to data science solutioning. The four winning teams delivered innovative solutions related to the cost of serving customers, improving yard operations, optimising haulier trips, as well as market intelligence and risk management.
In March 2022, PSA International received the highest commendation at the ‘TT Club Innovation in Safety Award 2021’ event. Our submission, ‘Harnessing Video Analytics’, is a compilation of video analytics projects at PSA terminals geared towards improving the level of safety within terminals. Our innovations enhanced safety standards by successfully reducing lashing-related safety incidents by approximately 60% and lashing-related injuries sustained by personnel by approximately 55% during proof-of-concept trials. The number of traffic infringements was also reduced by approximately 90%.
INVESTING IN HIGH POTENTIAL INNOVATIONS
To reinforce our Innovision@PSA goals and inspire employee innovation, PSA’s Group Innovation Fund sets aside USD1 million annually to support the test-bedding of new ideas and strategies. The Fund also spurs business units to adopt innovative solutions and applications that have been successfully implemented elsewhere in the company. In 2022, PSA approved a total of USD210,000 in grants.
In line with our ongoing efforts to boost innovation, PSA’s Group Intellectual Property Committee oversees the protection of inventions via patents and registered designs. To date, we have a total of 16 patents and nine registered designs.
Our venture capital arm, PSA unboXed supports our business units globally by surfacing nascent technology and innovative ideas from startups funded by the company. To further supplement technology sourcing efforts, PSA unboXed has invested in two venture capital funds, namely the Plug and Play Supply Chain & Logistics Fund, and the DOCK Navigator II Fund.
AUTOMATING TO WORK SMARTER
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) was launched in 2018 in PSA Singapore and proliferated to the rest of the PSA Group in 2019 as an initiative to develop an intelligent workforce. Since its roll out, we have trained more than 98 RPA Developers and Resident Experts across our business units globally using IMPACT, our in-house training program, of whom 48 graduated in 2022 with remarkable contributions of 16 man-years of savings from their first projects. In 2022, the RPA Bootcamp was rolled out to equip individuals with the fundamental RPA skillsets for automating simple processes, and the RPA Gym was introduced to sharpen the skillsets of Developers and Resident Experts. A total of 49 staff as well as 57 RPA Developers and Resident Experts have benefited from the Bootcamp and Gym programs respectively.
The implementation of innovative RPA solutions during the year enabled PSA to achieve savings totalling more than 46 man-years.
Through our multitude of programs and initiatives, PSA will continue to encourage our employees to grow through innovation and push past their comfortable confines to work towards greater achievements.
