Feinmetall Singapore opens new digital manufacturing plant

SINGAPORE — The opening of Feinmetall Singapore’s new digital manufacturing facility in Marsiling yesterday marked another milestone in the company’s journey, two years after it launched its factory at the same site, said Minister for Trade and Industry (Industry) S Iswaran.

Speaking at the opening ceremony of the new plant, Mr Iswaran noted the “spirit of innovation” behind the company’s continued growth.

“The manufacturing sector is an important pillar of our economy, and digital manufacturing is a key enabler to ensure competitiveness of the sector,” said Mr Iswaran.

Contributing 20 per cent to Singapore’s gross domestic product and 14 per cent of total employment last year, the manufacturing industry hires over 60 per cent of its workers in skilled jobs, which is higher than 54 per cent of the overall economy, he noted.

Feinmetall Singapore is a local precision engineering enterprise that specialises in the design and manufacturing of wafer probe cards for semiconductor wafer tests.

Established in 2007, the company has grown from a five-man team to 50 employees today.

In the last decade, Feinmetall has invested more than S$1.5 million in research and development, and seen its revenue grow six-fold, said the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*Star) and Feinmetall in a joint press statement.

The precision engineering industry transformation map outlined in Budget 2016 seeks to help local enterprises build capabilities to leverage opportunities from digital manufacturing.

The target is to create 3,000 jobs for professionals, managers, executive and technicians, and to grow the industry’s value-add from S$8.8 billion in 2014 to S$14 billion by 2020, according to Mr Iswaran. Since 2008, Feinmetall has been partnering A*Star to deepen its expertise and grow its business.

The projects include technology development and secondments of A*Star researchers to improve R&D processes and the adoption of Model Factory technologies at its new S$6 million, 6,700 sq ft digital manufacturing facility.

The new plant incorporates a manufacturing control tower dashboard housed within a control room to integrate and display information of business operations on multiple screens. This enables real-time tracking of business operations for effective decision-making.

Another innovation is a monitoring system that provides live machine status updates and automatically collects data on machine stoppages.

“As manufacturing becomes more globalised, it is essential that our local SMEs (small and medium enterprises) continue innovating to remain competitive and tap new opportunities for growth. The Government is committed to help SMEs, with the passion to transform, to reap the benefits of digital manufacturing,” said Mr Iswaran.