Singapore has one of the world’s busiest airports – against the backdrop of its latest gem called the jewel Changi Airport, Changi Airport handles about 7,400 flights every week, or about one every 80 seconds.
But have you ever wondered who are the people keeping every nook and corner of the airport ticking like clockwork 24/7 for travelers and locals pouring in from and flying out to all over the world?
They are the ones who work for Changi Airport Group (CAG), which manages the airport in areas such as airport operations and management, air hub development, commercial activities and airport emergency services.
CAG also manages Seletar Airport, and through its subsidiary Changi Airports International, invests in and manages foreign airports.
To continue to meet future challenges and cater to customers changing needs, CAG has come together with the Singapore Manual & Mercantile Workers’ Union (SMMWU) to form a company training committee that will look into upskilling 2,000 CAG employees. CAG has also committed to spending $10 million over two years towards training employees to be aligned to the organisation’s digital transformation.
The above was announced at the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding by CAG CEO Lee Seow Hiang, SMMWU President Eugene Teo, NTUC LearningHub CEO Kwek Kok Kwong and NTUC’s e2i (Employment and Employability Institute) Deputy CEO Ms Vicky Wong. The MOU was witnessed by NTUC Secretary-General Ng Chee Meng.
Under the CTC initiative, CAG employees will get to attend up to 10 days of digital-focused training over the two years, including a growth mindset programme that will help them embrace new technology.
CAG has been working with start-ups and innovation-driven companies to develop and demonstrate new technology solutions in a live airport environment to cater to customers needs and preferences. Prior to this, it used to work with vendors to deploy readily available solutions.
Taking on the challenges of the future, CAG started its DIVA (Digital Innovations Ventures Analytics) Hub in 2019. It is a space to encourage ideas and experimentation across multi-disciplinary teams (known as Squads) with new roles such as product owners, UI/UX designers and data scientists. The squads work on various digital projects to improve customer experience and drive operational efficiency.
Smart Luggage is an efficient way to assess the state of the conveyor system, compared to the labour intensive process where two technicians carry out the inspection and maintenance. The Smart Luggage is retrofitted with cameras and sensors to detect abnormalities in the conveyor system as it goes through Changi Airport’s Baggage Handling System. Data collected is uploaded to the cloud for processing and analysis, and technicians perform corrective work only when necessary instead of a routine scheduled inspection.
Meet Squad Member Wei Yi, 27, who has been with CAG for over two years and is now an Assistant Manager with the Engineering Management & Systems Planning team. He graduated with a degree in Electrical & Electronic Engineering but with his involvement in the Smart Luggage project at DIVA Hub and through on-the-job training, he has now picked up new skills such as architecture design, data collection from sensors and agile project management.
Changi PlayPass is a new digital reservation and redemption system for customers to reserve themed activity slots and avoid the hassle of queuing. This comes in especially useful during the school holidays where Changi Airport’s public areas are turned into activity spaces for families.
Meet Squad Member Ong Si Yun, 30, who works full-time on DIVA projects. She graduated with a degree in Business (Tourism and Hospitality Management) but has since learnt skills such as MicroStrategy and SQL Querying to use business intelligence tools for data analytics purposes. She also practices the lean start-up approach, which is an agile method to quickly see if a business model is viable and to shorten development time.
A company training committee is an initiative implemented at company level between union leaders and company management.
Working together, the committee will assess skills development gaps in the company, articulate Worker 4.0 and training requirements for the company, drive company-based training programmes identified in the company's Worker 4.0 plan, and coordinate feedback for training improvements.
