Member Testimonies

"Arcstone joined ARTC in November 2016 as a Tier 2 member, and we upgraded to Tier 1 in December 2019. The value and benefits we get from our investment in time and resources into the ARTC are always returned in excess through all our years. From the research that we do together, to the connections and partnerships that were made and the joint solutions integrated with other members, the ARTC has given Arcstone a significant boost in our growth, scale and reach.

The technical capabilities of the ARTC allowed us to innovate and move faster than industry peers and helps us to deliver more value to our customers with our solutions. In the years to come we will continue to funnel more of our research and integration work with ARTC in member-specific projects that will allow co-development of Industry 4.0 solutions that can integrate and achieve Arcstone's goal of complete manufacturing transparency across the supply chain to realize a true global real-time data driven manufacturing ecosystem"

- Mr Willson Deng, CEO, Arcstone Pte Ltd

"DMG MORI started its membership with ARTC since 2013. We will continue to work with ARTC and we can gather information on additive manufacturing (AM) and its trends through projects. We are not only machine tool manufacturers, but also providers of the solutions on manufacturing. ARTC also shows the cutting edge technology and solutions on additive manufacturing. We believe that our partnership with ARTC will help us achieve our processes.

ARTC has developed AM process technologies on both selective laser melting (SLM) and directed energy deposition (DED) with members so far. We can look into these process technologies by projects, understanding customers' problems and concerns, and provide AM solutions to customers from the equipment and process point of view."

- Dr Masahiko Mori, President, DMG MORI

How does joining the ARTC as a member align with Halliburton’s business models and goals?

"At Halliburton, we collaborate and engineer solutions to maximise asset value for our customers in order to achieve superior growth and returns for our shareholders by delivering technology and services that improve efficiency, increase recovery and maximise production for our customers. Being an anchor member at ARTC, it has allowed us to work towards this goal through the collaborative nature of the consortium. It has provided us the opportunity to learn and assist others in the creation of real-life solutions that are relevant to challenges. ARTC puts a lot of emphasis on the material science industry, and as a manufacturing organisation, it gives us an advantage to continue to be successful in this industry. With a part of our organisation going heavy on manufacturing, ARTC’s advanced manufacturing techniques, technologies and breakthroughs are certainly aspects that will continue to allow us to be successful. This ties in with our company’s vision statement; to provide known solutions that help our clients drive their asset’s value. It is beneficial that their manufacturing technologies align well with the key technology focuses of Halliburton."

- Mark Dawson, Vice President,  Completion Tools

What role do you see ARTC playing in the future of manufacturing and how will your company want to tap on your partnership?

"Instead of focusing on semiconductor, system integration, and electronics industries, we also want to move into Maintenance, Repair, and Operations (MRO), FMCG and advanced manufacturing technology. Through our partnership with ARTC, our high-level image acquisition technology can move into mainstream technology. We will continue to build a good relationship with ARTC to enter Industry 4.0 and IoT industry for more innovation in sync with the manufacturing industries."

- Eugene Goh, Managing Director, JM Vistec

The ARTC conduit is a platform that bridges the public and private sectors, how has the partnership with ARTC spurred innovation in your processes?

"The public-private partnership we have with ARTC is crucial for us. On one hand, ARTC and its sister RIs within A*STAR is a great knowledge reservoir. On the other hand, ARTC’s member companies have diverse backgrounds and interesting technologies solutions and needs. It is difficult for us to connect all those dots directly. However, with ARTC as a connection channel, it makes exchange of ideas and collaborations much easier. We definitely enjoy and benefit from this."

- Felix Zhang, Staff Engineer, Innovation Ventures Group, Kennametal

"We have been in partnership with ARTC since 2017, when we joined the consortium as an Anchor Member. The setup of a fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) consortium provides a platform for collaboration with industry peers, which allows us to address similar problem statements in a pre-competitive environment. In addition, access to the ARTC Model Factory enables us to rapidly testbed new technologies and solutions.

With the consortium and its ecosystem, we are able to quickly identify and work with the right technology vendors without having to screen and negotiate agreements with individual companies. This setup allows us to have flexibility in working with a range of providers, bringing in expertise as needed. We are able to pilot projects such as data analytics for process optimisation and validation of cobots in the workshop floors.

The core projects and member-specific projects are aligned with Nestlé's objectives and strategy for digital transformation. Working with ARTC allows Nestlé to tap on Singapore's progressive R&D ecosystem on a neutral platform. We can carry out small-scale manufacturing experiments and test new concepts very quickly. Through this partnership, we hope to pilot digital technologies in areas such as smart connected devices, cobots and advanced analytics."

- Dr Sze Tan, Managing Director, Nestlé R&D Center Singapore

How does joining the ARTC as a member align with P&G’s business models and goals?

“At P&G, our mission and purpose is to provide branded products and services of superior quality and value to improve the lives of the world’s consumers, now and for generations to come. As a result, our consumers will reward us with leadership sales, profit and value creation, allowing our people, our shareholders, and the communities which we live and work in to prosper.

This is our ultimate goal and we see that the ARTC fits the role of helping us achieve this through innovation; with internal resources and external partnerships such as the ARTC. There is a strong knowledge base in the ARTC membership ecosystem and we are able to access novel capabilities and technologies including those developed by local SMEs and start-up companies whom we actively collaborate and work with. ARTC is a key partner with a focus on innovation in the Industry 4.0 and Supply Chain 4.0 realms, collaborating with us to innovate in both product supply and R&D programmes.

Innovation is fundamental to us, it is our life-blood. We at P&G continually innovate across the different areas which we believe matter the most. Such areas include product, packaging, supply chain, and collaboration with our customers from different markets and channels all around the world. Having a partnership with our customers is key to innovation, as innovation is not only focused on the products and brands, but also on making sure products are accessible and available.”

- Long Quan, Innovation Senior Director, Asia, Middle East, Africa, Supply Chain, P&G & David Jakubovic, Senior Director, R&D Open Innovation, Asia, P&G

What role do all of you collectively see Rolls-Royce playing in the future of manufacturing, and how will Rolls Royce want to tap on your partnership?

“With the ARTC, we look to improve our manufacturing and design processes through digitisation. In addition to physical infrastructure, we would also like to tap on this partnership to further explore opportunities on digital elements such as internet of things (IoT) products / services into our business models and manufacturing processes. Digital solutions are the future of not just the manufacturing sector, but of many other core sectors. We want to adopt the Industry 4.0 and Supply Chain 4.0 revolution to benefit our products and processes. Moving towards the direction of advanced automation and the concept of cyber-physical smart factories is our goal. Our collaboration with the ARTC’s virtual manufacturing and digital manufacturing research will enable us to take a step in that direction.

We aim to demonstrate how a connected supply chain improves end to end process efficiency and flexibility and explore whether it would improve schedule adherence and reduce time to market. A two-week “sprint” was carried out jointly by the ARTC and its member Arcstone saw the completion of a bespoke sandbox environment for our supply chain platform. This Supply Chain 4.0 project was very well received by our supply-chain network and has piqued many of their interests. We hope to take this forward together with ARTC.”

- Kurichi Kumar, Head of Technology, Asia Pacific, Rolls Royce & Edwin Ng, Chief of Manufacturing Technology, Rolls Royce

The ARTC conduit is a platform that bridges the public and private sectors, how has the partnership with ARTC spurred innovation in your processes?

"We’ve been a member of ARTC since 2018. Reflecting on some of the things that we worked directly with ARTC over the last two years, some have already led us to change the way we work. To explore hands-free augmented reality capabilities, we worked with ARTC to develop an experience to assist our operators to execute their tasks in the field by giving them guidance on a heads-up display. Initially a proof-of-concept, this technology is now being adopted to change the way we work in the field. Together with the ARTC, we also studied how we can harness digital technologies in our operations. That has directed our overall digitalisation efforts in Singapore. Another area we have been investigating with ARTC concerns 3D printing and remanufacturing technologies such as laser metal deposition. Through this work, we hope to accelerate adoption of advanced metal fabrication and repair techniques in our operations. It’s been a very positive experience so far. We are seeing the impact of this collaboration in our local operations."

- Michael Lankshear, Advanced Manufacturing Lead, Shell

The world has entered a new normal as of this year, will this impact Siemens’ partnership with the ARTC in the long run?

"COVID-19 has left workplaces in disarray, with manufacturers urgently seeking expertise, tools and approaches to enable them to continue or restart operations while adhering to applicable safety guidelines and requirements. In short, the pandemic has hastened the need to adopt digital transformation strategies across various industries. There is a deeper interest by companies to adopt such technologies. Our customers, no matter large or small enterprises, were able to respond more quickly because of the agility of their digital enterprise using our solutions. In the future, these technologies will help ensure that companies can respond much faster and more efficiently to crisis situations and changing market demands. With the government encouraging the local SMEs to adopt digital solutions and with ARTC spearheading such development, I think this situation has been a wake up call and catalyst for us to be even more competitive. I truly believe Siemens’s relationship with ARTC will be even stronger than ever, in order to help the local industry adopt digitalisation to gain a bigger footprint in the region. Digital tools enable companies to adapt their production quickly and flexibly to any need. We are here to support them at ARTC."

- Alex Teo, Vice President & Managing Director, South East Asia, Siemens Digital Industries Software

How does joining ARTC as a member align with your company’s business models and goals?

"As a global steel company and technology leader, we offer a full suite of production techniques and services throughout the value chain, supporting and driving innovation and development based on our experience. We began with alloy development, metal powder production and went on to design, manufacturing and different types of post-processing. We offer those end-to-end solutions to reduce waste and mitigate risk in the supply chain, and we strive to innovate to increase customer value and our competitive advantage. This is something we are looking for in this whole chain of value.

With this mindset of innovation, we look towards ARTC’s experience and vast capabilities to enable us to develop innovative solutions in areas like digitalisation, automation and additive manufacturing. These areas are very beneficial to us to help us deliver our end-to-end solutions and support our initiatives in the area of industry 4.0.

We’ve been a member of ARTC since December 2017. It has been about 3 years now, and the experience has been quite good so far. ARTC is a very well-structured consortium, with a very well-structured programme, and is always open to adopting new strategies and technologies. They are fast and quick to adapt to the environment when there is a need to change any of their processes. They listen to their members and also work together to find solutions that can ultimately bring all of us members forward. It has been a great experience so far and definitely the way they have been doing things."

- René Schaffer, Strategic Innovation Manager, Voestalpine