The last job in my working life is with SMRT. Generally, this is one of those nice places for lifelong career. As long as you are not the CEO, just put in a little effort, don’t make any grave mistake or be held accountable for grave mistake made, and unless you opt to leave on your own freewill, you should have no problem working till retirement.
I joined the company in 1990, as a Technical Officer. Everything evolved through the years, including job titles. Back then, the post of a Technical Officer is a supervisory post, albeit it was a most junior one. But current Technical officers are hands-on operator, which in the past were called technician. Current most junior supervisory post is the Assistant Engineer. It is equivalent to the past Technical Officer post.
Discounting the 2 months in the factory production Supervisor post many years ago, and the Quality Assurance Officer post, which though is executive level but is independent and do not have direct subordinate reporting to me, this was my first experience as a Supervisor, with at times, up to 20 technicians reporting to me. Fortunately, the team was new, and so is the job, thus although there are occasional hiccup, adrenaline rush, anxiety and stressful situation, generally, managing the team was not as difficult as I had anticipated. I was able to last 29 years enjoying some upgrading and promotion along the way. I was a Principal Engineer when I retired.
The company was relatively new when I first joined. It was managed by the late Mr Lim Leong Geok (Executive Director) and was on the 3rd year running. As it was built, commissioned and operated with builder (OEM) support before major preventive maintenance of key equipment is required, failures and malfunctioning were handled mainly by OEM contractors. Therefore, only a small team of workers was employed. But based on the system Regulator & LOA requirement that major overhaul is needed on specific Kilometers of operation or equivalent time based usage, a sizable batch of workers, including Engineers, Technical Officers and Technicians were recruited in 1990 to enhance the manpower strength for executing this requirement.
Back then, it was known as Mass Rapid Transit Corporation (MRTC). The setup was rather straight forward and wholesome. Rail transport system Operation and Maintenance (O & M) was the core and only business. The Organization structure compared with what we have this day, was so much simpler and straight forward.
After Mr Lim Leong Geok left, Rear Admiral Kwek Siew Jin took over, during which SMRT was listed. He was briefly succeeded by Chief of Army Boey Tak Hap. Then came the more eventful years of Ms Saw Phiak Hwa era. She started off with some good years, and that probably built up confidence and eventually the ambition to expand the business. It was during her stint when SMRT took over TIBS buses and taxis services and rebranded itself from a local rail transport O & M operator to a premier multi-modal transport provider. Also during this period, SMRT built and run retail outlets in station vicinity and an Engineering unit was set up to venture into provision of rail system O &M services and/or consultancy to oversea rails transport owners.
As a public listed profit oriented corporation, inevitably much attention were focused on minimising expenditure. Salary and maintenance budget were stringently controlled, so is manpower. Maintenance budget were negotiated to minimise spending and maintenance regime were plan accordingly to budget allotted. Justification for manpower requirement were made without redundancy, and actual headcount was often lagging.
Needless to say, staff turnover rate was relatively high. I was by then a Line Manager. I could feel the strain. My peer and I were struggling to fill the gap of loss of experienced staff with new recruits regularly. I understand from Technical Officers and Assistant Engineer who resigned after 1 or more years with us, that they were offered more for similar post in excess of $100 to $300 in monthly salary. They explained that if they stay in SMRT, it will take them 4 years or more to reach the offered monthly salary, and provided that their annual performance appraisal is graded as better than average. Well, how to counter that? The management would not want to be held ransom let alone set precedent of salary bargaining, so off they left.
Whether it was complacency, deterioration in maintenance regime, or lagging in proper maintenance knowledge, material fatigue as the system aged, their combination, or for whatever the reasons, the system progressively suffered frequent and notable failures, resulting in frequent service disruption. Commuter were inconvenienced, public confidence started eroding. Local and social media were regularly filled with resentment toward SMRT. Thus, when North East Line was constructed, LTA whether under public pressure or with the intention of reprimanding SMRT or making rail operation competitive, decided to give the operating contract to SBS Transit.
The snub on SMRT is probably satisfying and was their best move to cool public sentiment. But for SMRT, it aggravated their manpower problem.
Even though NEL contract was not awarded on short notice, but for profit oriented business, it does not make sense to employ workers and keep them until work started. Thus, there was a massive recruitment exercise when North East Line was about to start operation, and where else in Singapore can they recruit workers with experience in Train O & M environment other than SMRT? So understandably NEL when needed instant and ready operational staff, SMRT was their answer. NEL successful recruitment exercise resulted in bleeding of SMRT manpower both key and non key personnel in their particular trade. SMRT pay structure only help to accelerate the process.
SMRT management tried filling the gap by holding frequent and regular walk-in recruitment road shows. They tried to plug the bleed by identifying key staff and expedite promotion. But then, some of those promoted succeeded in using the promotion to negotiate for better deal, partly because NEL recruiting officers were either their former colleague or ex-SMRT executive, and were also able to identify the capability of these staff. The bleeding happened across all department and it did not stop until a year or so later.
Manpower loss is not solely about headcount. It went with technical expertise, which include months of training invested and the experience gained through hands on exposure in real situation.
To counter the discrepancy, exercise to improve productivity were initiated. The exercise was aimed to optimise the use of available staff to cover a wider scope through regrouping and multi-task deployment. Some divisions were merged to exploit functional synergy. Training Department stopped providing trainings and trainers were redeployed for line duty. Maintenance executive and Supervisors have to double as trainers for new recruits. The process might had improved synergy, but grey area developed, core responsibility were blurred, and focus distracted. Production may had increased but quality were being compromised.
The Productivity exercise also took aim to reduce or eliminate wastage and redundancies. Routine maintenance were scrutinised, and analysed based on historical records. For some seemingly non vital equipment with record of low or no fault count, maintenance procedure were either simplified or its frequency minimised, or even discarded.
On hindsight, this defy maintenance logic. When equipment gets older, normally maintenance regime should expand and become more thorough, budget escalation should be expected.
In the years that followed, due to a change in Singapore foreign labours and talents intakes policy, population soar rapidly from less than 3millions when our Rail transport system was first designed, to 5 million by 2008, and it continued growing for few more years. Ridership thereby also increases proportionally. Trains were experiencing unprecedented maximum loading during peak hours on daily basis. Additional trips were added accordingly to LTA demand. Numbers of trains assigned for mainline services maximised. This means available times for maintenance was greatly reduced. Meanwhile, the system was getting older. As a result, train service disruption due failure of signalling system, power, track problem and the train itself happened more frequently and even report of rail sleeper clips flying off on their own and falling on the road were reported in local media.
To add insult to injury, in Aug 2011 graffiti artist (aka vandal) broke into Bishan Depot and sprayed graffiti onto a train body at it siding. This was the second graffiti case, the first happened in 2010 at Changi Depot. It triggered another public outcry. Some sectors loathing for SMRT was so intense that they were baying for blood.
Then came the faithful days, December 15th 2011, North South line power loss, Train got stuck in tunnel during rush hour and a double jeopardy of 7 hours breakdown two days after. The consequence was so massive that a public inquiry was triggered by our Prime Minister.
Ms Saw era ended soon after the incident. She resigned in Jan 2012.
This of course, is water under the bridge. The actual, root causes and every technical details that lead to December 15th and 17th 2011 incidents were being thoroughly investigated by experts and were recorded in COI report. It was shared openly and is still available in Straits Times archive and MOT website.
My sharing is just a perspective from the ground and on layman term based on rusty memory of personal observation, plus a little bit of unqualified assumption and hindsight. It is not meant to dispute COI findings or pass judgement on whose fault was it. Simply put, I was just laying the links of a typical case of how one thing leads to another. Technically, the Swiss Cheese Effect had taken place. The aforementioned sequence of event may have been the latent built-up waiting for the active error, which appeared eventually and triggered the collapse the system defence.
After the resignation of Ms Saw, SMRT was placed under the care of Mr Tan Ek Kia, SMRT Board of Directors, while hunting for the next brave soul to steer SMRT into a more favourable direction and out of public resentment.
Henceforth, began the era of CEO Desmond Kuek.
Remuneration aside, as the trains network is generally deteriorated and so too is SMRT reputation, this obviously is an unenviable challenge to take on. It will need some sacrifice of being hounded by the public, main and social media and face harsh and sometimes irrational criticism, if the desired result was or was perceived to have not being delivered. In this aspect, regardless if he was assigned or volunteered, he should be appreciated for his courage and confidence.
I remember receiving an email addressed to all staff from him on his first day, asking for comment of system wellbeing and illness, and changes we would like to have. Can’t recall how the email was exactly worded, but I had the impression that the gist of the message is sort of like saying “don’t worry, just blow the whistle.” It is an indication of opening a communication channel to hear from the ground, with subtle hint of his distrust of feedback from the existing management.
Fortunately or unfortunately, just weeks after taking up the job, he was drawn into a warm-up task. SMRT Bus PRC drivers had gone on a strike. It is something unprecedented in this island. The details of how it was handled and how it ended is still available in the website. Briefly: it was reported that his investigation pointed to the shortcoming of managerial behavior, and he kicked a few butt.
The incident could have also influenced or confirmed his impression of inbred cultural issue. Anyway, whatever the presumption, department heads were progressively re-assigned, most were replaced with Ex Military Expert, Colonels and Majors. That’s started off intense gossips and jokes of military taking over.
CEO Desmond was quick and candid about his strategy of getting SMRT back to health. 5 strategic thrusts, which is like the toned down modified extraction of the 6 pillars of Total Defence was formulated and launched to rally SMRT staff in responding to the challenges of resurrecting its deteriorating reputations through prioritising focus from pleasing investor to serving commuter with reliable service and, safe and comfortable ride.
Actions taken included but not limited to the following:
Revision of wage framework, benchmarking it according to market rate. This was a significant step that stabilised the workforce. In fact, quite a few of the prodigal sons who left the company earlier on, made their about turn and were accepted with reward of a higher grade or even promotion.
Beefing up workforce strength, especially the headcount of Engineers.
Enforced mandatory Vocational Training requirement and implement incentive scheme tied to individual/team performance and system reliability.
Set up division for Technology Management and collaborate with NTU, to develop and enhance predictive maintenance through research and development of condition monitoring tools.
Set up a Future System office to incorporate digital technology to analyse data of system health and weed out problematic trains for detail diagnosis and corrective action.
Set up office for System integration to enhance divisional collaboration.
Investing in a new subsidiary, Singapore Rail Engineering (SRE) to build core engineering expertise and skilled manpower.
Faiveley Rail Engineering Singapore Pte Ltd (FRES), a joint venture company between Faiveley Transport and SMRT newly incorporated Singapore Rail Engineering (SRE) was formed. This initiative was intended to improve trains reliability and to tap onto to Faiveley strength in logistics services.
Delisting SMRT from Singapore Stock Exchange and collaborating with LTA on New Financial Framework, so that SMRT can focus solely on serving commuters and not be distracted by the need of pleasing investors.
To improve communication, he initiated regular town hall meeting where he and his team will share information of the company performance, current project and future plan.
For structural improvement, there was renewal of trains, rails sleepers, power rail and signalling upgrading and other aging.
Evidently, in a nutshell, he did his homework, strategized and took actions.
However, though his strategy seems sound and his action was swift, it only managed to bring in accolades of achievement award for the administration, and achieved significantly fewer failures within a higher mileages travelled. It did cooled public resentment for a period. But all these were disregarded whenever unfortunate incidents occurred. The incident may be few but were undeniably significant in term of the scale of inconvenienced caused and of which, one was fatal.
These include:
Power failure in July 2015 in evening rush hours, estimated to have affected 400,000 commuters.
Pasir Ris incident in March 2016, which resulted in 2 death.
Bishan Station tunnel flooding in October 2017, which disrupted service to a section of North south line for about 20 hours
Joo Koon trains collision in November 2017, which resulted in train crew and a numbers of passenger being injured.
CEO Desmond resigned and was replaced by another ex-military, Chief of Defence Force, Mr Neo Kian Hong, in August 2018.
Points to ponder.
Maybe failures and breakdown are inevitable, because machines are subjected to wear, tear, and material fatigue, and human are prone to err, so some protagonist rationalised. But the fact is, every effect is triggered by a cause, whether known or unknown. In another word: for everything that happened, there is a reason, and ultimately the purpose of Maintenance operation is to address the cause and prevent the undesirable effect from taking place.
So what went wrong? Could someone else be able to do the job better? Is there more that he could have done to prevent the aforementioned incidents from happening?
Based on what we read on various commentary, there may be some who thought they could. Basically, most of us have this tendency of thinking that we can do other people’s job better than them, which is indicative especially when we blast others for their failure. But the truth is, the perceived capability were based on hindsight.
I don’t think there is any definite answer. Even though we know that logically and scientifically in every happening (effect) there is a reason (cause). But sometimes, the consequence may not be immediate. It may be a series of cause–and-effect that leads to the final happening (i.e. the initial cause may create a seemingly insignificant effect, which became the cause of subsequent effect, and so on until the final happening.) That is why in accident/incident investigation, experience investigator will not stopped at immediate cause, he will dig deeper until the root cause is uncovered. But then one would wonder, with so many root causes weeded, how come accidents/incidents is still happening?
Maintenance Operation management is more complex than what we see on the surface. To succeed, it had to be an organised and concerted effort. I am not an expert in managing Maintenance Operation, I can’t offer any solution, or worthy comment on what really gone wrong. However, based on my exposure and involvement from ground to mid management level, my opinion is that the root cause discovered may lead to solution for stopping a particular set of issues, and provided that remedial action is followed through. But then, if the sowing of seeds is not stopped, other roots will grow and soon or later will matured into new issue.
Maybe CEO Desmond was spot on when he mentioned deep seated cultural issue and said we need to go back to the basic. He took action and introduced some drastic countermeasures. But the problem is:
Was his staff, especially department heads, all on the same page?
Was his brainchild of forming Faiveley Rail Engineering Singapore Pte Ltd (FRES) to take over MRO well received, respected and supported with cooperation by existing MRO management team?
Was Faiveley putting their best foot forward, by providing experienced manager to manage the MRO project or just providing a recently recruited manager to fill the gap?
Was the purported expectation of gaining knowledge from Faiveley expertise and riding on their logistic services & supply chain capability viable? Was Faivelely Transport management sincere in this aspect or was it just SMRT one-sided expectation? Does the people he trusted in his investment of Singapore Rail Engineering Pte Ltd capable of delivering what he expected?
Is the New Rail Financial Framework (NRFF), other than relieving SMRT from distraction of pleasing investors working in SMRT favour? Is LTA generous in maintenance funding, will LTA when governing the fund imposes more obstacles and red tapes, since decision concerning financing normally needs layers of check and layers approving authority?
In my opinion, the answers to the above questions might reveal the reasons of the setback. Anyway, whatever happened had happened. We could only wish that CEO Mr. Neo can do better. He had made some changes, including (but not limited to) dissolving the joint venture company FRES and scrapping the in-house midlife project. But will he be able to steer SMRT out of troubled water?
Only time can tell.