Chitchat SMRT to Lift - Propaganda masked as Journalism

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An honorable member of the Coffee Shop Has Just Posted the Following:

Read this carefully crafted excuse for the series of lift breakdowns and lack of timely response to breakdowns.

Elevator and Lifts have operated in Singapore and all over the World for decades. HDB flats with lifts began operations in the 60s. There have been multiple upgrades, major periodic overhauls etc over many decades. How did manpower planning fail so badly.

This is not confined to lifts but to many things that seems to fail unexpectedly across the country.

We seem ready to pay Ministers a salary unmatched in the World but a lift technician earns only $1,900. Is the technical qualification worth that little.

http://www.todayonline.com/singapore...-need-hoistThe Big Read: Trapped in a manpower crunch, lift industry in need of a hoist.

BY
KENNETH CHENG
[email protected]ISHED: 12:00 AM, AUGUST 20, 2016UPDATED: 12:27 AM, AUGUST 20, 2016
SINGAPORE — For lift technician Radali Tuah, toiling away for 12 hours each day — which includes clocking overtime hours nearly daily in the first half of each month — has become par for the course.

But it was not always so. The 34-year-old, who maintains lifts in the Central Business District, services up to five units a day now, compared with just three about eight years ago, when he first set foot in the industry.

AUGUST 20
Clocking an average of two additional hours daily now, Mr Radali said he does not have much choice as more buildings — and lifts — have sprouted over the years. And while the punishing hours leave him tired, a basic salary of S$1,900 a month means working overtime was a must, to keep up with day-to-day expenses.

Bedevilled by a labour crunch festering for more than a decade now, the lift sector’s woes are set to intensify as it confronts a double whammy: The Republic’s rapidly ageing lift infrastructure, combined with an ever-increasing number of lifts being built, means more attention and resources must be devoted to maintenance and replacement now than ever before.

And tougher maintenance standards and stricter enforcement — introduced by the authorities late last month as part of the first phase of changes to the regulatory regime to improve lift safety — are expected to pile further pressure on the labour-starved industry.

The manpower crunch has coincided with the nationwide Lift Upgrading Programme. Launched in 2001 and completed in 2014, the scheme saw about 5,000 Housing and Development Board blocks being retrofitted with new lifts that stop on every floor.

With an ageing infrastructure and a severe shortage of maintenance workers, the woes of the lift industry mirror those of the MRT network.

But it has not received as much attention — until the recent spate of incidents, which have resulted in one death and several serious injuries.

The industry has been plagued by a shortage of workers for “more than 10 years”, said Mr Quah Eng Hing, secretary of the Singapore Lift & Escalator Contractors & Manufacturers Association (Slecma).

“We have difficulty recruiting local manpower for lift maintenance because local people, especially the young people, shun this kind of job. So we have to rely on foreign workers, (but) then again … we’re restricted to traditional sources,” he added, referring to lift technicians recruited from Malaysia. Malaysians, Mr Quah added, are also avoiding such work, so the foreign labour source has also “dried up”.

Marine Parade Town Council chairman Lim Biow Chuan, who is also Member of Parliament for Mountbatten, said that with lifts now stopping at every floor, the scope of maintenance has gone up too, because of increased wear and tear. This, combined with the proliferation of taller buildings, such as high-rise HDB blocks that require more maintenance, has spawned concerns that the Republic lacks “enough lift technicians who can do a good job”, he added.

The issue of lift maintenance has come under the spotlight, following at least five reported accidents in eight months. For example, in June, a 59-year-old woman living on Petir Road injured her spine after the lift she was in shot up and down erratically twice. In May, a 77-year-old man died in Pasir Ris after he fell backwards and hit his head on the ground while reversing his mobility scooter out of a lift, which had stopped 15cm above ground level. Two months before the Pasir Ris incident, a lift in Ang Mo Kio shot up 17 storeys, trapping a domestic helper for about 90 minutes.

In October last year, Madam Khoo Bee Hua’s hand was severed by lift doors in a freak accident on Tah Ching Road. The 85-year-old also fell and broke her leg.

Professor Lim Mong King, who until 2010 was deputy chairman of the Singapore Standards Council, a body that pushes for standards development, said lift maintenance was a “high-skilled” profession but technicians could be “easily trained”, and the onus was on the authorities to build up this pool of workers to meet demand.

Stressing that lifts must be checked and maintained properly, Prof Lim, who also lectures at Nanyang Technological University’s (NTU) School of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, said: “This is important, so there is a need for the authorities to take (the) regulations seriously, because this affects (public) safety and convenience.”

Responding to TODAY’s queries, the Building and Construction Authority (BCA) said that for the past two years, it has been working with the Professional Engineers Board to improve the quality and increase the number of lift professionals in Singapore. Its spokesperson said it will continue to work with international experts and the industry to review measures beyond maintenance. More details on the initiatives will be announced later.

“BCA has been working closely with the industry and international experts to study the different aspects of the lift industry, including lift maintenance and capability building, over the past years,” the spokesperson said. It also conducts consultations with stakeholders such as lift contractors and owners.

In 2010, Slecma worked with the Institute of Technical Education (ITE) to introduce the Nitec in Facility Technology (Vertical Transportation) course. In 2013, ITE introduced a part-time Nitec in Technology – Facility Technology (Vertical Transportation) course, for working adults. “These courses equip trainees with lift competency skills and contribute to the supply of lift technicians in Singapore,” the BCA spokesperson noted.

According to the BCA, there are in total more than 2,000 lift technicians in Singapore, which has about 59,000 passenger lifts. Of these lifts, 41 per cent, or 24,000, are in public housing estates.

Amid a growing number of lifts across the island, the technician-to-lift ratio in some lift companies is on the rise. A director in a major lift manufacturing company here, who spoke to TODAY on condition of anonymity as his firm did not allow local representatives to speak to the press, said one technician handled up to 30 lifts now, inching up from about 27 lifts about a decade ago.

Meanwhile, at Ken-Jo Industries, one service technician attends to between 50 and 60 lifts, said its managing director Kenneth Lim.

MEASURES IN PLACE

In the past five years, the BCA has issued a total of 105 maintenance or suspension notices for lifts. Since December 2013, there have been 12 lift incidents, including those resulting in injuries, that were known to the BCA.

In the wake of the spate of lift mishaps, the BCA announced in June that more stringent maintenance standards would be put in place from July 25, after it found that overall standards could be “further improved”.

Under the tighter rules, lift contractors must check off 20 outcomes during monthly inspections. These include ensuring gaps of no larger than 12mm between lift car door panels before a lift can move and that emergency stops are initiated immediately when lift landing doors open or get unlocked while lifts are moving. Lift contractors must also ensure that abnormal sounds and vibrations do not occur when lifts move, and brakes or lift parts are not contaminated by oil or grease, among other things.

The BCA also has a stricter enforcement regime and has doubled the number of lift audits, from 20 to 40 a month. It will issue notices against unsatisfactory parties if minor rectifications are required and suspend operations if lift safety is compromised. More severe cases may see non-complying parties prosecuted and fined up to S$5,000 if convicted of an offence.

Before lifts can be operated, owners must obtain a permit from the BCA, after the lifts are examined, inspected and tested by an authorised examiner independent of lift owners or contractors. These permits, renewed yearly, must be displayed prominently in lifts from September next year.

Speaking in Parliament last month, National Development Minister Lawrence Wong said that beyond tighter regulations, “it is also important for lift companies to build up their capabilities, and have competent technicians and engineers doing the work”.

“BCA is working with the industry to set clearer requirements on the scope and level of training for all lift personnel,” he said. It is also developing a sectoral plan, which will, among other things, look into the need for better-defined career-development paths to attract and retain more skilled lift professionals.

LIFTING THE INDUSTRY

Prof Lim felt that the BCA was probably not cognisant of the scale of the manpower woes facing lift contractors and that some lift owners might not have been taking lift maintenance seriously. Adding that the BCA must tread carefully in regulating the sector, he said that coming up with prescriptive measures would not help; rather, it was crucial to impress the importance of “ownership” upon lift owners and contractors, so they assume responsibility for shoddy maintenance work.

Good practices must be inculcated so parties “take their jobs seriously” to ensure public safety, he said: “This sort of culture has to be passed on rather than just a long list of regulatory requirements.”

Still, Chua Chu Kang Town Council chairman and MP Zaqy Mohamad pointed out that the Republic did not face lift issues in the past because the infrastructure was not ageing.

“(It’s) easy to say on hindsight 30 years ago, we should plan for all this, but in reality, when you’ve a massive number of lifts, coming to the end of life, then you start seeing the problems, because the probability (of breakdowns) gets higher,” said the MP. “But it’s always better late than never, and, of course certainly, it also shows that BCA has reacted quite quickly.”

The malfunctioning lift in the Petir Road accident was back in service earlier this week — more than two months after the incident.

The BCA said in a media statement that the independent Authorised Examiner (AE) who was appointed to inspect the lift and recommend rectification works submitted its findings last month. The lift contractor then proceeded with the rectification works. The BCA was informed last Friday that the AE had inspected, tested and certified that the lift is safe for operation. After an inspection, the BCA lifted the suspension on Tuesday.

Acknowledging the inconvenience to residents, Foreign Affairs Minister Vivian Balakrishnan, who is an MP for Holland-Bukit Timah GRC, said that he had been asking the BCA why the lift was out of service for so long. A spokesperson for Holland-Bukit Panjang Town Council, which appointed the AE, explained that it had to coordinate with the AE and lift contractor on the rectification works.

Beyond the role of regulations, Mr Lim, the Marine Parade Town Council chairman, said lift technicians must up their game and everyone from residents to contractors must play a part by not misusing the lifts.

He said raising the lift industry’s professionalism by instilling pride in their work through training would bring improvements to lift maintenance, some of which may be done perfunctorily.

On lift misuse, Mr Lim noted that residents or contractors sometimes overload lifts or jam lift doors by placing a wedge between the doors to prevent it from closing.

This, he said, might not result in immediate damage, but the possible effect of misalignment might be gradual, causing lifts to malfunction eventually.

He added: “We need everyone to work with us rather than us pointing a finger at any one particular person.”

MANPOWER CHALLENGES

Ken-Jo Industries’ Mr Lim told TODAY that his service technicians work an average of three to four hours more daily than they did about a decade ago, but within Manpower Ministry guidelines. The firm has about 20 service technicians and two supervisors servicing nearly 1,000 lifts, with each technician handling up to four lifts a day. With more jobs crammed into a workday, he said technicians typically have to work long hours, frequently putting in overtime, resulting in a high turnover rate.

A spokesperson for EM Services — a major managing agent that serves nine of the 16 town councils — said it projected having to increase its 130-strong lift maintenance pool by about 20 per cent to meet the tightened lift-maintenance standards, but it has not achieved any of the projected increase.

“There’ll be challenges in recruitment and in passing this increased cost back to our customers,” he said.

Many of the firms interviewed said there were difficulties hiring not only from within the Republic, but from Malaysia, too. Under current manpower regulations, only Singaporeans and Malaysians are allowed to assume the role of lift maintenance technicians.

“You hardly find locals who want to go into this trade,” Ken-Jo Industries’ Mr Lim said. “(For) Malaysians, (there are) high levies, so it’s quite tough to hire more people.”

He noted that should lift companies increase their headcount, they would have to pass the costs on to the clients but this is not feasible with clients insisting on “lower maintenance fees”.

Mr Zaqy disagreed, however, saying that lift maintenance fees were on the rise and authorised engineers were also charging more now, on the back of tightened standards. Town councils, he noted, appointed lift contractors through open tenders and companies place low bids to out-price the competition.

“Because they rely on foreign manpower ... they think they can bid low so they try to out-cut each other (and) what results is competition based on price, as opposed to competition based on innovation or creativity, and reliability and standards,” he said.

Mr Radali said he believed the low basic salary was a key contributor to attrition, with four of his close colleagues heading to other fields, such as chemical petroleum and aviation. He has seen his monthly salary increase by S$700 over the eight years that he has been with his company. Factoring in overtime pay, he earns up to S$3,000 a month — more than 1.5 times his basic salary. “Lift line people normally need overtime (pay), because our basic pay is not that marvellous,” he said.

Slecma’s Mr Quah reiterated that the industry could pay workers better and attract more to the sector if lift owners paid contractors more. He noted owners’ resistance to even slight maintenance fee increases of up to 5 per cent.

Noting that lifts are a big part of people’s daily lives, he said: “Since it’s so important, lift owners should cherish this industry, then pay more and you get a better lift, better workers, more workers.”

Urging lift owners to consider “the lives” of users, Mr Quah added: “If (it were their) car, they are very concerned ... So I think this is very unfair ... Don’t just look at the price (and) try to get a cheaper price at the expense of the lift user.”

Some 10 months after her accident, Mdm Khoo, who was warded in hospital for five months and underwent a few operations, said she is still having difficulties coping. Speaking to TODAY on Friday, Mdm Khoo said in Mandarin: “I cannot do a lot of things that I used to do. Now with one hand, it’s hard to do things on my own. It’s just very inconvenient. I need my maid to help me if I want to do something. Last time I can walk the dog on my own, but now I need the help of my maid if I want to do that.”

He noted that should lift companies increase their headcount, they would have to pass the costs on to the clients but this is not feasible with clients insisting on “lower maintenance fees”.

Mr Zaqy disagreed, however, saying that lift maintenance fees were on the rise and authorised engineers were also charging more now, on the back of tightened standards. Town councils, he noted, appointed lift contractors through open tenders and companies place low bids to out-price the competition.

“Because they rely on foreign manpower ... they think they can bid low so they try to out-cut each other (and) what results is competition based on price, as opposed to competition based on innovation or creativity, and reliability and standards,” he said. With AEs and maintenance firms charging higher fees now, Mr Zaqy was hopeful that the manpower crunch will ease.

Mr Radali said he believed the low basic salary was a key contributor to attrition, with four of his close colleagues heading to other fields, such as chemical petroleum and aviation. He has seen his monthly salary increased by S$700 over the eight years that he has been with his company. Factoring in overtime pay, he earns up to S$3,000 a month - more than 1.5 times his basic salary. “Lift line people definitely need overtime (pay), as our basic pay is not that marvellous,” he said.

The Singapore Lift & Escalator Contractors & Manufacturers Association’s Mr Quah reiterated that the industry could pay workers better and attract more to the sector if lift owners paid contractors more. He noted owners’ resistance to even slight maintenance fee increases of up to 5 per cent.

Noting that lifts are a big part of people’s daily lives, he said: “Since it’s so important, lift owners should cherish this industry, then pay more and you get a better lift, better workers, more workers.”

Urging lift owners to consider “the lives” of users, Mr Quah added: “If (it were their) car, they are very concerned… So I think this is very unfair… Don’t just look at the price (and) try to get a cheaper price at the expense of the lift user.”

Some 10 months after her accident, Mdm Khoo, who was warded in hospital for five months and underwent a few operations, said she is still having difficulties coping. Speaking to TODAY on Friday, Mdm Khoo said in Mandarin: “I cannot do a lot of things that I used to do. Now with one hand, it’s hard to do things on my own. It’s just very inconvenient. I need my maid to help me if I want to do something. Last time I can walk the dog on my own, but now I need the help of my maid if I want to do that.”


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