Values weld Keppel's global force

Values weld Keppel's global force
PHOTO: Values weld Keppel's global force

It does not look like much at first glance but a simple plastic card has played a large part in helping Keppel Offshore & Marine become a global force in rig-building.

The laminated card is carried pretty much everywhere by the company's Singapore employees and regarded as something of a sacred text.

The card outlines Keppel's eight core values - ranging from "integrity", a "can-do" spirit, and "commitment to health, safety and the environment", to having a "global mindset".

If the wallet-handy card is not enough to get the message across, the firm has opted for other more overt displays.

"We (also) have posters of our core values all over the yards, so everybody knows (them)," said Keppel Offshore & Marine chief operating officer Chow Yew Yuen as he whips out his own card.

These core values are vital to Keppel, which has 20 yards, engineering centres and representative offices in more than 15 countries, from Azerbaijan and Brazil to the United Arab Emirates and the United States.

It ensures that nothing is lost in translation. The cards and posters have easy-to-understand icons so staff of different educational levels and backgrounds can be on the same page.

Posters rather than cards are more commonly used overseas and translated into the local language. Arguably, the posters at overseas units are more vital given the vast difference in national cultures and the way things are done in different countries.

Keppel is aware that it needs to maintain its service standards and consistency at all yards as it expands globally.

"One of the challenges when you go overseas is how to develop a set of values which are universal (in all the subsidiaries)," said Mr Chow, who is more commonly known in the shipyard industry as Y Y Chow.

"For us, based on our years of experience, we developed this set of values, and everywhere we go, we emphasise the same thing. People can understand where we are coming from."

Mr Chow cited the example of Brazil, where Keppel, an early mover into the country, has had a presence since 2000. It bought another yard in 2010 to build offshore support vessels and tugboats, adding to its existing yard for building rigs and production vessels.

When Keppel started in Brazil, it found that the workers were less aware about shipyard safety because they were exposed to some level of risk in their everyday lives, noted Mr Chow.

Many of them live on flotillas - large groups of boats tied together in rows - so hopping around on vessels without safety equipment was not a big deal, but Keppel would have none of it.

"We told them that they were not just endangering their own lives, they were endangering the lives of others too," he said.

"They needed to understand that. We had to start educating them, from the foremen and top managers to the middle managers and finally to the lower-rung workers."

At first the workers put on the safety equipment only reluctantly but the precautions really sank in after some hair-raising near misses that could have been tragedies if not for safety harnesses.

Safety has become a big part of the workplace culture in Keppel's Brazilian yards.

The firm has put much emphasis on finding the right talent and constantly developing its employees. It has skills training programmes for O-level school-leavers and Institute of Technical Education graduates.

Graduates from polytechnics and universities join the management trainee programmes.

Some overseas yards also have programmes for tertiary graduates.

A yard in Angra dos Reis, Rio de Janeiro, has a four-year-old programme that takes in about 50 graduates a year for management training.

Staff in foreign yards, even well-trained ones, still need support and monitoring from Keppel's base here, especially in the set-up phase. "There needs to be some control from the headquarters in Singapore, especially regarding confidential information," said Mr Chow.

There are about five Singaporean staff at Keppel's yard in Brownsville in Texas and about 20 at its two Brazilian yards, mostly in accounts, logistics, costing and operations.

jonkwok@sph.com.sg



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