ITW Concrete Gas Technology Drives Productivity to the Next Level in Singapore Jobsites!
Productivity, Efficiency, less reliance on low-cost foreign labor has been at the center of Singapore Government work to improve competitiveness of the local enterprises. The Government has introduced several incentive programs such as Productivity and Innovation Credit (PIC) and Mechanisation Credit (Mech-C). Under the PIC scheme (administered by the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore) all businesses can enjoy up to 400% tax deduction and/or 60% cash payout for investing in innovation and productivity improvement technologies. Cost incurred for acquisition or leasing of information technology and automation equipment qualifies under this scheme. To take advantage of the scheme, ITW Construction Products Singapore is upgrading its IT system.
Seizing the opportunity
Learning from the IT system upgrade, and looking through the windows of opportunities, we thought that we could ride the wave of productivity looking at what solution we could offer to our customers that would improve their jobsite speed tremendously, and at the same time allow them to enjoy the benefit from the PIC scheme. The solution that we have identified is our flagship Concrete Gas Technology system and since December 2013, we have run a pilot project by helping some customers with the claiming process. All the claims were successful as the products advantages were clearly recognized. As of today, 20 of our customers have benefited from the tax rebate when buying the Trakmaster.
“Success breeds success”
There is no doubt that success will bring further success. With the PIC scheme value added to our proposition, the Singaporean sales team has higher confidence in promoting the Concrete Gas System against the traditional anchoring method, powder-actuated system and even the lower cost gas systems from the competitions with PIC as the add on sales proposition. To further enhance the selling proposition, we are working towards getting our latest Concrete Gas tools (Trakfast 800 & CableMaster 800) to be recognized under the Mech-C scheme which is administered by the Building Construction Authority (BCA) of Singapore. Under the enhanced Mech-C scheme, companies may receive grants of up to 70% of the tool cost. To enjoy the maximum grant, companies have to provide evidence that the adoption of the new technology can help in improving productivity on jobsite by at least 30% – and our TrakFast 800 & CableMaster 800 have the capability to exceed that productivity requirement.
We are looking at having more than 200 tools in these 2 schemes by the end of 2014.
