Admaterials Technologies R&D efforts pay off with increase in revenues

Singapore

HOMEGROWN Admaterials Technologies has shown that investments in research and development (R&D) can reap monetary benefits for businesses, regardless of the company's size.

A materials testing firm specialising in construction of materials, Admaterials has been collaborating with the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*Star) through A*Star's Technology for Enterprise Capability Upgrading (T-Up) scheme since 2011.

Through this scheme, A*Star seconded three researchers to Admaterials for assistance in building their capabilities and improving productivity.

As a result of the collaboration, Admaterials is now able to do environmental and microbiological testing, expanding their solutions to water and soil quality testing, green materials testing, and testing for microbiological content such as bacteria and fungi.

"In terms of scale, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are generally smaller in size but their numbers are significantly large that they account for the large majority of the enterprises and therefore, they have a big impact," said Trade and Industry Minister S Iswaran during a visit to the company's facility on Thursday.

He also noted that if SMEs are able to adopt technology and maximise their productivity and competitiveness, they will have a significant impact on the Singapore economy.

Admaterials managing director Lu Jin Ping said the company invests about S$300,000 in R&D yearly. Revenue has quadrupled in the past five years to about S$12.7 million.

During the visit, Mr Iswaran toured two laboratories that A*Star helped to set up. One of the highlights was an automated cube testing system, which A*Star research engineer Eric Toh developed.

With the automation of the labour-intensive concrete cube-testing process, Admaterials saw a significant increase in productivity of 25 per cent, as well as a 30 per cent rise in revenue in three years.

For instance, a manual testing system requires 10 workers to handle 200 concrete cubes daily, while the automated testing system needs only four workers to handle 2,000 cubes.

From 2011 to 2015, business expenditure on R&D by SMEs, grew at a compound annual growth rate of nearly 6 per cent, from S$550 million to S$700 million, Mr Iswaran noted.

He added that this showed SMEs here understood and recognised the value of R&D and are putting money into those efforts.