Singapore Accreditation Council Customer Day 2024

11 APR 2024

Singapore Accreditation Council Customer Day 2024

The Singapore Accreditation Council (SAC) Customer Day 2024, which took place on 19 March at Orchard hotel Singapore, brought together 200 conformity assessment bodies (CABs) and partners.  The event, themed "Accreditation: Empowering a Smart and Sustainable Future," served as a platform for companies to exchange insights on key topics across digitalisation and sustainability as well as share challenges and opportunities for the Testing, Inspection and Certification (TIC) community in these areas. The event also celebrated the recognition of 63 newly accredited CABs.

The SAC Chairman, Mr. Tan Kai Hoe, encouraged CABs to build new capabilities and develop new processes and solutions to stay relevant and keep up with the global evolution, especially across the two focus areas. The TIC sector, as an enabler of quality and assurance, should also identify and capture opportunities for growth across the two areas. He further added that to meet the rising demand for new programmes and increased accreditation volume while balancing resource and cost considerations, SAC has embarked on digitalisation initiatives and initiated reviews to streamline and optimise our internal processes to ensure operational sustainability.

The event’s keynote speaker, Associate Professor Edward Tay from the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), encouraged CABs to not take too long to plan and prepare and embark onto their journey of sustainability and digitalisation immediately. In view of the evolving trends globally, it is a more feasible approach to start small and progressively refine and scale up over time than to plan for a perfect arrangement before implementation. He added that many international organisations had already been plugged into sustainability efforts and acknowledged the criticality of roles which accreditation and the relevant international bodies play to strengthen the quality and assurance infrastructure.   

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Associate Professor Edward Tay giving his keynote presentation.

During the SAC Customer Day 2024, a panel of distinguished industry speakers, moderated by SAC Deputy Chairman Mr. Amos Leong discussed global sustainability and digitisation trends, emphasising the ongoing importance of TIC services in fostering trust and assurance in businesses and products. The panel also highlighted the need for CABs to enhance productivity through digitalisation and automation. Key takeaways from the panel discussions are:

  • There is no perfect time to start sustainable and digitalisation journey. It is crucial for companies to take the first step.

  • Automation empowers employees to prioritise strategic tasks over routine ones, enabling CABs to efficiently support their customers in bringing products to market. This, in turn, enhances accuracy and traceability, making CABs more attractive to larger companies.

  • Organisations often encounter resistance to change during digital transformation. Completing the project in phases can provide managers with an overview of the results and benefits of the transformation efforts.

In addition, the panel shared the following insights for sustainability:

  • Organisation can consider establishing sustainability committees to improve processes for growth and operational efficiency. The committee can start off with a minimum of 2 members to brainstorm and implement initiatives on sustainability.

  • Top-down leadership is important in driving sustainability and transformation. They can facilitate learning by organising networking events or sustainability classes for all company members.

Panel

From left to right, panel speakers - Mr Amos Leong (moderator), Ms Fong Hui Ling, Ms Eunice Ng, Er Tan Seng Chuan and Associate Professor Edward Tay

The SAC would like to extend our heartfelt appreciation to all speakers and panelists for their insightful sharing.

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Award recipients were presented with certificates to recognise their efforts

Once again, we would like to congratulate all newly accredited CABs:

List of Newly Accredited Bodies

We look forward to seeing you at the next SAC Customer Day!