Shipyard workers ideas could mean profits rise of $173 million

Shipyard workers ideas could mean profits rise of $173 million
Samsung Heavy awards prizes to top money-saving ideas

Samsung Heavy Industries (SHI) recently collected whopping 30,000 creative and innovative ideas from executives and employees, and has announced that the company expects to make an additional KRW 200 billion ($173 million USD) annually from 13 selected core ideas.

During the month-long idea collection period, from January 26 to February 28, about 19,100 executives and employees submitted their ideas. This marked a 90% participation rate among SHI’s 21,000 executives and employees, and an average of 1,000 ideas submitted per working day.

SHI declared its mid-term vision of becoming a “World Class Company by 2010” at the start of the year, and in order to realize this new vision, the company is discovering ways to strengthen its competitiveness by developing innovative and new construction methods, dramatically cutting costs, and collecting ideas, with the objective of engaging executives and employees in the search for solutions towards sustainable growth.

After one month of evaluating the ideas submitted, SHI awarded a new construction method that would increase shipbuilding capacity on SHI’s floating dock by 20% the first prize, while an idea for a method of saving construction time in the dock, and an idea for revamping the work site that would increase productivity by 25% were jointly awarded the second prize.

SHI also selected 10 innovative ideas that directly contributed to development of the company, such as a variety of new construction methods and cost-cutting ideas that enable higher revenue, and development of new vessels to dominate the market, as third prizes. The awards ceremony was held on April 5, with all executives in attendance.

According to SHI analysis, if the 13 core ideas selected as first prize, second prize, and third prize are actually applied in the work process, the company will be able to see KRW 200 billion increase in net profit annually.

SHI awarded KRW 10 million for the first prize, KRW 5 million for the second prize, KRW 2 million for third prize, and KRW 1 million for the 20 honourable mention ideas, and will give special gifts worth KRW 30,000 to all executive and employees who participated in the event.

In addition, the company is also offering the incentive of 1% of the financial profit enabled by application of the idea to compensate the idea provider.

Furthermore, Kim Jing Wan, CEO of SHI, sent a thank-you letter to all executives and employees that participated in the event, to inspire their morale and encourage their continuous participation to lead the company towards becoming a worldㅡclass company.

Besides the award-winning core ideas, SHI selected 12,000 other ideas that can contribute to work process innovation and cost-cutting by sectors and by teams. Some teams have already begun to apply these ideas on the job site.

CEO Kim Jing Wan said, “The key to realizing our vision of becoming a world class company by 2010 lies in creative management. The company will continue to enable ceaseless change and innovation by actively reflecting the creative ideas submitted by many executive and employees.”