ECJ EUROPEAN Cleaning Journal

The government in Singapore is putting plans in place to help the cleaning services sector to adopt technology and cope with the shortage in manpower.

It has launched an Industry Transformation Map (ITM) for the environmental services sector with a series of initiatives to help companies drive innovation, train workers and improve procurement practices.

The aim is that by 2025, about 30,000 workers in the environmental services industry can benefit from higher value-added jobs, said the National Environment Agency (NEA). Autonomous vehicles could also be used to clean the streets of Singapore.

"In the near future, we can see autonomous cleaning equipment having the capability to ‘talk' with one another and take the lift to other floors to perform cleaning operations more independently," said minister for environment and water resources Masagos Zulkifli.

"This will free up their human co-worker's time to focus on higher value work such as equipment fleet management or maintenance, or customer service," he added.

"Automation can make the work easier, robots can perform routine, repetitive or unpleasant tasks; data analytics can optimise the deployment of limited resources - all these will enable the industry to be better and smarter in its service delivery."

A skills framework for the industry has also been launched, which provides key information on existing and emerging skills that are needed for jobs in the cleaning and waste management sectors.