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Education

Singapore college claims zero IT project failures

By Kelly Ng | 9 June 2009

Singapore’s Republic Polytechnic (RP) estimates to have saved S$7 million (US$4.8 million) a year from productivity gains due to the smart use of technology. The polytechnic also claims to have a record of zero IT (information technology) project failures in the seven years the institute has been running.

RP’s Learning Management System speeds up teachers’ work by at least an hour per day, which has delivered annual savings of S$3.9 million (US$2.7 million), according to Samuel Liu, RP’s Director, Office of Information Services.

Other IT systems, such as a shared calendar and resource booking, and an e-filing system, have eliminated the need for administrative staff and save the school S$3.2 million (US$2.1 million) every a year, Liu told FutureGov.

Other savings have come from reducing paper use, deploying smaller and more efficient servers, and using cheaper and energy-saving internet protocol (IP) phones.

Since RP opened in 2003, the institute has spent S$30-40 million (US$20-27 million) on IT. So far every project has been successful, says Liu.

“If the project is too big to visualise and manage, we will not execute it,” said Liu. Risk is mitigated by breaking up IT projects into smaller bits, each with a maximum cost of S$100,000 (US$68,700).

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