NEWS
Written by Hurrairah Bin Sohail from Inavate (January 2025 Issue)
Better Works
Inavate APAC Awards 2024 Corporate Project category - winning AV deployment at Pacific International Lines
The modern workplace is not just a space for work. It has evolved to become much more. Workplaces are spaces where staff and talent are nurtured, developed, and empowered to achieve. As Pacific International Lines (PIL) moved to a new facility in Singapore, it looked to evolve its workplace in line with the needs of its staff and users.
Dr Victor Goh, dean, PIL Academy, human resource and admin division, expands: “Our workforce is 8,000 strong, with 4,000 shore careers and 4,000 seafarers. In our main office, we have a head count of almost 700 people. So, when we were setting up PIL Academy and our wider facilities, we wanted to serve our entire workforce. We didn’t want these resources to just be available to the corporate HQ to enjoy so we had to look at how we could include everyone, from the people here in Singapore to our global colleagues.” The development of the new PIL facility centred around two components, the establishing of education endeavours under the banner of PIL Academy and the creation of effective working spaces.
Learning and development
Starting with PIL Academy, Dr Goh details the how the initiative was conceptualised: “One of the keys for us was to have multiple learning modalities. The way we have designed our learning spaces is to create various different, effective ways to learn and develop. The spaces have been designed for both in-person lessons and for online or remote learning. The spaces must be conducive and flexible enough for facilitators to be able to do both and much more if required.”
He adds: “Our generation of learners is multisensory. We can’t just have one primary mode of teaching because everyone learns differently. Some might be more visual than others while others might prefer audio. Some learners might perform better with higher levels of interactivity while others might like to learn solo. The technology must serve all these needs.”
With such evolved aims, technology was pressed into action to achieve the desired outcomes. Dr Goh details: “Technology is core to what we are trying to do. At PIL, we believe that technology should be used to allow people to express their creativity and enable innovation. And we are trying to use technology to free people to learn however they want. We have made a concerted effort to digitise learning, to make sure that content can be shared easily and seamlessly so that people can focus on learning rather than be worried about taking notes. The focus should be on the content, and we should try and remove as many distractions as we can.”
Delving further into the approach to technology and the thought process behind selecting specific products, Dr Goh elaborates: “We follow the S.M.I.L.E concept; simple, mobile, intelligent, learning focused, and engaging. This concept guides all our decisions and actions when it comes to learning and development. And you can see it in action in our spaces. A lot of the technology we have selected is mobile, and this means that we have not built ‘smart classrooms’, we can make any space ‘smart’ by moving our resources and assets around. We have paid attention to the learning modalities that would serve us best. We have looked at how our staff and talent learn and tried to cater to their needs.”
A professional recording and presenting space forms the cores of PIL Academy
Germaine Tan, centre manager, PIL Academy, human resources and admin division, discusses what PIL seeks to achieve with its initiatives: “PIL Academy aims to upskill and reskill our talent. This initiative is being spearheaded by the PIL CEO and it is crucial for how we want to develop our internal workforce as well as our seafarers, who join us when they are onshore.” She continues: “We are committed to enhancing learning for PIL and to this effect we are growing the team. The current dean of PIL Academy, Dr Victor Goh, who was a founder and director at Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT), joined PIL specifically to lead these efforts with his expertise. For him, technology is a great enabler of learning, and his perspective shaped the development of PIL Academy. For example, he wanted technology to help us move forward and that is why we don’t have paper flip charts, instead opting for the Samsung Flip. This seems like a small decision, but it feeds into our broader aims of making sure content can be shared and the remote participants are always included.”
Education in action
The central component of the PIL Academy is a presentation and recording space. A videowall comprising Absen A27 series 1.2mm pixel pitch LED tiles serves as the main display. Novastar H2 processors power visuals. A Jabra Panacast 50 videobar serves to capture visuals with its 180-degree FOV camera and handles audio duties with its built-in speakers and microphone. PAVE System served as the systems integrator for the project. Jeffrey Lim, managing director at PAVE System, talks about the setup: “It is really surprising to see what videobars can do today. With the camera we can frame the speakers easily. And the space has been acoustically treated so the microphone on the videobar is sufficient. You can have a high-level presentation in this space with just the videobar capturing audio and video.” Tan from PIL sheds light on how the products for the space were selected: “PAVE provided us guidance and very good advice. They took us to the showrooms where we could experience the LED and other products in person to make the final decision and we leaned towards Absen after our evaluation. The same holds true for a lot of the products we ended up selecting.”
With PIL Academy operational, Tan provides details about how the systems have been performing: “During the PIL Academy launch, we identified 53 colleagues from all of our global offices and they joined us via Zoom with the Minister using the system to address them from here in Singapore. The technology worked flawlessly.”
She adds: “The CEO loves this space and has been frequently conducting overseas town halls with the technology deployed. It has also served amazingly for our education initiatives. We are holding classes here in conjunction with Coursera and we are also using it as a media production and recording resource.”
Connecting spaces
Videoconferencing serves as a cornerstone of creating the hybrid and varied learning modalities PIL wanted to implement. Dr Goh says: “It doesn’t make sense to fly individuals overseas on a regular basis. Technology and telepresence have progressed to the point where this is not necessary. With technology we can facilitate greater access to our people and resources.”
Tan adds: “We are VC platform agnostic, and we are also aiming for hybrid sessions. We can have physical attendees in Singapore but it was essential that we be able to reach out to all our facilities across the globe be they staff or seafarers.”
To enable VC platform agnosticism, BYOD functionality has been provided. The user’s device, most commonly a laptop, is used to drive communication and collaboration. The various spaces across the PIL facility, such as the recording space, overflow rooms, meeting rooms, or the training rooms, can join the sessions via the videoconferencing platform being used, be it Teams or Zoom, if overflow or connected spaces are required.
The importance of videoconferencing in linking spaces coupled with Goh’s aforementioned S.M.I.L.E concept, which emphasises mobility, shaped the PIL Innovation Lab; four multifunctional spaces that can operate individually or as a unified whole.
The spaces are served by Maxhub interactive displays, a Samsung Flip, and a Neat Board 65 unit. These displaysare inherently mobile feeding into the modular nature of the PIL Innovation Lab. That being said, the PIL Innovation Lab has also been provisioned with fixed technology that helps the spaces perform their function. Extron switching forms the core of the visual systems with Epson 6,000 lumens brightness projectors handling display duties.
On the side of audio, Sennheiser TCC2 ceiling tile microphones capture speech and AtlasIED speakers provide sound. The two combine to provide voicelift features. Audio is managed by a Xilica Solaro DSP. Lim from PAVE System provides insight into the selection of the DSP: “When we were designing the systems, we were proceeding with a modular approach because we did not know exactly how many inputs and outputs would be required. The architecture of Xilica DSPs is modular, which means that we can expand the system with ease by just adding more cards. This ended up being the right choice and we are currently expanding the system for PIL and this would not have been possible with other fixed-frame DSPs.”
Spaces to work
Shifting over to the workspaces, these comprise a boardroom, a townhall, and meeting spaces of various sizes. Across these workspaces, Samsung flat panels are used as displays. In premium spaces, dual displays are provided. Logitech Rally system and Neat Bars provide UC&C, audio, and visual support. Extron switching manages visual signals. Barco ClickShare provides BYOD functionality. Neat Pad touchpanels serve as displays for the room booking system. On the side of audio, AtlasIED speakers and amplifiers provide sound, and signals are managed by Xilica DSPs. Sennheiser ceiling tile and handheld microphones pick up audio. Regarding the selection of these products, Lim says: “We opted for this equipment primarily due to its reliability and userfriendly nature. Our priority was to ensure that the AV systems in place could be depended upon for seamless operation and minimal downtime. Additionally, prioritising user-friendliness was essential to ensure that everyone within the organisation, regardless of technical expertise, could easily utilise the equipment for their meetings and presentations. This thought process guided our selection to guarantee a smooth and hasslefree experience for all users.”
Through the course of the project, PAVE System battled one obstacle. Lim details: “The biggest challenge for us was the timeline. PIL had specific dates set for the opening launch of PIL Academy and that gave us a hard deadline we had to meet at all costs. So, it was a rush job for all aspects from procuring products to installing and commissioning them.”
However, astute planning on the part of the integrator ensured success. Lim says: “One of the things that really worked in our favour was the local presence of the manufacturers we had chosen to procure products from, such as Absen and Maxhub. With them being in the same time zone as us, we could coordinate and keep them apprised of the project progression to make sure we received products on time.”
PIL Academy is an evolving initiative. Tan talks about how it has been received and is already being bettered: “PIL Academy has been extremely successful, and it continues to improve. The courses being taught are being accredited by SIT which is a great step forward. There is a drive to build more micro-stackable courses to further increase the value and recognition of the education programs at PIL.”
Dr Goh shares his thoughts on how he sees PIL Academy developing down the line: “When we talk about the latest technologies for education and learning, generative AI (gen AI) is obviously one of the most impactful developments happening right now. It has the capability of making learning more conversational and more intuitive. We can already see how powerful gen AI has been as a productivity enhancer in the workspace, so we have to look at how we can incorporate it into learning design and pedagogy.”