Work together for operational excellence, BPA, BPSB told
BINTULU: Bintulu Port Authority (BPA) as a regulator and Bintulu Port Sdn Bhd (BPSB) as an operator will become as one when it comes to operational excellence.
Although both entities might have different roles to play, now with new direction they will be working closely together, BPA chairman Dr John Brian Anthony said.
“You will talk to us as one and we do not push the issues and opportunities left and right,” he assured when speaking to the staff of BPA and BPSB including stakeholders and port users during a townhall meeting recently.
Now after 37 years, from a little village town to a vibrant major town, he said there is a need for Bintulu to have a continuous injection of economic activities and Bintulu Port is one of the key corporate bodies that play a big role in the town.
He said BPA and BPSB including the port users must become friends, partners and collaborators and they should not look at themselves as enemies.
As the new chairman of BPA, John said he can see a lot of opportunities for Bintulu Port to bring greater changes to Sarawak.
“One of the areas is for us to achieve excellent customer service, not that we have not been doing our best, but we have to do better than what was our best and in order to do that we cannot be happy with ourselves,” he said.
John reminded of the need to embrace positive changes in operational and the way of doing things.
Customer service excellence, he explained, is the basis of the port business and operational excellence is how they deliver the business.
“We have a lot of shortcomings but that is the opportunity to drive us forward. In our operational excellence, before anything else, our people must be excellent, in terms of skills and in particular knowledge, including the system as we move 30 years ahead, we are having serious talks with our operator, to map out the 30 years ahead of us.
“In the next 30 years, not only the people will change, the equipment that has been installed 37 years ago is now getting very old, it needs to be renewed, the system needs upgrading, the world is changing and the technology is changing and we have to move with the times,” he added.
John said they must be able to deliver operational excellence not only based on good manpower but also on intelligence system for the port to survive and not to forget to protect the environment.
He said there will be more ports and Bintulu Port will be facing competition against the world’s best port operators.
“To do this, we must maintain and upkeep high integrity, not only in the field of transparency and corruption, but we must keep to our promise to deliver.
“Integrity is in our conduct with respect, as a person and as a company we must maintain high integrity in order to ensure that we have a peaceful country and brighter future,” said John.
Born in Sebauh, Bintulu, John Brian holds a PhD in Management from Southern Cross University, Australia and has been carrying out management consultancy in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore.