Business Shipping

Lanka Hydraulic introduces Cornucopia variable pay system

A Sri Lankan Coastal Engineering company has recently made waves in many parts of the world, from Algeria’s El Kala fishing port to India’s Krishnapatnam Commercial Port, from the Maldives fourteen islands sewerage project to South Korea’s Incheon harbour LNG Terminal.

Lanka Hydraulics Institute or ‘LHI Cost and Water’ as it is better known, has also partnered the design and development of the Colombo South Harbour, Galle Harbour, Hambantota Harbour and is now associated with Sri Lanka’s most recent power project - the Norachcholai Coal Power Plant.

What is unique about LHI is that it has broken new ground by opening its vistas to the potential of business worldwide, in the Middle East, in the Far East, in North Africa away from the shores of a typical low income country.

Some time ago Michael Porter (2001)* attempted to explain that typical low income developing countries (whose per capita income is below $6,800) achieve growth mainly through labour intensive enterprise on a predominant cost platform while technology and innovation based competition is the province of the middle income or rapidly developing economies (Income of $6,800- $20,000).

This rule of competitiveness had been broken by this Sri Lankan company whose value added services are entirely Technology and Innovation based.

According to Malith Mendis CEO LHI, in driving LHI’s performance based culture the company had given the opportunity to its staff of professional engineers to earn more through a well developed performance management system and variable pay scheme designed to deliver its ambitious turnover target for the coming year, of SLR150 million.

A forecast growth of nearly 40 per cent over 2007.

According to CEO, Cornucopia Sri Lanka, Dinesh Weerakkody, many of the businesses both in Sri Lanka and elsewhere waste time and money on performance measurement systems and pay systems which are either not focused, out of date or promote the wrong behaviour within organisations.

Cornucopia Asia (Sri Lanka), a process consulting firm with Indian-Sri Lankan Collaboration, has helped LHI deliver a robust performance management system which started with defining the corporate goals, divisional objectives and individual objectives which ultimately is planned to deliver the results which customers want.

Defining what to measure and developing the most appropriate measures for the company’s complex technology based operational field has been a challenge for Cornucopia.

The experience had resulted in the development of the most focused objectives and ‘managing with measures’ system ever devised for the operational divisions of a specialized technology firm like LHI.

The Variable Pay System designed for this company had leveraged the most vulnerable talent in this field in the country. At a time when the brain drain and exodus of qualified staff (LHI has many with Masters and Doctorates in engineering) are leaving our shores it is to the credit of this organization that it has been able to retain its most valued resources within its walls.

Seafarers in foreign ships earn US$ 100m forex

The CASA members who are engaged in recruiting seafarers are responsible in securing further US$ 100m in foreign exchange to the country through this earnings of the seafarers serving on foreign ships, said Ceylon Association of Ships’ Agents Chairman Capt. Ajith Pieris addressing the CASA Annual General Meeting.

CASA Ex-Co met the Port Minister a few days back and we got to know that he has already taken action to improve the productivity and efficiency of the port especially the JCT, he said.

“During the last two years while attending and assisting in solving many operational/financial issues of our membership, mainly with Sri Lanka Ports Authority and Sri Lanka Customs, we focused to project CASA as a friendly and a professional association.

Today our rapport is excellent with almost all the organizations and Associations coming under ports and shipping in the government and private sector. The CASA Membership stands at 114 companies as of today, and I am proud that it keeps growing steadily,” he said.

The Colombo South Harbour Project finally took off the ground, but immediately met with a crisis, as the awarding of the tender for Terminal Construction was cancelled at the last minute.

But the Minister, Ministry and Port Officials, assured the industry that there will be no delay due to this action, as they managed to de-link the construction of the Break Water and the Terminal.

We are made to understand that the progress of Break Water construction is good and on schedule. We hope that the Terminal tender also will be awarded in time, for the benefit of the shipping industry and the economy of the country, he said.