SINGAPORE — At local start-up Feinmetall, employees can learn the tools of the trade by using a mobile app and image recognition technology, instead of having to flip through hefty instruction manuals.

Under the Technology Adoption Programme (TAP) offered by the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), the precision engineering firm made use of the image recognition technology to speed up training.

Employees simply point their camera phones at the company’s logo on equipment and an instructional video will pop up on their phone.

TAP, which was launched in July 2013, helps start-ups access technology more easily, by linking up companies lacking in such know-how with service providers or A*STAR’s research institutes.

In the 2013 calendar year, 105 companies across six sectors benefited from TAP.

Last year, the figure rose to 931, after the programme was expanded to cover four more sectors — food services, healthcare, infocomm media and logistics.

Companies can expect a 20 per cent increase in productivity under the programme, said A*STAR chairman Lim Chuan Poh at a press conference yesterday.

However, he added that the agency would like to do more to enable local start-ups to be like Mittelstand companies — the German equivalent of Singapore’s small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

Noting that German SMEs have a turnover that runs into billions, Mr Lim said: “We need some SMEs to, over time, be in that category.”

To offer start-ups a leg-up, A*STAR simplified the process of licensing its own technology to SMEs last year. Instead of a 20-page application form, start-ups will have to fill in only a three-page document to get the licence.

“In the past, we needed to justify why we want to work with (A*STAR). Now, they just want to know what we want to use their technology for,” said Mr Winson Wee, director of client engagement and projects at Reachfield IT Solutions. His company was awarded a second A*STAR licence last year.

Two-thirds of the 206 commercial licences awarded by A*STAR went to SMEs in the first nine months of the 2014 financial year — up from 56 per cent of 232 licences in the previous financial year.

Firms working with A*STAR doubled their investment to more than S$380 million between April and December 2014 – the first three-quarters of its financial year.

The growth in the number of projects was largely due to the launch last year of 19 joint laboratories with industry partners, including DBS and Singtel — five more than the previous financial year.

One of the projects undertaken by a joint lab in 2013 involved a music search technology that allows users to obtain information about a song through an app.

More than 60 per cent of A*STAR’s projects so far in the 2014 financial year are with multinational companies and large local enterprises. The rest are with SMEs.

“R&D needs to be at the forefront of our efforts to remain innovative and stay ahead of the global competition. Our continuing efforts to collaborate with small, medium and large local enterprises as well as MNCs will be important for the future of Singapore,” said Mr Lim.