KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian companies are encouraged to explore the exponential business opportunities within the Industry 4.0, particularly as a solutions and products provider to complement its entire value chain.
The nine pillars of the Industry 4.0 are autonomous robots, simulation, system integration, Internet of Things, cybersecurity, the cloud, additive manufacturing, big data, and analytics.
Malaysian Technology Development Corporation (MTDC) chief executive officer Datuk Norhalim Yunus said rather than just be a “consumer” embracing the I 4.0, companies should look at the bigger picture and become the “provider”, as the supply of many solutions and products is currently dominated by foreigners.
He said this would not only reduce the dependency on imported Industry 4.0 solutions and products, but companies would also be able to help other local entities and address the needs of the overseas market.
“We (MTDC) are not just looking at assisting Malaysia companies move up the value chain, as consumers of the technology, but also considering creating opportunities and growing local companies to supply the products and services.
“If we can develop a group of Malaysian companies that are good in cyber security, augmented reality and robotics, only then can we assist them to move up the technology value chain, because our needs might differ from customers in other countries,” he told Bernama.
Norhalim said by building their very own technology, local companies would also have the benefit of less human-error, especially those in the heavily-manual industries, and importantly, at a lower cost to own such technology due to its expensive imported price.
He said companies can also avoid any subsequent issue of services and maintenance, as well as, other issues associated with it.
“There is a lot of potential in robotics as many industries are still dependent on imported manual labour, for example, the furniture industry, where robotics technology can easily replace per shift of two to three workers just for the pick and place task,” he highlighted.
In encouraging technology advancement within Malaysian companies, Norhalim said MTDC had set up the Centre of 9 Pillars (Co9P), a community-based centre to help nurture new Industry 4.0 innovations which would help accelerate technology scale-up for small and medium sized organisations.
The centre is equipped with the required tools and equipment to allow the development of proof-of-concept and prototypes at a fraction of the cost of imported solutions.
The government agency recently extended its CO9P Sarawak hub by linking it with the other centres at the Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM-MTDC Technology centre) and Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM-MTDC) in Johor Bahru, Penang and Sabah. – Bernama
