Malaysia’s manufacturing sector continues to play a vital role in the country’s economic transformation. Despite global economic uncertainty, its contributions to the nation’s export revenue and employment ensures the country’s growth.

Currently, smart manufacturing is becoming the focus of manufacturing globally as it is the integration of the manufacturing industry and new-age information communication technology. We call these technologies and solutions “‘enablers” which help in optimizing the entire manufacturing process and thus increase overall profits.

With the world depending more than ever on connectivity and the exchange of data, digitalization will drive agility for smart manufacturing.

Malaysiakini, KiniEvents and Taiwan Excellence have teamed up once again to bring you Episode 3 of Taiwan Excellence Webinar series titled Smart Manufacturing: Driving Agility. This episode was hosted by Karamjit Singh and guest panelists Ryan Lai, ASEAN WP.Sense Business Development Manager, Advantech Co Malaysia Sdn. Bhd, R. Narayanan, Country Managing Director of ABB Malaysia Sdn. Bhd and Tean Shen Zen, Sales Manager (Malaysia and Indonesia) Hiwin Singapore Pte Ltd contributing to the discussion and sharing insights on the prominence of smart manufacturing in gearing towards the 4th Industrial Revolution.

Taiwan Excellence has become a popular trademark among Taiwanese products as it is recognised worldwide for its quality and innovative products. Each year local entrepreneurs have to go through a rigorous selection process covering all aspects of quality assurance to get the seal of excellence. The Taiwan Excellence Award-winning products will serve as a cornerstone to Taiwan's local industry and will be advanced by the government in the international market.

One of Taiwan Excellence award winning products is the Advantech’s iFactory Smart Manufacturing Suite. It provides a managed private cloud solution for manufacturers to accelerate the implementation of smart manufacturing and embrace digital transformation under the trend of Industry 4.0.

Another Taiwan Excellence award winning product is Hiwin - Intelligent 4.0 Ballscrew. It is the first ballscrew in the world that can be mass produced to achieve smart manufacturing for Industry 4.0. Its features help machinery industries upgrade to intelligent manufacturing. Other than the machinery industry, Intelligent 4.0 Ballscrew is expanding to other industries, such as automation, electro-optical, semiconductor and so on.

Agility promotes operational excellence

“In my opinion, being in the Industry 4.0 and the digital business transformation era, data driven organisation is important to drive agility. However, many SMEs manufacturers in Malaysia are still in the industry 2.0 phase and are less focused in transforming their businesses digitally causing efficiency to take the back seat,” Ryan said.

“When the smart industry (IR 4.0) first emerged, many Malaysians were fond of the high-tech creation as it provides a more holistic and better connected ecosystem. Plus, advanced industrial technology is valuable and cost-saving in the long run, but it is also an expensive investment. So many SMEs manufacturers were not interested to invest in it”.

When the Covid-19 pandemic swept across the world, many manufacturers only then came to realize that these industrial technologies allow their businesses and production rate to grow. This is because the pandemic has revealed how vulnerable global supply chains can be and has motivated manufacturers to rethink in adopting IR4.0 in a more cost-effective manner, especially in areas of customer engagement, supply chain, production and operation strategies.

A wide variety of offerings

“Agility is a subset of smart manufacturing. Like all great improvement initiatives, smart manufacturing requires a good foundation to build upon. You have to be extremely agile in how you build your production concept which should be based on the market demand,” Narayanan said.

“If we go back to the second industrial revolution era, mass production of goods became a standard practice, during that period manufacturers would produce the same thing and customers just have to accept it”.

However, today when you go to any supermarket, there are various selections of consumer goods offered. Therefore, being agile provides manufacturers with a competitive advantage. It’s all about understanding your people, machines and processes, and identifying how to get the most out of all of your assets.

Elevating efficiency

According to Tean, the pandemic has actually fastened the requirement and the acceptance of stepping in the 4.0 industry. Businesses have no choice but to transform their business models and step up their efforts in adopting digital technology.

Plus, smart manufacturing offers new production advantages that come from the flexibility and productivity working hand in hand, which is made possible by digital technology. This implementation would resolve labour issues, operate on a larger scale, faster production and so on.

Key Takeaway

“Smart manufacturing methods will allow companies to evolve in a future-ready state. There are a lot of solutions in the market but it is the matter of fitting the proper solution in your roadmap,” Ryan concluded.“Whenever there is adversity there is always an opportunity and the pandemic has accelerated the industry 4.0 more better than it was expected. Therefore, Malaysians should embrace smart manufacturing as the productivity potential is tremendous,” Narayanan said. “What you do today can improve all your tomorrows. Companies that do not involve themselves into smart manufacturing would be slowly left behind,” Tean concluded. Watch the replay of Smart Manufacturing: Driving Agility here.