It was such a great opportunity to visit one of the prominent research universities in Malaysia and have a direct and insightful meeting with its Vice Chancellor, Professor Datuk Dr Asma Ismail whom is also a President for the Academy of Sciences Malaysia.
Malaysia national policy on Industry 4.0 or better known as Industry 4WRD is focusing more on technology rather than capital and labor. As stated by Malaysia Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, “Therein lies the substance in the term Fourth Industrial Revolution. Essentially what it entails is infusing higher value-added process of manufacturing through the application of advanced digitisation, advanced manufacturing technologies and efficient resource utilisation.” (Tun Dr. Mahathir, 2018).
Under the 4th IR, Malaysia is no longer looking for labor intensive manufacturing investor, instead securing for a higher value-added process of advanced manufacturing technologies. Upon arrived in Malaysia advanced technologies required an efficient and trusted characterization platform to analyze its high-tech material. Based on our experience, most of the foreign manufacturers in Malaysia will opt to outsource their materials to be tested outside Malaysia such as Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong or as far as United States of America instead having it tested locally.
Such an option is not desirable because it increases shipment time, possibilities of the material being hold in immigration, increases cost, longer time to give feedback to engineer which will resulted to further delays in any changes needed for process optimization. Time is crucial in higher value-added manufacturing process, any delays in getting characterization results, leads to the failure of the product.
This prompt my visit to USM. USM has the state-of-the-art metrology tools. But for higher value-added process of advance manufacturing technologies, it is crucial for the industry to know the following:
· Does the metrology equipment give a correct measurement?
· What is the tools accuracy?
· How consistent the numbers are?
· How well the equipment is maintained?
· What is the maintenance protocol of the equipments?
· Should they be worried of any contaminants in the room and in the tool?
· Is there any possibilities of cross contamination between one measurement to another?
Ultimately, what matters to the industry before they are able to link themselves with the university is
“Can I trust your measurement?”
In view of the above issues, we helped high-tech companies to identify which testing method is pertinent to their product, thereafter we guide them to establish an efficient and trusted metrology platform. We are obligated to share our knowledge to the research universities in Malaysia, to have their metrology labs to be in-par with industrial standard as per our Prime Minister’s vision in National Policy on Industry 4.0.
And she got a kick ass corner office, facing the sea (Malacca Straits) and Penang bridge.