business in action JUL - SEP 2018 VOL 3/2018 www.fmm.org.my KDN NO.PP 16730/08/2012 (030376) Upskilling+ Employees With skills shortage sharpening employers should consider retraining their workforce PG. 10 FMM 50th Anniversary PG. 14 Tech Talk: 3D Printers Shape the World Growing Role PG. 16 FMM – MIER Business of Robotics in Conditions Survey Manufacturing PG. 26 Touring Tasmania’s Golf Courses PG. 48 PAGE Contents 4 JULY - SEPTEMBER 2018 VOLUME 3/2018 PRESIDENT’S THE COMMUNICATOR: 2 MESSAGE 20 IDENTIFY THE PAGE SOCIAL MEDIA CHANNELS COVER STORY: ROLE BEST SUITED FOR YOUR 4 OF ROBOTICS IN BUSINESS 10 MANUFACTURING It remains as one of the most Robots, increasingly play a pivotal cost-effective means of marketing part in improving efficiency on the products and services factory floor BRAND BUILDER: FEATURES 24 BRANDING TIPS FOR THE GROWING MANUFACTURERS 10 importance OF How to leverage on your UPSKILLING EMPLOYEES company’s strengths in the With skills shortage sharpening marketplace employers should consider retraining their workforce FMM – MIER 26 BUSINESS FMM 50TH CONDITIONS SURVEY 14 ANNIVERSARY NEW TECH TALK: SHAPING 30 MEMBERS 16 THE WORLD 3D printing technology FMMEA revolutionises product design like 32 INTERVIEW never before PAGE PAGE 16 24 FMM MALAYSIA 36 NEWS 51 PROJECTED TO BECOME TOP-25 BRANCH NEWS ECONOMY BY 2050 39 & EVENTS The country needs to invest more in technology and TraveL education to improve its 48 Golf touring in ranking Tasmania EVENT 52 CALENDAR MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT One of the suggestions being put forward by the Education Ministry’s taskforce on TVET headed by YB Nurul Izzah Anwar is by adopting international best practices as exemplified by Penang which has initiated the implementation of the German Dual Vocational Training. Perhaps, we can take a feather from the cap of our neighbours, Indonesia, who have made some breakthroughs in enhancing the image and attractiveness of TVET, among others, by increasing the share of vocational education and training with a target ratio between TVET and general high school education of 70% to 30% in 2025. Another step for enhancing the image and attractiveness of TVET is establishing more higher education within vocational fields as has been done in China, or increasing the permeability from TVET to higher education as has been done in South Korea or India. There will be surely a lot of proposals on the table and it is our view that a collective effort from all stakeholders from Government to companies will help establish TVET on a firm Making TVET a logical choice for footing in the not too distant future. students FMM also strongly believes that immersion into TVET “Our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress should start as early as the secondary education level. This in education. The human mind is our fundamental resource.” is one of the reasons for FMM’s on-going collaboration with Those words belong to the late US President John F. the Technical Vocational Education Division of the Ministry Kennedy, a strong proponent on the values of education and of Education via the TVET Apprenticeship Programme. The can be applied to our own situation here in Malaysia. programme targets students who have completed their With the onset of Industry 4.0, it becomes very important Pentaksiran Tingkatan Tiga (PT3) i.e. at Form Four (aged for our workforce to stay relevant with smart manufacturing 16). The programme structure involves six consecutive technologies. months of theory at Vocational Colleges followed by six Education remains an important channel, specifically the consecutive months of practical training with an assigned role of Technical Vocational Education & Training (TVET) in manufacturing company each year for two years. Students relation to smart manufacturing. complete the Apprenticeship Programme at age 17 or 18. The most crucial aspect in promoting increased They are awarded at least Level 2 Malaysia Skill Certificate / digitalisation, artificial intelligence, Internet of things and Sijil Kemahiran Malaysia and also the SPM(V) if they sit for their other elements of Industry 4.0 within our industrial sector lies SPM examination. Employers who have been conducting the in having capable, technologically skilled workers. practical training for the two years can recruit their students as This is where TVET needs tremendous support and employees. involvement from the industry itself as we must identify our The Apprenticeship Programme is currently on a needs more accurately so as to direct proper legislation pilot run involving five companies and three Vocational and policies that can help the pathway for students to gain Colleges in the Klang Valley namely Klang, Setapak and certification and gain employment in the long run. Sungai Buloh Vocational Colleges. FMM is already in The Government is already setting the wheels in motion discussion with the Ministry of Education to expand the to redress the skills gap as well as to raise the image of TVET collaboration to other states after completing the pilot at which until today plays a secondary role to general education. the end of this year. The Asia Technical Vocational Education and Training I encourage more members to sign up for our Experts Forum 2018 held in July concluded with Education Apprenticeship Programme. Minister YB Dr Maszlee Malik promising to make it the first choice for students in Malaysia. Dato’ Soh Thian Lai COVER STORY ROLE OF ROBOTICS IN MANUFACTURING Robots, increasingly play a pivotal part in improving efficiency on the factory floor The world of robotics has come a long and sustainable solutions and products. Today’s new and future robots will way since British engineer William The robotics industry in itself is have voice and language recognition, Gary Walter developed Elmer and flourishing. Leading research groups access to super-fast communications, Elsie in 1948. These were tiny robots are reporting that the robotics industry data and libraries of algorithms, learning using simple electronics that were is growing more rapidly than expected. capability, mobility, portability and programmed to find their charging BCG (Boston Consulting Group) is dexterity. stations once power was running low. conservatively projecting that the These new precision robots can sort The foundation, however for today’s market will reach US$87 billion by 2025. and fill prescriptions, pick and pack robots and the first industrial robot was Tractica, on the other hand is more warehouse orders, sort, inspect, process laid by American inventor George Devol optimistic incorporating the robotic and handle fruits and vegetables, plus in 1954. He conceived Unimate which and AI (artificial intelligence) elements a myriad of other industrial and non- was a design for a mechanical arm of the emerging self-driving industry, is industrial tasks, faster than humans, yet patented in the same year and granted forecasting the market will reach US$237 all the while working safely alongside in 1961. billion by 2022. them. Today’s robotics are breaking Both research firms acknowledge Essentially, industrial robots usually ground on new technologies and that the robots of yesteryear — which consist of a jointed arm (multi-linked capabilities. The role of the robot is no were blind, big, dangerous and difficult manipulator) and an end effector that is longer to simply provide brunt force in to program and maintain — are being attached to a fixed surface. One of the manufacturing but to extend and work replaced and supplemented with newer, most common type of end effector is a with humans to create superior, usable, more capable ones. gripper assembly. 4 BIA @ FMM n JUL - SEP 2018 The International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) gives a definition of a manipulating industrial robot in ISO 8373-”An automatically controlled, reprogrammable, multipurpose, manipulator programmable in three or more axes, which may be either fixed in place or mobile for use in industrial automation applications” APPLICATIONS OF ROBOTICS IN MANUFACTURING Industrial robots can be found in in a diverse range of industries including automotive production, packaging, electronics, automated guided vehicles, just to name a few. Over the last three decades, automobile factories have become dominated by robots. A typical factory contains hundreds of industrial robots working on fully automated production lines, with one robot for every ten workers. On an automated production line, a vehicle chassis on a conveyor is welded, glued, painted and finally assembled at a sequence of robot stations. Industrial robots are also used extensively for palletising and packaging of manufactured goods, for example for rapidly taking drink cartons from the end of a conveyor belt and placing them into boxes, or for loading and unloading machining or lasers, are used to transport industrial robots at work around the centres. goods around large facilities, such world – one million more robots than Mass-produced printed circuit as warehouses, container ports, or in 2015. That reflects a compounded boards (PCBs) are almost exclusively hospitals. annual growth rate of 12%. 70% of those manufactured by pick-and-place The International Federation of robots work in the automotive, electrical robots, typically with SCARA Robotics IFR) remains the organisation and electronics and metal/machinery manipulators, which remove tiny that connects the world of robotics industries. In 2015, growth occurred in electronic components from strips or globally. Their members come from the electronics industry, which boasted trays, and place them on to PCBs with the robotics industry, national or an 18% rise; the metal industry posted great accuracy. Such robots can place international industry associations and an increase of 16%, with the automotive hundreds of thousands of components research and development institutes. sector growing by 10%. per hour, far out-performing a human in The federation represents over 50 Worldwide sales of industrial robots speed, accuracy, and reliability. members from more than 20 countries.