Taiwan Expo 2019 Taiwan Excellence Capture Industry 4.0 A Smart Factory Solutions

The 2 days Taiwan Expo held on 5th and 6th July at Setia SPICE Convention Center made a grand entrance to the "Silicon Valley of The East" - Penang. Products from more than 20 brands invented in Taiwan in the field of Industry 4.0, medical technology, smart retail, beauty products and more were showcased, impressing visitors across various sectors.

Taiwan's Technology has been well regarded internationally. Their solid R&D, excellent design track record and production capabilities are instrument in its success. Taiwan Excellence Awards, the yearly awards given out by the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) and Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) has been encouraging continual innovation in product quality and design, always recognizing the best from the best.

In conjunction with the exiting products display during the expo, the Taiwan Excellence Pavilion organised an Industry 4.0: Smart Factory Solution seminar to share Taiwanese experience in this area with Malaysian counterparts. Speakers included representatives from renowned Industry 4.0 manufacturers such as Advantech, Hiwin and Nexcom. These industrial giants touched on topics from co-creation models, smart machinery and their Internet of Things (IoT). This seminar was well received by the Malaysian chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Penang Foundry & Engineering Industries Association (PENFEIA).

Industry 4.0 is the future of manufacturing through integration of automation, robotisation, and Internet of Things. Taiwan's advanced information, communication technologies and precision machinery expertise will give a huge advantage in this revolution, and would help many SMEs in Penang in their transformation process into a larger scale of business. 

The Malaysian Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) has been giving various initiatives where RM 7.21 billion is allocated to support Industry 4.0 and digitalisation. At the first quarter of 2019, a sum of RM 210 million has been provided to 500 local SMEs through Malaysian Productive Council to carry out the readiness assessment to migrate to Industry 4.0 platform.

Tony Lau (Managing Director of Ventnor Industry Sdn Bhd) has highlighted a number of challenges our local SME/SMI facing during his sharing section. Among the challenges are afraid of being the "guinea pig" for development, culture challenge, each industry solution is unique with few similarities, and lacking of knowledge on government support for funds and grants for developments. He then introduces Customer Centric Co-Creation Model (CCCM) by using the concept of Industry4WRD (National Policy on Industry 4.0 launched on 31st October 2018) to help SME to attract, create and transform.

The seminar moved on with Mr Tean Shen Zen (Deputy Sales Account Manager of Hiwin Singapore) sharing on smart factory concept layout, Hiwin's product portfolio with its industrial applications and automation production line. Mr Vincent Oh (Regional Business Development Manager of Nexcom Singapore) then covers where cloud IoT, how the software implementation to capture and analyse data would realize a smart factory. Ivon Kong (Area Sales Manager of Advantech Malaysia) shared on co-creating the future of IoT world.