The government must accelerate its efforts to improve 5G connectivity in the industrial areas to allow technological advancement to be implemented in factory operations, says the Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers (FMM).
“The latest technology is fully automated, hardly any person inside, with machines talking to machines. This is all linked to 5G. If the 5G system cannot be linked to the factories, it will be difficult to implement technological advancements in the factory,” said FMM president Tan Sri Soh Thian Lai.
According to the survey, most of the respondents (46%) rated 5G coverage as average, while 24% rated it as poor, and 17% rated it as very poor. Meanwhile, only 13% rated the 5G coverage as good, and 1% as very good.
As such, Soh said the government should discuss with the telecommunications companies how to improve 5G connectivity inside the factories.
Previously, Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil reportedly said that Malaysia has achieved a coverage of 80.2% for its 5G network as of Dec 31, 2023, adding that the country would shift to a dual 5G network model.
Furthermore, the FMM survey showed over half of the respondents (55%) have not started investing in smart manufacturing despite the government’s aspiration to transform 3,000 smart factories in its New Industrial Master Plan 2030.
Most respondents (53%) cited the lack of in-house expertise to lead their adoption of Industrial Revolution 4.0 (IR 4.0), while 45% did not have a budget for it, the survey revealed.
In terms of governmental support, 80% of respondents said they would require the government’s support to either start or scale up their current IR4.0 journey.
Of the types of financial support required by the government, incentives, matching grants and double tax deductions were the most popular, as recommended by 65%, 64% and 57% of the respondents, respectively.
Meanwhile, among the IR4.0 technologies and tools used by those in their factory operations, the top three technologies by the respondents are cloud computing (47%), cybersecurity (43%) and Internet of Things (30%).
The survey was conducted among 613 respondents from 16 industry sub-sectors — including food, beverages and tobacco, chemicals and chemical products, electrical and electronics, fabricated metals, and motor vehicles.
Of these respondents, 67% were considered small and medium enterprises.
Source: The Edge Malaysia
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