Mosti urges E&E players to use Mimos-NCIA high-tech training facility

By Digital News Asia July 19, 2017

Offers an end-to-end, world-class, high-technology industry training facility
To stay ahead in global competition, the industry must embrace Industrie 4.0

Mosti urges E&E players to use Mimos-NCIA high-tech training facility

THE local Electrical and Electronics (E&E) industry should take advantage of the Mimos-NCIA Advanced Competency Development Centre (Mimos-NCIA ACDC) as the facilities can help them in building a world-standard, highly-skilled workforce to move into Industrie 4.0.

“To maintain the growth and resilience of the sector towards a high-income digital economy, Malaysia needs a competent and primed workforce,” said Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation Wilfred Madius Tangau.

“Advanced technologies, innovation and sophisticated machines are meaningless if our human capital does not have the competence to translate them into new knowledge and added value that will give a competitive edge to the country and bring benefits to the people,” Wilfred said at the launch of the facilities, here, today. His speech was read by his deputy, Dr Abu Bakar Mohamad Diah.

Present at the event were the ministry’s Secretary-General Dr Mohd Azhar Yahaya, Northern Corridor Implementation Authority (NCIA) chief executive Redza Rafiq and Mimos chief executive officer Ahmad Rizan Ibrahim.

The Mimos-NCIA ACDC is a human capital development centre jointly established by national research and development centre, Mimos, and NCIA. It offers an end-to-end, world-class, high-technology industry training facility aimed at fostering hands-on experience needed to produce highly-skilled workforce in the E&E sector.

Wilfred quoted the 2016/2017 Economic Report released by the Finance Ministry in conjunction with the 2017 Budget announced by Prime Minister Najib Razak in October last year which had said that the country needed to accelerate the adoption of technology and innovation in order to move up the value chain of the manufacturing sector.

The report had said the country needed to increase investment in human capital and research and development to enable it to achieve the objective.

Wilfred said, as contribution from E&E to national development is substantial, the right policies and ecosystem are crucial so that E&E can continue to be a mainstay of the national economy.

The E&E sector is Malaysia’s key industry driver, contributing RM288 billion or 36.7% of total national exports in 2016.

“To stay ahead in global competition, the industry must embrace Industrie 4.0. Our human capital must be swift in pursuing and embracing this new paradigm,” the minister said.

“This calls for human capital that is focussed, competent and highly-skilled in handling and managing new knowledge. Organisations cannot sidestep making investments in developing, training and nurturing future workforce, he said.

The event also saw the exchange of Memoranda of Understanding and Memoranda of Agreement documents between Mimos and parties that will be taking part in initial programmes at the centre. They include NCIA, the University of Malaya, SAGE Interactive Sdn Bhd, Agensi Inovasi Malaysia (AIM), Sirim Bhd, Technology Depository Agency Bhd (TDA), Grectronics Sdn Bhd, Eclimo Sdn Bhd, Penchem Technologies Sdn Bhd and Nanotech Science Sdn Bhd.

Wilfred said that the government-industry-academia joint initiative in providing high-impact competency development programme is a strategic move that would address the shortage of skilled worker and reduce the dependency on foreign expertise in the E&E sector.

“We hope to create 2,000 high-impact E&E professional in a span of five years. The number is expected to meet the demand from all E&E companies operating in the country presently,” he said.

Meanwhile, Redza said: "The Mimos-NCIA ACDC is the only facility in Malaysia that provides the 80% practical and 20% theory mode in industrial grade wafer fabrication. This learning concept enables accelerated development of skill sets that support movement up the E&E value chain initiatives and complements Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) and Malaysia Board of Technologists (MBOT) programmes.”

“The Mimos-NCIA collaboration is an excellent example of government agencies anchoring on the National Blue Ocean Strategy (NBOS) by complementing each other and utilising resources optimally,” he added.

The advanced shared service facilities, which form a large part of Mimos-NCIA ACDC, are internationally certified with ISO9001: 2008 and ISO/IEC17025. The facilities support NanoVerify programme, which is a joint programme between NanoMalaysia Bhd and Sirim QAS. Mimos is a Human Resources Development Fund (HRDF)-approved training provider.