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January 16, 2020
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Malaysia has its eyes set on achieving the developed country status, and they are well on track for achieving it. The country’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth has been climbing steadily and the MIDF Amanah Investment Bank Bhd Research foresees higher GDP growth in the second half of 2019, according to Malay Mail.
But, as with many other countries before it, it needs to avoid the middle income trap and prepare for unprecedented disruption to global industries, including manufacturing. “Malaysia’s forte is in manufacturing-related angles,” noted Jeyasigan Nair, Director of Advanced Technology, Research and Development, Malaysian Investment Development Authority. “Manufacturing is one of the pillars to push for us to attain the status of a developed country,” he said at the TM ONE Smart Industry Showcase in Kuala Lumpur recently.
Enter Industry4WRD, Malaysia’s iteration of Industry 4.0. This is the country’s first step in embracing the digital revolution that has transformed public and private sectors across the world, and it will focus on driving growth in manufacturing and related industries. TM ONE, leading digital solutions provider and Telekom Malaysia’s enterprise and public sector business arm, has recently launched 10 Transformative Smart Solutions to support Industry4WRD during the Smart Industry Showcase. These solutions use big data, IoT sensors and smart technology to create smart systems across multiple industries.
TM ONE recently spoke to GovInsider on the practical ways to achieve Industry4WRD.
At the Smart Industry Showcase, Ir Ts Azizi A. Hadi, former EVP and CEO of TM ONE and currently Telekom Malaysia’s Chief Network Officer, shared some ways that TM ONE supports the development of Industry4WRD.
1. Smart buildings
TM ONE’s Smart Building Management Solution optimises energy usage with a three-pronged approach: integrated third party sensors, smart analytics and advanced visualization tools. Building managers can collect data and control devices within the building through a centralised monitoring platform. The data can provide insights on footfall, traffic and asset’s usage. It can also tell maintenance teams when would be the best time to carry out maintenance work, ensuring a safe and comfortable experience for tenants.
“Data from energy usage can provide insights on bigger things,” said Azizi. For example, when the electricity bill is higher than projected, it could be a sign of a mismanaged air conditioning system. Building managers can then choose to install a centralised and automated control system based on demand.
“Without these data systems, we cannot identify where the waste is coming from. And when you introduce energy savings equipment, we can easily measure the KPIs with these data,” he added.
This energy monitoring system is currently in trial in several government buildings across Malaysia.
2. Smart farming
The agriculture industry, in particular hydroponics, can benefit greatly from Industry 4.0 technologies. Sensors can detect the pH level and temperature of the plants’ environments using electrolytes in the water. This data can then be transmitted onto a central system accessible through mobile phone. Farmers can also control the plants’ environment in real time if anything is out of place. For example, they can turn on the air-conditioning if it becomes too warm or they can engage the system to automatically dispense fertiliser if fertiliser concentration is too low. Farmers can also glean insights on crop data and patterns from the data collected to optimise their yield all year round.
Smart systems like these can also be used beyond hydroponics on any type of farming – it can be used to check on soil acidity and water level, for instance. One of the premises in the Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Institute has installed and started running this system.
3. Smart traffic
In cities like Kuala Lumpur, people spend almost a whole hour being stuck in traffic in their daily commute, according to the TomTom Traffic Index. This may be set to change, however, with the introduction of smart traffic lights from TM ONE.
These traffic lights reduce waiting time at junctions, effectively reducing both traffic congestion and carbon emissions. They can also monitor traffic in real-time and collect data about road usage. This data can then help in future road-building and town-planning.
Sensors installed beneath roads, together with smart devices such as cameras, collect real time information which enable traffic lights to adapt their timings according to the volume of passing traffic. If the sensors identify that there are no cars, it will send data to the traffic light controllers, which will increase the amount of time for pedestrians to cross the road. The controllers will also adjust the time according to the demand of each lane – the longer the queue, the more time will be given to that particular lane. When a part of the system fails, it will automatically send a Telegram notification to maintenance teams. This smart system can also be upgraded to cater to other demands in the future, such as clearing road lanes for emergency vehicles.
TM ONE focuses on customer centricity in the implementation of these 10 solutions. “We find customers and work with them to test our solutions. That way, we can have two to three iterations of the product before it even hits the market,” said Azizi. The traditional business models required customers to mass purchase a smart device or a piece of infrastructure, which is costly. Now, customers can start with buying just one traffic light, or a hundred, making the barrier for upgrading to emerging technologies a lot lower for organisations.
In Malaysia’s journey to adopting Industry 4.0 technologies, people have to develop the appropriate skillsets to keep up with the advancement of emerging technologies. Jeyasigan and Hj Ghazali Juhari, Head of Business Development at UMW Equipments shared their thoughts on how this can be done.
“Industries and departments have been working separately, but the needs of industries are different today,” Jeyasigan said. “It’s not just about studying IT or mechanical engineering,” added Hj Ghazali. “People need to have an interdisciplinary skillset.” Some universities have already introduced modules about data and information technology for students of all degrees and disciplines.
Governments around the world have implemented various emerging technologies – and Malaysia will not be left behind. This is why the Malaysian government has budgeted RM 210 million (USD 5 million) from 2019 to 2021 to support the country’s shift to Industry 4.0 technologies.
The Malaysian government is armed and ready to make changes with a collaborative mindset. “As a global economy, Malaysia is a nation that heavily depends on trade, investment and services,” noted Jeyasigan. “We will never survive alone.” Internationalisation is one focus for Malaysia in their Industry4WRD plans.
Digitalisation is another priority. “Industry 4.0 is all about digitalisation,” according to Ahmad Fairuz Bin Mohamed Noor, Principal Assistant Director from the National Cyber Security Agency (NACSA). The organisation has come on board to facilitate cybercrime awareness and protection in the country. Cyber technology is now the main enabler for every sector, according to Ahmad Fairuz. “It’s not limited to communication or information technology per se. Many services are highly dependent on digital technology,” he added. On top of cybersecurity boosts, 5G trials have already begun in several states in Malaysia beginning October 1, reports The Star.
TM ONE recently joined hands with Malaysia’s Ministry of International Trade and Industry to support the Readiness Assessment (RA) initiative for Industry4WRD. This initiative, which started in July 2019, helps manufacturing companies understand how eligible they are for adopting emerging technologies. Assessors will also recommend strategies and areas of improvement for adopting Industry 4.0.
Malaysia is taking bold steps to propel its economy forward with the deployment of emerging technologies through Industry4WRD. Internationalisation and digitalisation are the country’s key focuses for building a resilient economy and future.
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November 29, 2022
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In the digital age and Industrial Revolution 4.0, the agriculture sector is undergoing a massive change by leveraging on digital technologies, especially the Internet of Things (IoT), to create a smarter agriculture.
With the help of robots, drones, remote sensors, and computer imaging combined with continuously progressing machine learning and analytical tools, farmers are monitoring crops, surveying and mapping the fields and using data-driven insights to enjoy higher productivity, saving time, and optimising resources and efforts.
One of the systems that is increasing in popularity and creating smarter agriculture is the Smart Farming system. Smart Farming makes extensive use of sensors (light, humidity, temperature, soil moisture, crop health, etc.) to monitor farm and crop conditions, and automating the irrigation and/or fertigation system. IoT enables devices embedded with sensors to connect and interact via the internet. These devices can be anything from pumps and tractors to weather stations and computers. Smart Farming allows farmers to monitor the field conditions from anywhere, at any time, in real time. Using the combined power of IoT with Big Data and Cloud, a successful communication, connection and transference of data between devices, are done most effectively and efficiently. Digital Connectivity and Cloud Computing are the essential enabler for Smart Farming. Digital connectivity is the foundation without which none of the Smart Agriculture solutions can take place. It is the necessary pre-condition that allows communication between devices and access by stakeholders. Meanwhile, cloud computing enables the hosting platform for IoT and Big Data as well as powers up the data analytics and visualisation.
The value of smart agriculture solutions lies in its promising ability to address some of the longstanding industry challenges – both at the macro and micro level:
With the use of IoT in agriculture, farmers are reaping the benefits from increased agility and data-driven farming. Thanks to real-time monitoring and prediction systems, farmers can quickly respond to any significant changes in weather, humidity, air quality as well as the health of each crop or soil in the field.
With TM One’s comprehensive and fit-for-purpose digital solutions, from connectivity right down to the digital and smart systems and applications, combined with the technical experts who are ready to guide our customers throughout their digitalisation journey, players in the agriculture sector can be assured of a smooth and seamless path to the Next Future of Agriculture.
To know more about TM One’s smart agriculture solution, visit https://www.tmone.com.my/solutions/smart-services/smart-agriculture/
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August 30, 2022
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“TM One is the main agency pioneering the foundation of our nation’s digital infrastructure. Through this strategic collaboration, it greatly helps Ipoh City Council in managing the city more efficiently and in an orderly manner,” – Dato’ Rumaizi bin Baharin, Ipoh Mayor.
With the blend of heritage, food and great scenery, the Lonely Planet ranked Ipoh as one of the best cities in Asia to visit. As a hotspot for tourism, the bustling city provides abundant business opportunities. The city has harnessed this potential by increasing the readiness of its digital infrastructure for mobile and fixed broadband internet.
Keeping this in mind, Ipoh envisions becoming one of the first smart cities in Malaysia by 2030. The Smart City 2030 action plan targets seven domains – Smart Living, Smart Environment, Smart Governance, Smart People, Smart Digital Infrastructure, Smart Economy and Smart Mobility – to effectively address urbanisation challenges faced by the people of Ipoh and to realise Ipoh as a Green and Low Carbon City by 2030. We are embarking on a journey to prepare for a digital future, with TM One acting as the digital enabler and provider to assist the city in its transformation.
In conjunction with the City Leap Summit 2022, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was established between The Ipoh City Council and TM One. The strategic collaboration includes several initiatives that are planned and will be implemented:
One of the most remarkable achievements is the implementation of smart traffic lights. TM One’s STARS leverages AI-enabled sensors at intersections to measure the average waiting time and identify vehicle motions, thereby adjusting green light duration based on real-time congestion, and improve the journey time. This solution also help to reduce the carbon emitted by the vehicle that is using the junction and this is in line with Ipoh Green City Vision to achieve low carbon city. Additional to the benefits, STARS is a single monitoring platform that provides relevant personnel with a centralised viewing of road conditions and equipped with real-time fault notification that triggers alarms through the Telegram chat application. This will allow the relevant personnel to take swift actions and dispatching manpower on-site when needed.
As a result, the smart traffic light solution has improved traffic flow in one of the busiest streets, Jalan Sultan Idris, by 51%. This solution also has led to a 7,500 kg decrease in carbon dioxide emissions in a month – in line with Ipoh’s goal to be a Low Carbon City by 2030.
FORCE satisfies the need for a fluid system to connect the call centre agents, dispatchers and service technicians to attend to citizens’ complaints and inquiries for better communication and coordination. It allows the teams to promptly respond to public complaints and emergencies by accessing real-time ticket statuses. Also, the all-in-one platform automates task scheduling and team management, tracks real-time progress of on-site maintenance and provides access to customer profiles on the go – modernizing the city’s field service solution. FORCE is envisioned to be the system support for MBI’s existing myAduan@MBI citizen app to improve its customer experience, better cost management, and internal resource management.
The Ipoh City Council aspires to establish its first digital call centre via outsourcing. The digital call centre aims to solve the challenges of handling multilingual support requests and reduce abandoned call rates, while elevating critical issues to relevant parties when necessary. Consequently, the city can free up resources and optimise costs, while ensuring the best customer service for the people of Ipoh.
TM One Business Services (BPO) with more than 15 years of contact centre experience in Malaysia, leveraging on our Center of Expertise will be sharing the best practice; which aligned to the Industry Standards and Best Practices to help Ipoh City Council to establish the citizen engagement centre and ultimately elevate the citizen experience to the higher level.
Ipoh aims to be one of the first cities in Malaysia to enable 5G, and TM One plans to support this vision with the provision of free 5G wifi in selected areas. Additionally, a digital fibre connectivity superhighway and smart surveillance systems is being planned for Ipoh citizens.
Smart technologies help Ipoh save cost, shorten commutes, reduce carbon emission rates, and most importantly boost the quality of life for the people of Ipoh. In the long term, smart cities will spur higher citizen and government engagement as they begin to remove the communication barriers and increase the trust between citizens and officials. With the great synergy between both parties, Dato’ Rumaizi aspires to achieve more milestones in collaboration with TM One.
“My hope is that together with TM One, we will explore even more opportunities and smart technologies towards enhancing lives for the people of Ipoh.” – Dato’ Rumaizi bin Baharin, Ipoh Mayor.
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Smart cities are like the humans who live in them, behaving like complex creatures, constantly collecting and transporting information to make better sense of the world. In other words, they are alive.
And like all living things, smart cities possess DNA. In its conventional definition, DNA is biological, but in this context, the DNA of a smart city is entirely different. The engine that drives the ideal smart city lies in its’ usage of technology, designed to support and enhance the lives of the human beings living in them. Each city requires a unique arsenal of technological solutions, chosen to fulfil the specific needs of its citizens, economy and environment that contributes to the success of each smart city
While certain cities thrive on an abundance of Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices, intelligent kiosks and computers, others may prefer more minimalistic, hardware-lite designs. For devices to deliver life-improving benefits for their citizens, smart cities must have high-speed connectivity and IoT networks with sufficient coverage to penetrate all parts of the cities, including in-building areas. Also, successful smart cities usually have a platform and application layer that can conduct analytics to transform data into meaningful information, viewed in a command centre.
Similar to how human abilities can be enhanced through natural growth, self-actualisation or technological aids, smart cities have ways to boost their capabilities as well. Here are a few good places to start:
A hyper connected systems need to be in place for a smart city to meet efficiency, sustainability, productivity, and safety objectives. Reliable, high coverage, high speed and low latency connectivity networks form the foundation for almost all smart city systems and are things all smart cities need.
For example, a smart city should have a tech-based delivery infrastructure for public utilities such as water, electricity, waste, sanitation, sewerage and government services built on real-time connectivity. Connected technologies and IoT solutions that can constantly match the changing supply-demand gaps can rapidly improve living standards when integrated with existing infrastructure.
Local councils need to identify and prioritise the fundamental locations, facilities and infrastructure where they would deploy the millions of sensors and IoT devices and solutions in phases towards developing and building an action focused infrastructure framework masterplan or blueprint that would yield meaningful life impacting living and social environment to the towns and cities.
As digital and physical infrastructures increasingly converge, integrate, and interoperate, smart cities must embed the proper cybersecurity and privacy measures in each stage of development. Local councils must also sync cybersecurity strategies across smart city networks and design appropriate security and governance structures to protect their citizens.
The thousands of smart devices are double-edged swords. While they collect and feed helpful information into smart applications, they open up vulnerabilities in the more extensive IoT network. Physical tampering with smart devices can lead to backdoors and malicious implants that can potentially give unauthorised access to black-hat hackers and cyber terrorists.
In short, smart cities that thrive on the abundance of data collected by the network of sensors need to be mindful of data security. While it helps authorities monitor the health of its city, the possibility of a data breach needs mitigation to avoid crippling of city operations. Therefore, robust security policies and management is needed to ensure that governance over sensitive and personal data is practised and automatically managed across the digital, smart services and IoT solutions and systems deployed.
Even though data can be tough to handle, smart cities are valuable reservoirs of data. Effective data sharing and access to this data can unleash new opportunities to innovate and generate social and economic benefits. This practice is estimated to create the above benefits worth between 0.1% to 4.0% of GDP.
All data from devices, people, systems, and the environment go through a transformation process involving data management, integration, machine learning, and advanced analytics to become information that addresses real-time incidents and assists city planning.
One key area that benefits data analytics is the smart government component. For example, conventional government censuses are expensive to implement and often collect inaccurate data, leading to the low effectiveness of newly designed policies and initiatives. With accurate and reliable data, governments can better understand the problems, and improve policy-making abilities by solving the root causes.
Other areas of benefit include financial health, improved outcomes, operational efficiency, public engagement, crisis management and others.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is the piece of the puzzle that puts the word ‘smart’ into smart cities. By combining modern machine-learning, natural language processing (NLP), and computer vision with huge data lakes, AI is primed to drive efficiency and solve most problems local councils face.
As AI systems are fed with tons of data, the technology can identify areas of improvement and recommend an effective solution. For instance, AI-intelligent surveillance systems can provide continuous protection for citizens and effective system operations of the cities. This system uses facial and object recognition, behavioural and movement analysis algorithms and objective-detection programs to analyse live video feeds and identify potential risks or threats.
Therefore, gaining extra insights into niche aspects of a city by using AI is the natural step in the evolution of modern-day smart cities.
In Malaysia, many States have already started implementing smart city projects with the federal guidelines of Malaysia Smart City Framework, MSCF. These plans mainly revolve around transportation and cashless payments – two crucial focus in society.
Moving forward, smart city planners must adopt a systems approach, meaning that authorities need to compartmentalise the goals of adopting a smart city.
At TM One we applaud the commitments and efforts of various local smart city initiatives and we understands the enormous tasks and planning required. Our talents, partners and solutions are ready to help local governments turn their blueprints into citizen-focused action plans that will move the needle in terms of turning Malaysia into a digital-first, smart-city nation.
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Five years ago, the conversation surrounding smart cities was in its infancy, with most topics revolving around demystifying the technology behind them. Today, cities around the world have moved past demystification and are taking great strides in implementation. Globally, there are several shining examples we can turn to for inspiration;
While we are witnessing the transformation of several cities worldwide, what are the required factors that make a city ‘smart’?
Developing a smart city is not a task that can be sustained with an ad-hoc approach. Instead, a holistic vision is required to steer decision-making and guide action plans toward implementing realistic solutions that deliver tangible results that can enhance the lifestyles and living quality of all citizens within the city.
The Malaysia Smart City Framework (MSCF) has offered several initiatives such as MyDigital, GTMP and JENDELA as official ‘textbook approaches’ or suggested priorities. Local councils or Pihak Berkuasa Tempatan (PBTs) can refer to these initiatives in developing the smart city vision that best fits their cities.
Behind the development of a successful smart city, lies an excellent core vision that is developed based on the citizens’ real-life experiences. The application of technology is moot if it does not bring tangible benefit to its end users.
The common occurrence of pilot projects being abandoned, with selected technologies being seriously under-utilised, is a result of decision-making without a clear understanding of the real-life pain points experienced by the end-user, the citizens themselves. For a smart city to truly elevate our lifestyles and quality of living, the solutions we choose must be people-centric and based on actual needs.
Critically, PBTs will require sufficient funding to set the ‘smart city’ ball rolling smoothly. However, based on a survey conducted during the previous TM One City Leap Summit 2020, only 2.6% of PBTs surveyed indicated that they have sufficient funds, while 42% of them responded that they required funding assistance.
While procuring sufficient funds may be an issue, we can look to Indonesia to overcome the same challenge. Under West Java’s Digital Villages Theme, the West Java Provincial Government started their digital transformation of rural fisheries by installing basic smart auto-feeders in 4289 ponds across West Java. Instead of immediately using high-end tech solutions, the deployment of basic technology allowed the fishermen to empower their own productivity, resulting in a 30 to 100% increase in earnings and effectively generating their own initial capital for more cutting-edge solutions. On top of that, there was the added benefit of increasing digital literacy among the fishermen to be more receptive to newer technological solutions.
With a vision outlined and action plans identified against the available funding, the next key factor in creating a successful smart city lies in the capabilities of the project management office to turn the vision into reality. Key traits of a great project management office are:
It takes more than a day and more than just a single person to build a smart city. In fact, stakeholder management is critical in garnering support and alignment toward the outlined vision of smart city development. Effective stakeholder management requires a deep understanding of all parties who will benefit from implementing smart cities. These benefits include more efficient public services for citizens, data-driven disaster mitigation strategies for local governments, and more diverse revenue streams for investors.
Communication and outreach are vital in building the required understanding among stakeholders. Examples of campaigns designed to encourage stakeholder involvement include PLANMalaysia’s Libat Urus Pemegang Taruh involving government agencies, stakeholders and research teams for cities such as Ipoh, Johor Bahru and the Federal Territories.
Learning from our Indonesian neighbours again, the West Java Provincial Government has taken on a ‘Pentahelix Collaboration’ model, with initiatives geared towards encouraging collaboration and participation from authoritative bodies, media bodies, businesses, academics and local communities.
Good governance is the final thread capable of tying all of the above factors together. Implementing strong top-down leadership and transparent policies can crystallise each PBTs smart city vision. Good governance can also help develop sustainable funding schemes according to each PBTs needs while delivering the talent required to project management offices. It will also support communications campaigns to encourage the stakeholder buy-in needed for successful execution.
After several years of conversation, the time is ripe for Malaysia to transform its cities. The rakyat already stands to gain much more from a smart city transformation. With the effects of climate change already rearing its ugly head at our mobility, agricultural production and air quality, Malaysia is ready to accept solutions that promise to solve day-to-day difficulties. However, the advancement of smart city technologies stands to take us even further beyond problem-fixing – smart city technology now can elevate Malaysia towards a cleaner, safer, more sustainable, higher-quality way of living.
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