AKAR INDAH ENGINEERING PLANS TO OPEN OFFICES IN CENTRAL ASIA, EUROPE WITHIN 5 YEARS

By Rosemarie Khoo Mohd Sani

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 20 (Bernama) -- Local engineering and automation company Akar Indah Engineering Sdn Bhd planned to expand its offices abroad, particularly in Central Asia and Europe, in the next five years.

Chief executive officer Rohana Rahmat said the company is currently planning to establish a joint venture company with its business partner in Japan with assistance and advisory services from the Malaysian Technology Development Corporation (MTDC)

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“We hope to continue training more local talents in the field of technology while highlighting their abilities not only in Malaysia but also on the international stage,” she told Bernama in an interview.

She said the company has successfully expanded its services at the ministry level, government agencies up to the state government level, in addition to being a vendor to automotive companies such as Proton, Daihatsu and Perodua for the development of automated guided vehicles (AGVs), among others, through MTDC network.

  Meanwhile, among the company’s successes abroad is the construction of a smart factory in Sudan, developing a radio frequency identification (RFID) system for an automotive company with one of its business partners as well as supplying several technology solutions to a company in Singapore.

Besides that, she said Akar Indah Engineering is one of the companies in the Center of 9 Pillars (Co9P) community and acted as one of the core companies in helping MTDC to be involved in the development of Co9P.

Co9P, which was introduced by MTDC in 2018, is a community hub that developed Industry 4.0 (I4.0) to enhance the technological growth of small and medium-sized organisations.

The nine pillars of I4.0 in Co9P consisted of autonomous robots, simulation, system integration internet of things (IoT), cyber security, cloud computing, additive manufacturing, big data and augmented reality.

“Through MTDC and Co9P, we have been able to deal with more than 200 small and medium enterprises (SMEs), helping them to adapt technology in their business affairs.

“We have also established a Retrofit Centre, where we train local talents to make retrofit or improvements and modifications from manual or conventional machines to machines that use controllers so that the machines can run automatically,” he said.

He said the usage of machines, which have been widely used in various industries for the past 30-40 years and still usable, can be upgraded to further facilitate automation works according to the latest needs and technology.

Based on the company’s research, she said the size of the local retrofit market is equal to the automotive market in this country, which is equivalent to RM40 billion.

Therefore, Rohana said she hoped that the retrofit segment could open up more job opportunities for graduates or establish more companies similar to Akar Indah Engineering.

Established in 2014, Akar Indah Engineering became active after it participated in a programme with the Bumiputera Agenda Steering Unit (TERAJU) and became one of the winners of SUPERB Series 2/2014 in Melaka.

Besides developing solutions or retrofit machine solutions, the company also develops various other solutions including machine customisation, software development and system integration.

-- BERNAMA