Continental to Upskill Malaysian Workforce for Industrie 4.0 with Siemens

Continental Malaysia announces to jointly launch a new training facility with Siemens Malaysia, the Control & Drives Training Centre in the Continental manufacturing facility based in Petaling Jaya. Piloted by Continental Malaysia and supported by Siemens, the two companies’ aim to further develop Malaysia’s human capital and boost Malaysia’s adoption of digitalization and Industrie 4.0 technologies, especially in the manufacturing and tyre industries.

Claimed to be first of its kind training facility launched by Continental Malaysia – the facility is sought to provide local trainees and its employees the necessary knowledge required to operate state of the art industry automation and drive solutions needed for advanced digitalized manufacturing.

Trainees will be instructed in applications such as next-level automation, predictive maintenance and remote monitoring, digitalization. Possessing capabilities in these areas will help manufacturers improve their product quality, productivity, flexibility, efficiency, throughput time and time-to-market.

At the training centre, employees will learn to use the latest manufacturing solutions, provided by Siemens Process Industries and Drives division. Examples of the solutions they will be exposed to include the likes of Siemens Industrial PC Management and SIMATIC S7, which enables individuals to configure and program automated tasks within their manufacturing facilities.

Leveraging these technologies, Continental Malaysia will be able to exert higher levels of control over the quality and consistency of products manufactured; ensuring customers get top notch quality products.

“Through this close collaboration between Siemens and Continental Malaysia, the centre is expected to plug a critical capability gap in the local Malaysian market. During our conversations with customers in Malaysia, we find that while they are keen to digitalize their factories to remain competitive, many feel that they lack the skills and expertise to implement new Industrie 4.0 technologies required to augment manufacturing,” said Adam Yee, Senior Vice President and Head of the Digital Factory and Process Industries and Drives Division, Siemens Malaysia.

“Through this significant investment, we aim to have always sufficient qualified operators to support our manufacturing processes. These are getting more and more digitalized. We regard it as our task to provide a proper training facility and hope to inspire other manufacturers in Malaysia to also actively invest in their staff as Malaysia embraces digitalization and Industrie 4.0,” said Gerhard Janotta, Plant Manager, Continental Tyre PJ Malaysia.

“As a world leader in automation and Industrie 4.0, Siemens is able to assist customers such as Continental Malaysia with state-of-the-art training and facilities to enable their transformation into a digital manufacturer. We are able to draw on our proven global expertise and strong portfolio in electrification, automation and digitalization, and I am confident that through this collaboration we will be able to make a significant contribution to Malaysia’s readiness for Industrie 4.0,” said Prakash Chandran, President & CEO, Siemens Malaysia. “This collaboration is one of our many initiatives to support the government’s aim to create a highly-skilled Malaysian workforce by 2020. Our Siemens Mechatronics Systems Certification Program (SMSCP) and Siemens Industry Training (SITRAIN) program are other examples.”

Continental Malaysia expects the first batch of trainees to be fully trained by end-2017. The centre is intended to serve as a training facility for operators of other selected companies.