EG Industries further extending northern presence with smart warehouses, international procurement centre
17 Mar 2023
EG Industries Bhd (EIB) is extending its presence further to build smart warehouses and an international procurement centre (IPC) featuring Kedah’s first vendor management inventory (VMI) system.
The IPC aims to serve the company’s increasing requirements and the surrounding industrial cluster in Sg Petani, Kedah and Batu Kawan, Penang.
Group chief executive officer and executive director Datuk Alex Kang said the RM40 million facilities, slated for completion in 2024, come at a good time, in line with its expansion journey.
“Even before Covid, EIB had put strategies in place to improve our standing by building our team’s mindset to emphasise excellence, safety and innovation, serving more international customers to become their electronic management services (EMS) partners, and improving the efficiency of resource planning and sourcing, especially from local vendors.
“While we are proud of our track record, we believe in enabling our fellow industries in Sg Petani to move forward as a collective unit.
“This is why we chose to build the smart warehouses and international procurement centre (IPC) so that every industry player can utilise system-based technologies and have the opportunity to scale up their operations,” he said in a virtual briefing today.
EIB’s services range from providing printed circuit board assembly (PCBA) and full-product box-build assembly to producing upstream 5G routers and soon 5G optical modules.
Kang also said the company would like to cooperate more closely with government authorities and agencies like the Malaysian Investment Development Authority (MIDA) to bring up the economic value of the state.
“Our current plant in Sg. Petani has benefitted from grants to encourage exports and innovation, and we are hopeful for continued support for future expansion plans.
“Apart from grants, we always appreciate open sessions for dialogue and feedback on current policies so that government agencies are kept abreast of the latest developments and challenges of industry players and formulate a mutually-beneficial solution,” he added.
Having achieved more than RM1 billion in annual revenue in the financial year ended June 30, 2022 (FY22), the EMS player currently contributes approximately two per cent of Kedah’s gross domestic product (GDP).
Kang spoke at the announcement of EIB’s expansion plan, which includes its Smart ‘Lights-Out’ Factory 4.0 in Batu Kawan, a game-changer for the northern Peninsular, worth RM180 million.
The factory will produce a new 5G advanced high-speed optical signal transmitter and receiver for a 5G wireless network. In addition, it will use photonics and semiconductor technologies through technology transfer from its US-based customer Cambridge Industries Group (CIG).
The Batu Kawan plant commenced construction in January 2023 and will initiate the first pioneer technology transfer in South East Asia.
This is expected to raise the skillset and competitiveness of the local workforce, and is set to hire approximately 1,000 high-skilled talents upon completion in the first half of 2024.
EIB currently employs 3,000 staff representing about 1 per cent of the Sg. Petani population intends to actively collaborate with local universities and colleges to train fresh graduates to become industry-savvy.
With its ‘hire local first’ policy, EIB prioritises employing Malaysians from the surrounding vicinity, enabling it to reduce dependency on foreign labour.
The new plant will deploy the Lights-Out methodology, creating a fully networked environment that digitises material flow for autonomous manufacturing.
This will be managed by a remote team of highly-specialised experts responsible for data management, production planning and quality control.
Source: NST
