An Interview with Mr. Tiong Khe Hock, the Managing Director of Omron Electronics Sdn. Bhd

MR. TIONG KHE HOCK PROFILE

Tiong Khe Hock is the Managing Director of OMRON Electronics Sdn Bhd. He holds a bachelor degree in engineering and has over 35 years of experience in the field of instrumentation, control and industrial automation. He has led the company for almost 20 years and has built a team of competent sales and application engineers capable of offering automation solutions to meet the diverse needs of its clients. He is also the President of Malaysia Automation Technology Association (MATA), a leading association focusing on industrial automation in Malaysia.

OMRON ELECTRONICS SDN. BHD BACKGROUND

"To improve life and contribute to a better society"

Omron Industrial Automation has been present in Malaysia for more than 30 years. Omron Electronics Sdn Bhd offers sales and distribution of industrial automation components together with engineering services. Omron aim to assist our end customers to reduce cost and to achieve higher quality and productivity.

Training Services

OMRON provides training services for those using industrial automation equipment for the first time as well as for

those learning the advanced functionality of an upgraded system. OMRON training provides the critical link needed to transfer what is learned in the classroom directly to the job site. OMRON certificate will be given upon

course completion. In addition, all training courses are recognized by Human Resources Development Fund (HRDF).

Technical Services

OMRON offers a rapid response after sales service for product repairs and returns to support maintenance programs and minimize downtime should problems occur on site. A fully equipped technical service center enables OMRON to provide quick maintenance to defect products and also providing technical support to end customer.

The General Manager of OMRON Electronics Sdn. Bhd., Mr. KS Lee was explaining the function of Mobile Manipulator Robot during SEMICON 2019

Network Distribution

OMRON has a well structured distribution network of offices located at strategic locations to serve large installed base of customers from all over Malaysia. Customers can get OMRON products at their convenience in terms of availability and service. OMRON Distribution Network is divided into regional network namely: Northern Region, Central & East Coast Region, Southern Region and Malaysia. There are 2 tiers of distribution channel that is, OMRON authorized distributors and OMRON authorized dealers working closely to meet the customer’s needs.

Engineering & Solutions

OMRON Electronics engineering and solution team provides project management and other application consulting services. OMRON has a competent engineering and solution team that caters for these core engineering services:

Industry involved:

• Process Industry

• Building and Infrastructure Industry

• Waste Water and Sewerage Treatment Industry

• Automotive Industry and more

OMRON and Society

OMRON Corporation was founded on 10 May, and every year OMRON worldwide devotes their anniversary to perform charitable activities and celebrate the spirit of community and volunteerism. This is known as OMRON Day. OMRON Electronics Sdn Bhd hasbeen playing their part in carrying out charitable activities not only in the form of monetary contribution to the needy but also all-out visiting orphanages, old folks homes, refurbishing charity homes and collecting clothing and books for aid organization.

Addressing environmental issues has been the key management objective of OMRON. OMRON creates eco-friendly products that contribute to global warming prevention, reduced resource consumption, and reduced pollution.

1. OMRON offers sales and distribution of industrial automation components with engineering services. On what

basis does OMRON differ from other companies that also provide the same components and services?

OMRON differs from other competitors in our approach in solving our customers’ problems. We can offer various solutions using our widest range of products consisting of input, logic, output, robotics and safety (ILOR+S) components bundle with engineering services, all from a single company.

2. One of the key management objectives of OMRON is to create eco-friendly products that contribute to global warming prevention, reduced resource consumption, and pollution. With the climate change issue that is on the rise right now, could you explain more on this?

As stated in the OMRON Principles, our mission is to improve lives and contribute to a better society. Sustainability is one of the important aspects of how we manage our business. OMRON manufactures high quality products and ensure that all our products are eco-friendly and made from non-hazardous materials. In response to climate change and globalwarming, OMRON made a pledge to achieve zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

At OMRON, 90% of our greenhouse gas emissions are from our electricity usage. We focused our efforts to reduce

the impact to the environment by increasing the usage of renewable energy in our business activities. At the same

time, OMRON is also in the business of providing energy management solutions to our customers. We contribute to energy usage efficiency with our solutions that centred around energy storage control technologies and visualization of energy usage.

3. OMRON offers a lot of solutions such as OMRON Enterprise Manager, SYSMAC Traceability Solution, and AnyFeeder Solution. What is OMRON’s best solutions so far?

The vision of OMRON’s Industrial Automation Business is to bring innovation to manufacturing by automation, to enrich lives of people all over the world. Our best solutions centered around the concept of Innovative-Automation by leveraging on OMRON core technologies in sensing and control + think. This concept consists of

1. integrated automation through evolution of control by achieving ultra-high-speed and ultrahigh-precision machine control with our widest range of control devices in the industry;

2. intelligent automation through incorporation of AI and IoT in all manufacturing control devices, driving machines themselves to learn and evolve;

3. interactive automation to achieve a new level of harmonization between humans and machines where machinesmove autonomously and work together with humans.

4. Recently, OMRON globally launches LD-250 Mobile Robot to move payloads up to 250kg that is the strongest and newest addition to the company’s LD series of mobile robots. How does this product increase the speed of innovation in depth?

OMRON is the original pioneer of industrial mobile robots with the largest install base in the world. The LD250 is based on the same tested and proven technology used in the industry leading LD90, with a higher payload capacity and tougher body. The LD250 will allows us to go into applications that previously we were not able to serve such as warehouse automation that need higher payloads. With LD250, our customers can take full advantage of our autonomousmobile robots (AMRs) that can navigate autonomously and avoid obstacles safely without physical guides. These capabilities are not available in conventional automated guided vehicles (AGVs).

5. Besides the distribution of industrial automation components with engineering services, OMRON also carries out charitable activities such as visiting orphanages, old folks homes, refurbishing charity homes and collecting clothing and books for an aid organization. Mind to share more on this?

Since 1991, OMRON has been practicing Founder’s Day activities globally on May 10 every year. During this period, OMRON offices globally will carry out all forms of meaningful and charitable activities to help the local community. In 2008, OMRON launched Worldwide “Eco- Volun” Campaign, a five-month program of environment and volunteer work by OMRON Group employees around the world in conjunction with OMRON’s 75th anniversary.

Points were awarded to employees for environment friendly and volunteer activities e.g. recycling, carpooling, volunteering in charitable homes etc on a weekly basis. Based on the points collected from employees globally, OMRON made sizable donation to charitable organizations accordingly. This is a very meaningful and memorable event to many OMRON employees worldwide.

6. What is OMRON’s approach to the small factories?

As the industrial automation components are not considered affordable to them. OMRON has been championing lowcost automation which is most ideal for smaller factories. We provide many basic automation components like Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) and sensors that are very economical. They can start by using OMRON’s micro PLC and sensors to do data collection and simple logic control. With data monitoring, they can then investigate ways to improve their machine efficiency and productivity. If they employ a lot of manual labour to do repetitive works, they can then consider using robots to reduce the manual work gradually.

7. Based on the notion that robots will take over human power as IR 4.0 is proliferating, what is your point of view

regarding it?

Industrial robot has been around for a long time. When robot was first introduced, people were fearful that robots are going to take over human jobs. Over the years, we have seen that robots mostly took over humans’ mundane and repetitive jobs but let humans focus on more meaningful and higher value jobs. With the arrival of Artificial Intelligence (AI), we expect robots to become smarter thus I supposed some jobs will be replaced. At the same time, this is expected to create more higher value jobs in the areas of data analytics, AI, robotic programming and technical support services.

8.What does OMRON plan and strategy to contribute to the IR 4.0 in Southeast Asia for the next 5 years?

Our approach toward IR4.0 will focus on three main pillars namely AI, Internet of Things (IoT), and Robotics. This is fully in line with our concept of Innovative- Automation in manufacturing that consists of

1. integrated automation

2. intelligent automation and

3. interactive automation

that has been explained earlier. OMRON has many practical experiences in implementing this Innovative-Automation concept to many customers in Japan. The Aisin AW Okazaki factory, a world’s leading automotive parts manufacturer located in Japan is a good example of how they could become an Innovative-Automation Smart factory in cooperation with OMRON. We will share our knowledge and experiences in innovative-automation with our customers in this region.