Image credit: Telekom Asia
More than 150 chief executives from 25 different industries had attended CelcomDigi’s MY5G CEO series since it began to exchange ideas and discuss new opportunities made available by 5G and artificial intelligence (AI). They hailed from industries such as automotive, banking, education, healthcare, logistics, manufacturing, retail, oil and gas, ports, plantation, properties and utilities.
The session on Sept 10, the third roundtable of a three-part series, featured CelcomDigi’s global strategic partners like Vale, McKinsey & Co and CTO group of ZTE Corporation, which shared their learnings and case studies from all over the world, highlighting best business practices.
With the advent of 5G and AI, CelcomDigi chief enterprise business officer Afizulazha Abdullah urged Malaysian businesses to embark on their digitalisation journey.
“The question we want the audience and the general readers to ask is this: What is the one thing that you currently do that can be improved by using 5G?
“We want to trigger that conversation because we believe triggering that will lead to the next question: How do you do it? And if you want to know how to do it, we have all the partners here who are ready to help you with it,” he said.
Some of the use cases for 5G and AI adoption that CelcomDigi highlighted included private 5G networks for offshore oil and gas platforms, using AI to power port management and enable autonomous warehouses, and how a 5G network can be used to coordinate cross-functional AI bots.
Be open to possibilities
Hans Neff, senior director of the CTO group of ZTE Corporation, said there are always ways to improve business processes by elevating safety, security, efficiency and productivity.
“Every enterprise knows their business. [A steelmaker] knows how to make steel. [A solar panel manufacturer] knows how to produce solar panels. The miners know how to manage mines. They all know their processes.
“For the next improvement, they should find a team of people who have the technological know-how, the operator know-how, the enterprise know-how, and who can find the most optimal solution for the cases to benefit them. The thing is, think about such a process as a consultancy — be open to see what is possible and find your way with your partners,” he said.
Building solutions together
Based on about 150,000 use cases and Malaysia’s industrial structure, global consulting firm McKinsey & Co estimates that 5G and AI adoption could unlock about RM7 billion worth of economic value, with oil and gas extraction and manufacturing being the highest on the potential list of beneficiaries.
In terms of the fastest reach sectors for 5G and AI adoption in Malaysia, Gustav Grundin, partner of McKinsey & Co Japan, has identified the manufacturing sector as the ripest area for implementation.
“First of all, many plants operate in similar ways across the world. You have a large manufacturing sector in Malaysia. Secondly, the use cases have very good pay-offs. Take the car industry as an example. If you call an inspection on cars — say you painted it and you wanted to check that there are no cracks — machines can do that better than humans. A high resolution 8K camera that sweeps across with good AI will find cracks that humans cannot see with the naked eye. You catch the problem at the factory, as opposed to when a customer discovers it later and sends the car back, which will then involve a lot more money,” he explained.
Citing another example of economic efficiency, Grundin cited the adoption of autonomous guided vehicles (AGV) and how they can easily trim labour costs by about 30%.
“Machines used to run on largely proprietary systems that you could only get by certain makers, and they are now shifting to a more open cloud-based standard. So, if you’re doing major upgrades to your factory, it’s a good moment to do it on 5G and AI, because while there are extra costs of adding the 5G network, [after] weighing all the benefits that AI brings with it, [the extra costs] are considered low,” he added.
“And if you go into a factory and optimise a factory, it’s not only about building a telecommunications network — it’s about putting multiple parts to work together.”
Grundin also noted that for most 5G use cases today, having a robust ecosystem would involve several partners coming together to build a solution together.
Discovering great partners
Meanwhile, Afzal Mohsin, chief administrative and sustainability officer of mining company Vale Malaysia, talked about the real business use cases of 5G and AI adoption in its operations in Malaysia, through the successful implementation of a fully autonomous ship unloader in 2022.
“Vale Malaysia, which contributes about 60% to 70% of Vale Group’s total sales to the Asia-Pacific region, is the first fully automated port in Asia-Pacific and the third in the world, after Hamburg and Rotterdam,” said Afzal.
“The size and scale of our business is such that we need predictability, and 5G and AI technology have allowed us to do that.
“What this (fully autonomous ship unloader) essentially does is ensure that there is consistency in the unloading process, reduce wear and tear, reduce the risk of human error, and provide us that long-term sort of consistency across the board in terms of our production and efficiency,” Afzal said.
“In addition, we transport a lot of our employees on a regular basis. And of course, working with CelcomDigi has been really pivotal because [they enabled us to] look at the smart fleet system, which allowed us to monitor driver behaviour, use AI to be able to predict behaviours and to correct them where necessary, and to ensure that we’re transporting our employees and our business partners in the safest possible manner.
“So the tie-up with CelcomDigi was really, really key for us. I mean, they were great partners in facilitating this particular process and ensuring that we had a product that was fit for purpose.”
Supporting your transformation
In his closing remarks, Afizulazha stressed that Malaysian enterprises have to accelerate their digitalisation.
“5G-AI is today, not tomorrow. It is not a solo game. You need a thriving ecosystem and partners with diverse expertise coming together to build what’s right and what’s effective for your organisation.
“We’re ready and well placed to support you in your transformation, leveraging the strength of the multitude of global and local tech experts through our ecosystem of partners. We’re really excited to forge ahead and boost your organisation’s growth and efficiencies — and we must start now,” Afizulazha added.
Source: https://theedgemalaysia.com/content/advertise/celcomdigi-actively-driving-adoption-and-real-implementation-of-5g-ai-for-businesses