KUALA LUMPUR (Oct 5): Hard drive disk manufacturer Western Digital Corp’s factory in Batu Kawan Industrial Park, Penang has been recognised as the latest entrant to the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Global Lighthouse Network.

The Global Lighthouse Network is a community of world-leading companies that have succeeded in the adaptation of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) technologies at scale.

Of the 90 total sites within the Lighthouse Network, Western Digital is the first company to receive this distinction in Malaysia.

In a joint virtual press conference held by Western Digital and the Malaysian Investment Development Authority (MIDA), MIDA chief executive officer Arham Abdul Rahman said Western Digital Batu Kawan’s achievement has responded to the government’s persistent calls for industry leaders to champion the transformation and adoption of 4IR.

“MIDA is further encouraged that this pioneer project in Malaysia will be an exceptional example to the rest of the industries operating in Malaysia to cultivate new thinking of 4IR technologies, address sustainability and workforce productivity growth in facing today’s intense global competition,” he added.        

Arham said the Lighthouse initiative is an avenue for Malaysia to strengthen its position as a hub for research and development, high technology universities and global services.

“Western Digital Batu Kawan’s success will charter new investment interests among many companies to strengthen growth and productivity, which in turn, will perhaps encourage the development of Malaysia’s own technologies, products, methodology and services,” he added. 

Western Digital Batu Kawan senior vice president of global flash back-end operations KL Bock said he hopes that their achievement would encourage other industry leaders to continue investing in 4IR technologies and liberating their respective industry key enablers to transform the landscape in Malaysia.

“We look forward to working with MIDA hand-in-hand to further strengthen and develop the growth in 4IR adoption to achieve optimal productivity in our manufacturing sector,” he added.

Meanwhile, Western Digital Batu Kawan vice president of global flash back-end operations Vishy Ramaswamy said the induction into the Lighthouse Network further bolsters its commitment to leveraging additional technology to push further.

“As we continue to grow, we are looking for ways to engage this technology so we can leapfrog different product generations with a higher level of capability and high level of productivity improvements as it comes along,” he added.

Moving forward, Vishy said Western Digital Batu Kawan’s journey is not over, as it has a long way to go in terms of taking 4IR to the level where it can jump into the fifth industrial revolution (5IR).

Bock added that as Western Digital Batu Kawan was implementing 4IR technology and continues to do so, it is already thinking about its transition into 5IR.

“We are already embarking and making inroads towards our lights out manufacturing, but eventually in lights out manufacturing, the factory of the future will be a humanoid-kind of manufacturing environment, where the robots we already have at the moment will collaborate with human intelligence that we design and build into the robot,” he said.

“So we are going to start on that journey, and we will share more when we have more concrete details to share,” Vishy said.