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THE VOL.68
OCTOBER-DECEMBER 2016
INGENIEUR
M A G A Z I N E O F T H E B O A R D O F E N G I N E E R S M A L A Y S I A

Innovation For Growth

 LEMBAGA JURUTERA MALAYSIA
BOARD OF ENGINEERS MALAYSIA

EDITORIAL BOARD
2016-2017

PRESIDENT EDITORIAL BOARD

YBhg. Datuk Ir. Adanan bin Mohamed Hussain
ADVISOR
BOARD MEMBERS YBhg. Datuk Ir. Adanan bin Mohamed Hussain
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The Ingenieur is published quarterly by the Board of Engineers Malaysia (Lembaga Jurutera Malaysia) and is
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1
 INGENIEUR

55

CONTENTS

4 Presidents Message Do You Know?

Announcement
6 Publication Calendar
Cover Feature
8 Strategic Engineering
Innovations for a Better
Tomorrow
16 Technology Watch
20 Innovation in Healthcare:
OsteoKnee
26 Cross Axis Wind Turbine:
Crossing into the Future
14 Innovation for Growth
Feature
34 Paths to
Commercialisation:
From Idea to Market
44 Malaysian Innovation and
the Global Innovation
Index 2016
48 Developing Malaysias
ICT Talent
The Global Innovation Index 2016
Winning with Global Innovation

16 44

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 BEM Update 62
50 Engineering Professionals in Malaysia
55 Memorandum of Understanding
Between BEM and UniKL for
Registration of Engineering
Technologists
57 Ucapan Presiden, Lembaga Jurutera
Malaysia

Special Report
59 Boosting the Innovation Eco-System
62 Learning to Innovate Via Design
Thinking
65 The Graphene Race

Safety & Health

70 Process Safety Concept and 70
Importance

In Brief
76 What Others Say about Innovation

Engineering Nostalgia
80 The Old Waterworks of Malacca

65
80

3
 INGENIEUR
PRESIDENTS MESSAGE
Innovation for
Growth
A
s more emerging economies gear to stay
ahead of the economic curve, innovation
holds the key to thrive in the competitive
environment. Malaysia is ranked 35th among 64
countries under the Global Innovation Index 2016
rankings. However, another indicator MVA, the
Manufacturing Value Added per capita showed a
much lower value compared with South Korea,
China and Singapore. Taking cognizance of its
impact on economic growth, the Malaysian
Government introduced a National Corporate
Innovation Index to help stimulate and propel
innovation among large Malaysian companies.
With the onslaught of the fourth Industrial
Revolution or 4IR, the global economic landscape
has advanced from mere Internet usage to a
cyber physical system or what is called a Digital
Economy. More corporate giants are embracing the
digital economy, replacing the once big corporate
giants in the traditional business model of goods or
services. The Internet of Things, Cloud Storage, Big
Data Analytics, and Robotics, among others, are
essential parts of the new business model.
Malaysia is relatively strong in the digital
ecosystem in terms of facilities and talent. The
Networked Readiness Index (NRI) 2016 issued
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by World Economic Forum places Malaysia 31st
among 139 countries. One of the important
components is the availability of local talent
to support the digital economy. The article on
Developing Malaysias ICT Talent provides an
insight into the scale and quality of the Malaysian
Global Training Center.
Healthcare facilities and equipment are
another area that constantly being developed with
new technologies and sophistication utilizing micro
machines and sensors. The article on Innovation
in Healthcare is a good eye opener for the new
growth area in healthcare related to innovation
and new products.
Against all the articles on high-tech innovation,
the Engineering Nostalgia Section brings us back
to the pre-war era for a view of a simple water
wheel utilising a rivers current to lift water to
a paddy field. Readers are welcome to send old
photos of engineering in nature to reflect on old
practices; some of which can be ingenuous and
creative.
Datuk Ir. Adanan bin Mohamed Hussain
President BEM
 INGENIEUR
PUBLICATION CALENDAR
CALL FOR ARTICLES
L E M B AG A J U R U TE R A M A L AY S I A
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THE
INGENIEUR The Ingenieur is published quarterly by the Board
ANNOUNCEMENT

VOL.67
of Engineers Malaysia. The following are the
themes for the coming issues.
JULY-SEPTEMBER 2016

M A G A Z I N E O F T H E B O A R D O F E N G I N E E R S M A L A Y S I A

Vol. 69, Jan Mar 2017

Clean Energy Transforming the Construction Industry
Vol. 70, Apr June 2017
Road Safety
Vol. 71, July Sept. 2017
Facility Management
Vol. 72, Oct Dec 2017
Engineering Education

Articles and other contributions relevant to the

themes are welcomed, but the decision to publish
rests with the Editorial Board.
Advertising inquiries are also welcomed. Please
refer to the BEM advertisement in this issue for
the latest rate card and booking form.

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 INGENIEUR

STRATEGIC ENGINEERING
INNOVATIONS FOR A
COVER FEATURE

BETTER TOMORROW
By Dato Prof. Ir. Dr Eric Goh, Universiti Sains Malaysia
& Chen Nyet Lin, Saroma Engineering

Owing to globalisation and the present

economic challenges worldwide, the
engineering and research sectors need
to acquire state-of-the-art knowledge
of cost- effective technolog y to
confidently progress towards a better
tomorrow. The application of novel
initiatives for the implementation of
strategic engineering innovations
aims to maintain the healthy growth
momentum of a vibrant industrial sector
towards further economic progress
beneficial to Malaysia and the global
community worldwide. Engineers
are always globally acknowledged
as the catalysts in designing and
constructing building infrastructures
and amenities, and manufacturing
novel products. At the same time
responsibly maintaining high safety
and environmental standards aimed
towards further sustainability of society
worldwide. This article evaluates
the benefits of the various strategic
economic technological innovations
and work practices most effective
in propelling an already dynamic
engineering sector to another level of
world class industrial excellence.

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I
nnovations for any industrial sector and work
practices need to be effective, efficient and
practical in order to produce holistic outcomes
helpful towards cost savings in global industrial
operations. The aim of strategic engineering
innovations is to produce optimum benefits and
production outputs using existing budgets and, if
possible, without incurring any extra investments.
Cost-effective engineering innovations and work
practices should thus focus on the best, most
efficient, accurate and effective techniques to
eventually further increase overall profits and
enhancement of good governance practices for
the vibrant industrial sector towards sustainability Figure 1: Major concepts and benefits of the
and a better tomorrow for all. Blue Ocean Strategy

BLUE OCEAN STRATEGY COST-EFFECTIVE ENGINEERING

The Blue Ocean Strategy developed by eminent Definite outcomes of successful cost-effective
international experts Professor Chan Kim and engineering projects (Figure 2) are:
Professor Rene Mauborgne from the Institut - ability to produce good results without
Europen dAdministration des Affaires (INSEAD, costing a lot of money,
France) is useful as a catalyst for the industrial - focus on the best, most efficient, accurate
sector to progress in this globalised and and optimum schemes,
technology-savvy era. Some of the key principles - outcome helpful in cost saving initiatives
towards using this unique Blue Ocean Strategy for industrial operations,
to progress the industrial industry from good to - capacity to obtain the ultimate outcome in
great include (Figure 1) (Kim and Mauborgne, the increase of profits.
2005):
- ability to create uncontested new market
opportunities by reconstructing existing
market boundaries,
- focusing on the big picture,
- reaching beyond existing market demand,
and
- getting the strategic sequence right.
Blue Oceans manufactured goods can denote
all the industrial mineral value-added products not
yet in existence today, complemented by market Figure 2: Innovative strategies indicating more
demands that can be strategically created rather benefits for similar costs
than fought over. Thus, there is ample opportunity
for growth which can be both profitable and rapid. Some of the major cost-effective strategic
Blue Ocean is an analogy to describe the wider, engineering innovations and resourceful work
deeper economic potential of the market space for practices in the field of engineering aimed towards
new unique industrial mineral products that are further industrial and economic growth for the
not yet explored or tapped for usage for further global industrial sector are:
society enrichment.

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 INGENIEUR
1. Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) - Drone
Technology
Imagine an engineering innovation able to
successfully complete a two hectare aerial
geomatic land survey in six minutes with high
resolution data outputs or even producing an
accurate digital 3D model with 3 cm site accuracy.
This unique feat is made possible using Unmanned
Aerial Vehicle (UAV) technology or commonly
known as drones which are able to accomplish
these demanding tasks effectively (Figure 3). The
specifications of drone technology are improving
rapidly complemented by a reduction in pricing.
Geo-referenced aerial surveys can effectively
be used to increase any land or industrial site
survey, improve production or even shorten the
time for accurate environmental assessment from
the present period of project execution of weeks
to hours at industrial sites worldwide.
Figure 3: Drone technology and applications
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2. Augmented Reality (AR) Technology
Augmented reality is a live direct or indirect view
of a physical, real-world environment where
the elements are supplemented by computer-
generated sensory graphics, video, GPS-centred
data or sound inputs (Figure 4). Augmented reality
(AR) embeds virtual images onto real world contexts
with the help of advanced digital technology such
as computer vision and object recognition. The
information about the surrounding real world of
the user becomes interactive and thus can be
digitally controlled. Some of the benefits in the
application of augmented reality are:
- improved production efficiency,
- real-time site visualisation, and
- accuracy in progressive site development.
Figure 4: Applicability of Augmented Reality
3. High-Tech Geomatics / Laser Survey
The practical usage of laser scanners for
topographical profiling is useful for the rapid
visualisation of surveyed data. Multi-function
viewfinders and the quick tagging of images
recorded with co-ordinates and bearings are also
beneficial for volume analysis resulting in the
production of accurate 3D industrial displays for
progress of any engineering project site on a daily
or even weekly basis (Figure 5).


Figure 6: Drill hole inclination quality and

borehole accuracy technology
Figure 5: Applications of mobile digital laser
scanners for industrial site surveys

4. Borehole drill positioning quality

Accurate drill positioning, critical for the
construction, petroleum and mineral resource
industries; complemented by efficient drill
hole inclination quality management can offer
substantial savings to industrial site drilling costs.
From site studies carried out in the industry, it is
noted that a 3% increase in down-the-hole (DDH)
accuracy can achieve a 5% savings in overall
exploration drilling and rock fragmentation costs.
The latest innovation towards efficient attainment
of drill hole inclination quality is the electronic
laser multi-shot drill hole positioning technology
(Figure 6). This unique equipment measures the Figure 7: Setup of real time equipment
inclination, azimuth, dip angle, temperature and performance assessment
magnetic field factor as the drill hole progresses
to its designated depth. The other benefits of this
setup include its robustness, rapid data recording, This novel satellite linkup is most practical for
low power consumption and can safely operate up the continuous monitoring and recording of
to ground pressures of 30,000 kPa (4350 psi). work performance for the respective transport
equipment (Figure 7). Information collected during
5. Improved Real time Transport Equipment real time on equipment operations can immensely
Efficiency/ Intelligent GPS assist top management in their efficient decision
The benefit in the improvement of transport making process towards suitable equipment
equipment and operator efficiency can be realised selection, determination of the optimum bucket
using intelligent GPS link-up via rapid real-time size or drill bit specifications; or even identification
parallel communication to multiple site equipment. of the best performing operators for a designated

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 INGENIEUR
industrial task. The information can be collected
at the control stations, from a great distance, from
on-line interactive user-friendly operator interfaces
and sensors installed on the respective excavation
or transport equipment at any industrial site
worldwide. Another economic application of
intelligent satellite link-up technology is that of on-
line preventive maintenance (Figure 8).
to be done, combined with savings from less time
Figure 8: Satellite link-up for on-line equipment
maintenance service
The on-board tracking system installed within
all equipment at the industrial site is useful for
transmitting data on the cumulative hours of
machine usage complemented by the operating
conditions or even the operational health of the
vehicles. The creation of databases for carrying
out efficient maintenance service of all the site
equipment is useful in reducing equipment
downtime and the minimisation of repair
costs through optimum preventive servicing or
replacement of relevant equipment parts at
optimum time intervals. This technology, when
effectively implemented, can improve work
efficiency at an industrial site via increased
productivity, reduction in fleet idle time and the
rapid response to safety warnings.
6. Unique Articulated Truck Design
An articulated truck is a vehicle which has a
permanent or semi-permanent pivoting joint in
its design which allows the vehicle to turn more
sharply at any industrial site (Figure 9). The
advantages in the usage of articulated trucks are
unsurpassed manoeuvrability in adverse road
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conditions due to the incorporation of a high
rotating hitch, automatic traction control and hydro
mechanical self-adjusting steering in the vehicle
design (Caterpillar, 2015). Other benefits in the
utilisation of this novel truck design include simple
to use, automotive style comfort, complemented
by extended equipment service intervals thus
providing more time at the industrial work site to
focus on the time and effort required for the task
and money spent on equipment servicing. Some
of the new articulated truck engines in the market
using the Advanced Combustion Technology offer
the truck operators over 5% more power and up
to 20% more torque than older models (Volvo,
2015, Bennink, 2012). Outcomes of intense
research include the development of a novel
variable geometry turbocharger and high-pressure
fuel injection system that can deliver more fuel
efficiency. The turbocharger setup provides quick
engine response and high torque at low and high
engine speeds. The newly-developed Automatic
Traction Control (ATC) system in the industry,
provides a seamless transition thus helping to
reduce fuel consumption by up to 6%, extending
tyre life by 10%; and also protecting the driveline
system from unnecessary wear. An improvement
in the crankcase ventilation network setup in
the truck engine helps to improve work site air
quality by ensuring that no oil mist is present in
the exhaust gasses. Where practically applicable,
this cost-effective articulated truck technology
is able to offer benefits in fuel efficiency and low
maintenance costs; resulting in the benefit of
overall low ownership costs.
Figure 9: Unique articulated truck designs
7. Interactive Equipment Training Simulator

This innovative real-life training simulator concept
is most advantageous in imparting experience to
new equipment operators (Figure 10). Operators
undergoing this ingenious coaching programme,
experience real-life accurate simulations of actual
conditions at the work site. The simulations are
made possible via the installation of sensory
perception and motion feedback mechanisms
to reflect scenarios such as jobs carried out on


uneven terrains or even incorporating challenging
Figure 11: Smart Automatic Dust Suppression
work conditions (Volvo Construction Equipment,
2015). This unique in-house training programme
is dynamic and the task scenarios created are
based on the extensive actual work experience of 8. Smart Automatic Dust Suppression
very senior equipment operators. Benefits include Potential sources of industrial dust include
analysis of trainees performance in real time and material transport, crushing, grinding and tipping
savings from potential equipment damage. material. Respirable fine dust sizes less than 10

are of concern to the health of site personnel.
This practical smart automatic water spray system
setup (Figure 11) can optimise the water input
whilst also specially tailor the droplet size via the
spray nozzle outlet for any specific application. The
user-friendly computer software for optimum dust
control with water-saving features can effectively
treat an extensive industrial site using the fine
ultra-fine atomised mist setup which optimises the
usage of precious water and reduces the potential
formation of an occupational unsafe and muddy
work environment.


Figure 10: Real-life advanced equipment training
simulator systems

Source: Modified from techieapps.com
Virtual Reality industrial site design

Source: Modified from Kartal Pendik Master Plan
Parametricism urban development design

Interactive industrial Figure 12: Strategic

plant control setup Engineering Foresight
Source: Modified from vdz-
online.de
and plus.google.com

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 INGENIEUR
Engineering Innovation Foresight
- The Way Forward
Owing to the continuous national development
of various countries worldwide, as engineers we
are very confident that engineering innovations
and the global industrial sector will continue to
be vibrant into the next millennium and beyond.
Some of the ingenious engineering foresights
envisaged to progress the global community
towards a better tomorrow are (Figure 12):
- Virtual Reality industrial site design
- Interactive industrial plant control setup
- Parametricism urban development design
for ex-industrial sites.
REFERENCE
Bennink, C., 2012. The new ar ticulated
truck alternative. Equipment Today. www.
forconstructionpros.com/ article/ 10754047/ the-
new articulated-truck-alternative
Caterpillar, 2015. Articulated trucks. http://www.
cat.com/en_US/products/ new/equipment/
articulated-trucks.html
Kim, W.C. and R. Mauborgne, 2005, Blue Ocean
Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market
Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant.
Boston: Harvard Business School Press. 240 pp
Mullis, A, 2016. How does virtual reality work?.
http://www.androidauthority.com/virtual-reality-
work-702049/
Pro-Air Solutions, 2015. Dust control and dust
suppression. www.proairsolutions.com.au/ dust-
control-mining.php
Volvo, 2015. An articulated truck that performs.
www.volvoce.com/ construction equipment/
na/en-us/products/articulated-truck/ benefits/
Pages/productivity.aspx
Volvo C on s truc tion Equipment , 2015.
Training Simulators. www. volvoce. com/
constructionequipment/ na/ en-us/ training/
training_ simulators/ Pages/ Introduction.aspx

Innovation for growth

Do You By Tan Moi Kwan

Know? With the rapid pace of innovation viz. Fourth Industrial Revolution,
a study estimated that 47% of workers in United States and 35%
in UK face the risk of being replaced by technology over the next 20
years. The Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA) report
estimated that 40% of the Australian workforce face a high probability of being replaced by
computers over the next 10 to 15 years.
Most innovations and breakthroughs come from mistakes, serendipity, false starts, setbacks and
misapplications. Many innovations were unplanned and unexpected.
Under the Networked Readiness Index (NRI) 2016, the Malaysian Government is ranked worlds top
sixth most tech-savvy i.e. efficacy in promoting information and communication technologies and
providing online services to the population. For overall NRI, Malaysia ranked 31st .
The momentum for the world in digital technology is rapidly shifting eastwards; today, American giants
such as Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google may be undisputed leaders in bringing innovative
technology to market, however, the next generation of start-ups will look to the likes of Alibaba, Baidu,
Lenovo and Tencent for inspiration.
According to World Bank, every 10 additional mobile phones per 100 people in a typical developing
nation will result in a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth of approximately 0.8%.
ICTs contribution to the Malaysian economy increased to 17.8% in 2015. ICT industry employed 1.06
million persons and contributed 7.6% to total employment in Malaysia.

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 INGENIEUR

TECHNOLOGY WATCH
COVER FEATURE

DRIVERLESS CAR

There are several key players in the making of a driverless car. But
Teslas electric car with additional software, nicknamed Autopilot,
steals the show. The hardware is simple: a camera, bumper-mounted
radar, and 12 front-and-rear ultrasonic sensors. The genius is the
software which can be updated periodically.
The autonomous car gives drivers something similar to what
airline pilots employ in flight. It can manage its speed, steer within
and even change lanes and park itself. Some of these features, like
automatic parallel parking, were already on offer from other car
companies, but self-steering via a software, gives the giant leap
toward full autonomy.
According to Tesla, an updated software called Enhanced
Autopilot, expected in December 2016, will add new capabilities
such as match speed to traffic conditions, keep within a lane,
automatically change lanes without requiring driver input, transition
from one freeway to another, exit the freeway when destination is
near, self-park when near a parking spot and be summoned to and
from a garage.

BENDABLE BATTERY

A bendable lithium-ion battery that can flex and twist could power
future wearable devices, smart watches and flexible smartphones.
Although it's still in the early stages of development, the battery has
been tested to withstand twists, bends and other deformations while
maintaining its ability to hold a charge.
Panasonic has announced flexible lithium-ion batteries that
are just 0.55mm thick that can be used in card-type or wearable
devices. This battery can retain its charge and characteristics even
when flexed by an angle of 25 or twisted to a radius of 25mm.

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MIXED REALITY WITH HOLOLENS

What is real and virtual can be put together using Microsofts

HoloLens which overlays holograms and data onto existing
surroundings. The user sees the mixed reality via a headset.
Virtual objects appear in the real world in a hologram that offers
more depth than a screen or book. The user is not burdened by
wires or external hardware. Each headset is basically a stand-alone
mini computer running a full version of Windows Holographic and
functioning independently from other devices.
HoloLens opens new ways of creation, collaboration and
exploration as people work with holograms in relation to the real
world. For example, engineers can manipulate 3-D models and
surgeons can follow directions on the human body. Already
the HoloLens is being used by NASA to mimic Mars terrain in
laboratories and by medical students to dissect virtual bodies.

REUSABLE ROCKETS

At the end of 2015, SpaceX and

Blue Origin demonstrated the
ability to return rockets safely
to earth after use. This is big for
the future of space exploration,
opening up a New Space Age
fuelled by cheaper costs and
reusable rockets.

17
 INGENIEUR
Blue Origin hopes to propel
tourists in capsules on four-
minute space rides, while
SpaceX already launches
satellites and space station
supply missions. Both
companies need reusable
ro c ke t s to imp rove t he
economics of spaceflight. The
two companies bring their
rockets down on fold-out legs,
a technology that requires on-
board software to fire thrusters
and manipulate flaps that slow
or nudge the rockets at precise
moments.
EXOSKELETONS
E xo skeletons are p ower-
assist suits used for tasks
that require physical strength,
such as moving things and
making deliveries, public works,
construction, agriculture, and
forestry.
Japanese company
Panasonic announced that it
will start selling an exoskeleton
designed to help workers lift
and carry objects more easily
and with less risk of injury. It
weighs just over 13 pounds and
attaches to the back, thighs,
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and feet, enabling the wearer to
carry 33 pounds of extra load. .
Exoskeletons are also being
developed for rehabilitation and
as walking aids. A company
called ReWalk Robotics, based
in the US, has come out with a
version for people with spinal-
cord injuries. The device enables
people who normally require a
wheelchair to walk with the aid
of crutches.
BIOSTAMP
The BioStamp is a big step
forward in medical wearables. It
is an electronic device that sticks
to your skin for up to a week,
like a temporary tattoo. Thin
sensors and circuits embedded
in the adhesive-backed stamp
measure biometrics like body
temperature, movement,
muscle activation, heart rate,
and exposure to ultraviolet light.
The device then relays this data
to a wearers (or a doctors)
cellphone via Bluetooth.
The BioStamp weighs just
under 6g and uses a 3-axis
accelerometer and a gyroscope
to track movement, and comes
loaded with sensors to monitor
muscle performance and heart
activity. It also has a Bluetooth
radio and a tiny 15mAh battery
that keeps it running for up to 36
hours before needing a charge.
HUMANOID ROBOT
The University of Science and
Technology of China has unveiled
an interactive and extremely
human-looking robot named Jia
Jia. It took the research team
three years to develop a robot that
can move arms, make different
facial expressions, and even
respond to human conversation.
Humanoid robots or androids
will be increasingly used as
workers. In Japan, Toshiba
created a realistic looking android
named Junko Chihira which
works in a tourist information
centre in Japan. The robot can
speak Japanese, Chinese, and
English, greets visitors and
provides information on events.
Junko Chihira is the successor to
another Toshiba android named
Aiko Chihira, which served as a
receptionist in a department store
in Japan. Inforeach
SOURCE
www.tesla.com
www.washingtonpost.com
www.technologyreview.com
www.popsci.com
www.time.com
www.livescience.com
www.marketwatch.com
www.thescienceexplorer.com
www.madeinspace.us
The University of Nottingham, a global top 75 university*,
offers a UK education at its campuses in the UK, China
and Malaysia.
*QS World University Rankings 2016/17

Our degree courses provide students with the same programme learning outcomes
and hence graduate attributes independent of the campus. We offer courses in

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Mechanical, Materials and Manufacturing Engineering
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t: +60 3 8924 8686
w: www.nottingham.edu.my/make-an-enquiry
 INGENIEUR

Innovation in Healthcare:
OsteoKnee
COVER FEATURE

By Ir. Dr Lai Khin Wee & Farshad Goldshan

Biomedical Engineering Department,
University of Malaya,
Dr Zulkarnain Bin Jaafar & Dr Goh Siew Li
Consultant, Faculty of Medicine,
University Malaya Medical Centre

O
steoarthritis (OA), the most common
form of arthritis in the elderly, is due to
become a major health burden as global
life expectancy increases. A published report has
shown a steady increment trend in the average
age of the Malaysian population from 1950 to
a predicted 2020 (Figure 1). The World Health
Organisation (WHO) estimates that 9.6% of men
and 18% of women aged over 60 years old suffer
from symptomatic OA. Not only will symptomatic
OA impose a greater demand on health care costs
for the individual, but it will also cause significant
functional impairment and reduce the quality of
life for those with the ailment. About 80% of them
will have limitations in mobility and 25% of them
will be unable to perform their day to day activities.
In all populations studied so far the prevalence of
knee OA is higher than other forms of OA; but it is
more marked in Asian populations and the most potentially effective strategy for the prevention
common form of OA in Malaysia is knee OA. of OA, especially if the monitoring is safe to be
Over the years, many high-tech strategies undertaken as often as is necessary by the
have been developed to improve diagnoses and individuals themselves in the comfort of their own
treatment of OA (e.g. MRI, CT scans). However, homes.
a patient-friendly solution for objective self- Joint swelling and joint crepitus (crackling
monitoring of OA symptoms and progress is sound) can precede joint pain and often go
yet to be seen on the market. Self-monitoring unnoticed by individuals. That is to say, when
provides an opportunity for at-risk individuals most people with OA have joint pain, they would
to independently develop coping and mitigating have had knee problems even before they realised
strategies for OA. If an individual is able to detect it. Hence, monitoring of knee swelling and/or
or measure unfavourable changes in their joints crepitus is likely to provide a simple and promising
following a new physical routine, they will then solution to early detection of symptomatic OA.
be able to assess the suitability of their activities Designing low cost, easy to use, non-invasive
even before the onset of symptoms. This is a and reliable tools for diagnosing and monitoring

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such diseases has become a must in our electronic
era since the best OA prevention medicine
physical activity, has become less and less of a
favourable option. As humans reach an older age,
mobility will become an issue as the elderly face
problems with muscle strength and degenerating
joints. While the issue of muscle strength can be
avoided by exercising the muscle, severe OA can
only be overcome via surgery. Therefore, early
detection of OA can give a huge advantage to
the elderly to get help to improve their functional
capability from an early stage.
Figure 1: Average Age of the Malaysian
Population
Source: Statista
Currently, OA is diagnosed using imaging
modalities such as X-ray which exposes patients
to radiation especially if frequent imaging is
needed within a short interval; or using Magnetic
Resonance Imaging (MRI) which involves expensive
hardware and personnel. Other methods such as
Joint Fluid Analysis (JFA) and Arthroscopy which
are invasive, may not be the most ideal diagnostic
methods and may be the main reason patients
neglect getting diagnosed in the early stages of
OA.
Innovative Principles
Detection and visualisation of vibrations and
acoustic emissions produced from mechanical
vibration is known as vibrography. This method has
been used for years in industry for the detection
of faults in complex motors and machinery by
detecting the vibrations and acoustic emissions
they produce using highly sensitive sensors and
comparing the results with the ideal signal. The
type of fault can be easily diagnosed by looking
for differences in signal frequency and amplitude.
By simply placing the sensors on the body of the
machinery the vibration in specific areas can be
detected and troubleshooting can be performed.
The human knee joint is also a complex
structure which can perform complex mechanical
motion in its own range of motion (ROM). The
human knee joint is mainly made of three parts,
femur, patella and tibia (Figure 2) where each of
these bone structures are supported by the leg
muscles that produces motion on the joint. As
shown in Figure 2, the bone cartilage is placed
at the tip of the three knee joint bone structure
which plays a major role in smooth, frictionless
movement between the knee joints. However due
to the wear and tear of the cartilage caused by
weak muscle, overweightness or knee injuries, the
cartilage is progressively worn out up to a point
where the bones become completely exposed.
Figure 2: Knee joint structure
Source: WebMD
When the knee bones are exposed, they
will produce abnormal vibrations and acoustic
emissions as compared to the vibrations and
acoustic emissions produced by a normal knee.
This is due to the extra friction produced by the
bones uneven surface. This allows vibrography to
be used to detect and compare the vibrations and
its echoes produced by the bone structure of the
OA knee with that of a normal knee. This method
can also be called Vibroarthrography (VAG).
21
 INGENIEUR

Figure 3: 3D printing of the sensor pad

Engineering Designs

Previous studies done with VAG were performed
using single axis vibration sensors which would
use conventional analog sensors. These sensors
were easily disturbed by surrounding noise and
also had to rely on analog to digital conversion
(ADC) hardware which would also produce noise or
cause data loss. However, with the advancement
of technology and the development of Micro-
Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS), the sensors
have become highly sensitive with instant ADC
thanks to integrated circuit (IC) properties. Using
MEMS has also allowed
this project to capture
the knee vibration in
3-Axis.
To place the sensor
on the knee; the sensor
should not be in direct
contact with the skin. A
special flexible sensor
pad has been designed
using a 3D printer to
ensure comfor t for
the subject as well as
a stable area for the
sensor to capture the
data with high accuracy Figure 4: Sensor pad
(Figure 3). The sensor placed on the knee
pad then will be installed band
on the OA knee band to
be placed on the subjects knee (Figure 4).
After the knee band is placed on the subject,
the subject will be asked to sit on a chair with the
knees at a 90o angle, and then to stand up and
sit down at specific times. The results will then be
processed by a microcontroller and saved in an SD
card to be later used and analysed by a computer.
Patients selected were based on the medical
ethics rules and regulations and in collaboration
with University Malaya Medical Centre .
The 90o sit-stand motion is both easy for the
patients to perform as well as provides a wide
angle of motion for the sensor to monitor and
compare. During this motion the weight of the
body will cause the vibration to be produced at a
higher amplitude and help in detecting data much
more accurately. To control the speed of sitting
and standing, patients and subjects were asked
to perform the action by an animation displayed
on a screen which would signal when to stand up
and when to sit down.
For ease-of-use, portability and instant result
gathering, a device has been developed, patented
and trademark registered - OsteoKnee (Figure 5).
OsteoKnee is an early detection and progression
monitoring tool for osteoarthritis. OsteoKnee
helps medical staff to observe and monitor the
condition and symptoms of OA in the patient. The
VAG sensor can be connected to the OsteoKnee
and after the results have been processed with
a microcontroller, the results will be displayed on
the screen.
OsteoKnee has great potential for
commercialisation because there is currently no
diagnostic equipment available for OA assessment
based on knee sounds and knee pressure in the
market. OsteoKnee is low cost, non-invasive,
non-radioactive, portable, and easily accessible.
OsteoKnee can be very handy because it is a
standalone point-of-care medical device, which
can be easily obtained by clinics or even homes.
OsteoKnee features a new choice of diagnosis

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method, uses minimal spatial apparatus and
equipment, and is environment-friendly because it
does not release harmful by-products.
Figure 5: OsteoKnee
Case Studies
The VAG signals were captured from both normal
and OA knees for the differences to be compared
and analysed . Figure 6 shows the first half of the
captured data of a normal knee and Figure 7 the
first half of a knee with severe OA.
The X, Y and Z illustrations in Figures 6
and 7 represent the vibration motion in 3D space
as shown in Figure 8. While the knee is in motion
the patella will vibrate and move in three of these
directions and the sensor will monitor and capture
these motions for recoding storage. The values
of the maximum and minimum amplitude of the
signal at each specific time will represent where in
3D space the object is placed.
Figure 6: Normal knee VAG
Statistical observation of the signals shows
significant VAG consistency of the normal knee
both in frequency and amplitude in most of the
tests performed. However, the OA knee shows
major inconsistency in both variables. It is also
worth noting that the high amplitude pulses on the
OA VAG indicate the most damaged areas where
the major friction between two bones is applied.
Conclusion
The use of VAG with highly accurate MEMS sensors
shows promising results in the detection of OA.
This vibrograph method possesses great promise
to diagnose other complex structural parts of the
body non-invasively in the future. This method has
major potential to pioneer technology in the field
of biomedical engineering as well as human health
care. The nature of microcontrollers and ICs also
opens up possibilities for more portable and low
cost devices that would not have been possible in
the past.
Figure 8: X, Y and Z motions on
the sensor
Figure 7: OA knee VAG
23
 INGENIEUR
REFERENCE [12] Neogi, Nevitt, Niu, Sharma, et al., Subchondral
bone attrition may be a reflection of
[1] Azangwe, G., Fraser, K., Mathias, K.J and
compartment-specific mechanical load:
Siddiqui, A.M. In vitro monitoring of rabbit
the MOST Study, Annals of the rheumatic
anterior cruciate ligament damage by
diseases, vol. 69, no. 5, pp. 841-844, 2010.
acoustic emission. Med Eng Phys, 2000, 22:
[13] Berg, Lecouvet, Maldague, and Malghem.
279-83.
J, MR appearance of cartilage defects of
[2] Trebacz, H and Zdunek, A. Three-point
the knee: preliminary results of a spiral CT
bending and acoustic emission study of
arthrography-guided analysis, European
adult rat femora after immobilisation and
radiology 2004, vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 208-214,
free remobilisation. J BioMed, 2006, 39:
2004.
237-45.
[14] Breuseghem, Ultrastructural MR imaging
[3] Wierzcholski, K.C.H. Friction forces for
techniques of the knee articular cartilage:
human hip joint lubrication at a naturally
problems for routine clinical application,
permeable cartilage. s.l. : Int J Appl Mech
European radiology, vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 184-
Eng, 2006; 11(3):, Int J App Mech & Eng,
192, 2004.
Vols. 11(3): 525-27, pp. 515-27.
[15] Jiang. C. C, Lee, and Yuan. T. Y, Vibration
[4] Ritter, M.A and Stringer, E.A. Predictive range
arthrometry in the patients with failed total
of motion after total knee replacement. Clin
knee replacement, IEEE Trans. Biomedical
Orthop Relat Res, 1979, 143: 115-9.
Engineering, vol. 47, no. 2, pp. 219-227,
[5] Lam, L.O., Swift, S and ShakeSpeare, D.
2000.
Fixed flexion deformity and flexion after
[16] Chu, Gradisar, and Mostardi, A noninvasive
knee arthroplasty. What happens in the
electroacoustical evaluation technique
first 12 months after surgery and can a
of cartilage damage in pathological knee
poor outcome be predicted. Knee, 2003,
joints, Medical and Biological Engineering
10: 181-5.
and Computing, vol. 16, no. 4, pp. 437-442,
[6] Ritter, M.A., Lutgring, J.D and Davis, K.E.
1978.
The role of flexion contracture on outcomes
[17] Chu. M. L, Gradisar, Railey, and Bowling,
in primary total knee arthroplasty. J
Detection of knee joint diseases using
Arthroplasty, 2007, 22(8): 1092-6.
acoustical pattern recognition technique,
[7] Baydar, N and Ball, A. Detection of gear
Journal of Biomechanics, vol. 9, no. 3, pp.
failures via vibration and acoustic signals
111-114, 1976.
using wavelet transform. Mech Syst Signal
[18] Kernohan. W. G, BeverlandMccoy, Shaw,
Process, 2003, 17(4): 787-04.
Wallace, Mccullagh, et al., The diagnostic
[8] Loutas, T.H., Sotiriades, G., Kalaitzoglou, I
potential of vibration arthrography, Clinical
and Kostopoulos, V. Condition monitoring
orthopaedics and related research, vol. 210,
of a single-stage gearbox with artificially
pp. 106-112, 1986.
induced gear cr acks utilising on -
[19] McCoy, McCrea, Beverland, Kernohan,
line vibration and acoustic emission
and Mollan, Vibration arthrography as a
measurements. Appl Acoust, 2009, 70:
diagnostic aid in diseases of the knee. A
1148-59.
preliminary report, Journal of Bone & Joint
[9] Marques de Sa, J.P. Applied Statistics using
Surgery, British Volume, vol. 69, no. 2, pp.
SPSS, STATISTICAL, and MATLAB. Springer,
288-293, 1987.
2003.
[20] Zainal F Zakaria, Azman A Bakar, Hadzri
[10] Stanley, W.D., Dougherty, G.R and Dougherty,
M Hasmoni, Fauzi A Rani, Samiah A Kadir.
R. Digital signal processing. Prentice-Hall,
(Health-related quality of life in patients with
1984.
knee osteoarthritis attending two primary
[11] Grenier and Wessely, Knee MRI. Part II: MR
care clinics in Malaysia: a cross-sectional
imaging of common internal derangements
study Asia Pacific Family Medicine 2009;
affecting the knee, Clinical Chiropractic, vol.
8:10DOI: 10.1186/1447-056X-8-10).
7, no. 3, pp. 131-140, 2004.

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 INGENIEUR

Cross Axis Wind Turbine:

Crossing into the Future
COVER FEATURE

By Assoc. Prof. Dr Chong Wen Tong

Department of Mechanical Engineering
University of Malaya

The Cross Axis Wind Turbine is a complementary

design to push the limits of wind turbine technology.

S
ituations such as low wind speed, high
turbulence and frequent wind-direction
changes can reduce the performance of
horizontal axis wind turbines (HAWTs). Certain
vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT) designs have
the ability to operate well in these harsh operating
conditions but they generally possess low power
coefficients. In order to tackle the abovementioned
problems, a novel cross axis wind turbine (CAWT)
has been conceptualised to extract wind energy
from both the horizontal and vertical directions of
the on-coming winds to maximise the generation
of wind energy. The CAWT consists of three
vertical blades and six horizontal blades arranged
in a cross axis orientation. Initial testing showed
that the maximum rotations per minute (RPM)
generated by the CAWT is 166% higher than the
VAWT under the same experimental conditions
together with improved starting behaviour.
Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis was
done to illustrate the flow field of the deflected
and channeled air stream by the omni-directional
shroud. The air streams deflected upwards by the
guide vane interact with the horizontal blades. The
CAWT is applicable in a wide variety of locations,
creating significant opportunities for the use of
wind energy devices and therefore alleviating
dependency on fossil fuels.
A wind turbine is a device that converts energy
from the wind into electrical power. There are
basically two types of wind turbine; the horizontal

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axis wind turbine (HAWT) and the vertical axis
wind turbine (VAWT). HAWTs are very effective in
generating electricity from the wind [1] but they
are not without their problems, such as the need
for yaw mechanisms, regular maintenance and
repair for the transmission, additional expenses
in reinforcing the tower structure supporting the
heavy nacelle, maximising the diameter of the
rotor and the number of rotor blades, posing a
danger to surrounding animals and birds, a high
degree of noise pollution and the rotor having
to face the wind direction for effective power
extraction [2].
On the other hand, the VAWT is deemed more
suitable to be used in urban areas [3]. The VAWT
can be scaled down easily and still harness
wind energy efficiently in urban areas due to its
gearbox and generator being situated in its lower
portion (lowering its center of gravity) and its rotor
size can be increased or decreased horizontally
without affecting its height. A yawing mechanism
is not required by the VAWT as it can harness wind
energy from all directions. This results in lower
manufacturing and maintenance costs because
of the simpler structure due to the elimination of
the yaw mechanism. The VAWT might harness less
wind energy than the HAWT in steady wind but it is
fairly efficient in capturing rapidly changing winds
such as air gusts. The lower operating rotational
speed of a VAWT ensures safety to birds and also
produces lower levels of noise.
Despite the VAWTs general superiority in
comparison with the HAWTs, the VAWT also has
Figure 1. Comparison between wind direction for HAWT and VAWT
its disadvantages such as the relatively lower
efficiency (e.g. Savonius rotor) because the wind
strikes on both sides of the rotor blade, i.e. one
following the wind direction and the other which
counters it, thereby neutralizing part of the
available wind force. The other disadvantage of
the VAWT is the inability of the rotor to start by
itself (e.g. Darrieus rotor) [4].
Due to various disadvantages of both the
VAWT and the HAWT, the main objective of the
project is to overcome these drawbacks by
introducing a cross axis wind turbine (CAWT)
capable of maximum exploitation of wind power
irrespective of the direction of the wind, without
necessitating any type of orientation mechanism
and providing better self-starting capability. The
CAWT takes up the same amount of space as a
VAWT but consists of more lift force generating
surfaces. The disadvantages in terms of on-
coming wind directions for the HAWT and VAWT
are illustrated in Figure 1. The HAWT shown in
Figure 1 relies on one horizontal wind direction,
therefore requiring a yaw mechanism to rotate
the wind turbine. Although the VAWT shown
in Figure 1 is an omni-directional wind energy
device, it is limited to rotating on one axis only,
reacting to winds coming along the horizontal
axis. As mentioned, the wind conditions in urban
areas require specially designed wind turbines to
maximise the potential wind energy, hence the
novel cross axis wind turbine has been proposed.
27
 INGENIEUR
Design concept
The cross axis wind turbine (CAWT) comprises
supportive frame and a turbine rotor assembly
mounted on the supportive frame, rotating on
its vertical axis. For converting kinetic energy
from the movement of the turbine rotor assembly
to electrical energy and mechanical energy, an
electric generator is connected to the turbine
assembly.
The CAWT has three main vertical blades that
are connected to the six horizontal blades via
specially designed connectors. This arrangement
forms the cross axis wind turbine. The significant
advantage of the CAWT is that it can harness
omni-directional air flow from the sides on its
vertical axis with the vertical blades of the wind
turbine, and from the bottom of the turbine with
the horizontal axis blades (see Figure 2). The
horizontal blades also act as the radial arms of the
CAWT, connecting the hub to the vertical blades.
Each horizontal blade is arranged at an upward
angle over the horizontal plane. Connectors are
used to couple the horizontal airfoil blades to the
vertical airfoil blades. The vertical wind flow, either
created by the building or a guide-vane structure,
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Figure 2. General arrangement of the CAWT
(arrows indicate the wind directions)
interacts with the horizontal aerofoil-shaped
arms (see Figure 3). While on-coming horizontal
wind from any direction can be harvested by the
vertical blades, vertical air streams from the
omni-directional shroud can be harvested by
the horizontal blades, which increases the self-
starting capability of the turbine while producing
an aero-levitation force. This aero-levitation force
reduces the bearing friction in the generator,
helping to extend the lifespan of the wind turbine.
Initial lab test and computational fluid
dynamics (CFD) simulation
Initial testing was performed to demonstrate
the capability of the CAWT compared to a
conventional straight-bladed VAWT. The test was
done on a mock-up roof-top where the CAWT and
the VAWT were mounted at a height of 100 mm
above the roof of a building as shown in Figure 4.
Two sets of tests were carried out for the CAWT
and the conventional VAWT. Figure 4 shows the
comparison of the rotational speed performance
 a b
Figure 3 (a) CAWT on top of a building and; (b) CAWT with guide vane structure

Figure 4. Experimental set up & experimental test results (graph of rotational speed against time)

29
 INGENIEUR
Figure 5. [Clockwise from left] CAWT model, particle streamlines and vector plots of CFD simulation
(k-omega, SST) of a guide-vane structure for capturing, accelerating and deflecting the oncoming wind
towards the bottom of the CAWT.
between the CAWT and the VAWT. The RPM of
both of the wind turbines increased linearly with
time until it reached a maximum value of 609
rpm and 229 rpm at t = 223s and t = 161s for
the CAWT and VAWT, respectively. From the
initial test, the maximum RPM generated by the
CAWT is 166% higher than the VAWT under the
same experimental conditions. The increase in
maximum RPM proved that the CAWT harnesses
more wind energy than the conventional VAWT.
A preliminary CFD simulation was also carried
out on the prospect of using a guide-vane shroud
structure with the CAWT (as shown in Figure 5).
The concept of the omni-directional shroud used
is similar to the one used by Chong et al. [5] It
forms the outer covering of the turbine but directs
the wind from all directions to interact with the
horizontal blades. The shroud consists of a series
of deflectors that are shaped to capture the wind
(free stream velocity = 8 m/s) and to channel it
upwards. The vector plot in Figure 5 shows that
the horizontal wind is deflected far above the
guide vane. Thus, this deflected wind is expected
to interact with the horizontal blades and provide
extra power to the CAWT.
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Potential applications and impacts
The CAWT is proposed to be used in harvesting
off-shore wind power. The HAWT, VAWT and CAWT
in off-shore applications are illustrated in Figure 6.
The proposed CAWT is able to float on the water
surface with its guide-vane serving as a buoy.
The CAWT is more stable when compared to the
HAWT especially during rough sea profiles in bad
weather as its center of gravity is expected to be
located in its lower portion. The off-shore power
extraction performance of the CAWT is expected
to out-perform the VAWT as higher torque is
available from the guided wind produced by the
omni-directional guide vane which is absent in
most VAWT designs.
The CAWT system can be installed as a stand-
alone or integrated onto buildings for power
generation as shown in Figure 7. The installation
is easy and without wire trenching on the ground,
and the electric power generated can be supplied
to the user for any application. Such on-site power
generation especially for urban areas and islands
could be supplied to a wide market, for example,
island countries such as the Philippines and
Figure 6. Off-shore applications of wind turbines showing HAWT, VAWT and the proposed CAWT

Figure 7. (a) Artists impression

of a stand-alone CAWT along the
beach; (b) CAWTs integrated onto
a building structure

31

INGENIEUR
Indonesia. It is suitable for locations away from
national grid lines, potential installation locations
The CAWT is more stable when
being high-rise buildings in cities, fish farms, the compared to the HAWT especially
highlands and isolated resorts.
The CAWT was selected as one of the finalists during rough sea profiles in bad
and awarded the First Prize at the National
Intellectual Properties Award or Anugerah Harta weather as its center of gravity is
Intelek Negara (AHIN) 2016 under the Patents
category. The invention was also awarded the place expected to be located in its lower
of 1st runner up during the Engineering Invention
& Innovation Exhibition, EINIX, 2015 organised portion.
by The Institution of Engineers Malaysia (IEM).
Currently, the lead research group is developing
an up-scale 300W prototype. The project is
supported by the Fundamental Research Grant
Scheme (FP053-2013B), the Malaysian Ministry
of Higher Education and the University of Malaya
High Impact Research Grant (HIRG). Special
appreciation is credited to the University of Malaya
Centre of Innovation & Commercialisation (UMCIC)
for the patent filing and support throughout the
research process.

REFERENCE
[1] Pope K, Dincer I, Naterer G. Energy and
exergy efficiency comparison of horizontal
and vertical axis wind turbines. Renew Energy
2010;35:21022113.
[2] Ahmed NA, Cameron M. The challenges
and possible solutions of horizontal axis
wind turbines as a clean energy solution
for the future. Renew Sustain Energy Rev
2014;38:43960.
[3] Chong WT, Pan KC, Poh SC, Fazlizan A,
Oon CS, Badarudin A, et al. Performance
investigation of a power augmented
vertical axis wind turbine for urban highrise
application. Renew Energy 2013;51:388-97
[4] Barker JR. Features to aid or enable self-
starting of fixed pitch low solidity vertical
axis wind turbines. J Wind Eng Ind Aerod
1983;15:369-380
[5] Chong WT, Fazlizan A, Poh SC, Pan KC, Hew Figure 8. (top) The CAWT awarded the First Prize
WP, Hsiao FB. The design, simulation and at the National Intellectual Properties Award or
Anugerah Harta Intelek Negara (AHIN) 2016 and
testing of an urban vertical axis wind turbine
(bottom) awarded the place of 1st Runner-up
with the omni-direction-guide-vane. Appl during the Engineering Invention & Innovation
Energy 2013;112:601-9. Exhibition, EINIX, 2015.

6
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(DU031-B) (B4P8001) (W4P0115) (187620-W) (IPTS/SV.1031/42/98)

603 6145 1777 603 8600 1888 603 2078 8823 604 263 3888 6082 252 566
011 1210 6389 016 212 9154 018 211 8653 017 320 3038 017 859 2566
1800 88 7344 1800 88 8622 1800 88 8028 1300 88 7344

segi.edu.my/possible
 INGENIEUR

Paths to
Commercialisation:
From Idea to Market
By Ir. Dr Abdul Rahim Abu Talib
FEATURE

Associate Professor, Deputy Director

Corporate Strategic and Communication
Universiti Putra Malaysia

Innova,on

W
hat is commercialisation? There
are various perspectives on the
definitions, as follows: Intellectual
Money
a. Commercialisation is a process that Property
transforms an innovative idea into
a profitable commercial product [1].
b. Commercialisation is a process Commercia
liza,on
in which one party transfers its
technology (innovative product or
invention) and receives money in
Buyer and Commercia
exchange for giving up all or some Seller l Product
of their rights to the technology.
Hence, commercialisation involves
technology transfer of an innovative Technology
product, which is developed or used in Transfer or
one unit of an organisation and adopted Licensing
by another unit of that organisation or
another organisation.
Commercialisation
involves a sale, whereby the buyer pays the Figure 1: Elements of
seller for some or all of the sellers rights to Commercialisation
the technology. If nobody wants to pay for
the technology, the technology cannot be implementation plans, and implementing
commercialised, although the technology such plans. Commercialisation may be a
might be great science or engineering [2]. necessary step for commercial success for
c. Commercialisation is a process that innovations coming from start-up ventures
converts ideas, research or prototypes or company research efforts [3].
into viable products that retain their Hence, commercialisation es sentially
desired functionality, while designing involves converting an innovative idea, product
them for manufacturability at low cost or technology into feasible products so that they
and launching them quickly with high may be launched into the market. The essential
quality designed in. Commercialisation elements of commercialisation are illustrated in
involves formulating the manufacturing Figure 1, which pertains to commercialising a
and supply chain strategies, devising product via technology transfer or licensing [4].

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PATHS TO COMMERCIALISATION
From Figure 1, it can be seen that technology
transfer or licensing is only one way for
commercialising an innovative product. Speser [2]
listed three paths to commercialising inventions
and innovative products:
1 Internal development and use: This path
makes sense if the innovator is working for
an organisation, in which the organisation
manufactures and sells the product invented or
applies the process developed by the innovator
to make and sell products. For example, if the
innovator is a Research and Development
Engineer at Panasonic, whose job is to
continuously propose and develop new ideas
and concepts for kitchen appliances such
as microwave ovens, ovens, toasters, fryers,
food processors, refrigerators, et cetera, then
Panasonic is responsible for commercialising
its own innovative products without the need to
pay other organisations for commercialisation
purposes.
2 Set up an organisation to exploit the
invention: This is known as a spin-off
which is a new organisation created to
license researchers inventions, products or
technologies. A spin-off funds further research
at institutions with the aim of developing
and improving technologies for licensing by
the organisation. Researchers may become
shareholders of a spin-off. In general, a spin-off
requires more effort than technology licensing
but may generate bigger financial upside in the
long term. A spin-off should only be considered
as an alternative to technology licensing based
on the following criteria:
There is a lack of suitable receptor capacity
(licensee) for intellectual property.
The intellectual property is a solid
foundation for a new organisation and is a
potential platform for additional synergistic
intellectual properties.
There is a potential for the spin-off to be a
US$50 million public organisation.
The spin-off can attract funding and
management.
There is a potential for the spin-off to give
returns to innovators, research institutions
and investors.
3 Technology transfer or licensing: This
refers to an agreement, whereby an owner
of a technological intellectual property (the
licensor) allows another party (the licensee)
to use, modify, and/or resell that intellectual
property in exchange for compensation. The
compensation may take the form of a lump-sum
royalty based on the volume of production (i.e.
running royalty), or right to use the licensees
technology (i.e. cross licensing). Small firms
can earn substantial income from markets
that they could not penetrate on their own and
large firms can have foreign affiliates without
high financial and legal risks via licensing of
proprietary technology. The license may be
exclusive, in which only one organisation has
the license for the technology or it can be in
the form of multiple licenses. Generally, it
takes 10 times more time to manage a spin-
off than it does for a licensing transaction,
and therefore licensing is a common option
for commercialising researchers inventions
in universities, research institutions and
Government bodies.
This is summarised in Figure 2.
THE NEED FOR COMMERCIALISATION
Is commercialisation really necessary? Anderson
[3] highlighted that without commercialisation,
there is usually the temptation to simply take a
research that works and then draw it up and get
it into production. Although this may appear to be
an effective process and may temporarily please
managers and investors, there are potential pitfalls
associated with skipping the commercialisation
stage. Calson and Willmot [4] have listed five
disciplines for creating what customers want.
The need for commercialisation is explained in
detail below and illustrated in Figure 3. The first
three pertain particularly to commercialisation of
innovations under internal development and use
of a business, whereas the final one pertains to
innovations under spin-off organisations and
technology licensing.
a. Real time-to-market: Time-to-market
refers to the length of time taken in the
product development process, beginning
35
 INGENIEUR
Figure 2: Paths to
Commercialisation
from product idea (when the product is
conceived) to the finished product (when
the product is launched into the market).
Time-to-market is critical to organisations
because of competition, and therefore
the general rule is to reduce the time-to-
market as much as possible. The biggest
pitfall of not commercialising research
for an innovative product is that the
product will not be ready for production
in quantities required in an actual
production environment. This in turn, will
result in delays, in which many resources
will be wasted in rectifying the problem
and implementing change orders, which
eventually increases the time-to-market.
As Toyota says, Always compromise
both product and process integrity . This
is a warning to researchers, scientists,
inventors and managers who are only
concerned about functionality, which
itself can be compromised by poor
manufacturability. The real time-to-
market will be delayed, or the chances of
product success will be compromised if
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no commercialisation activities are carried
out until all testing is done or clinical
trials are completed. Organisations are
often faced with the dilemma of either
producing the product without adequate
commercialisation or postponing the
product launch in order to complete the
commercialisation stage, which could
involve commercial risks, particularly when
there is a high demand for the product.
b. Product quality: Research or innovative
products that are not commercialised are
likely to have quality and reliability problems
because the research prototypes that
work are built by highly-skilled technicians
and engineers who know how to make
things work (despite manufacturability
shortcomings) with sample sizes that
are probably not statistically significant.
However, the product design must be
sufficiently robust to be consistently built in
production environments and perform well
in all anticipated user environments.
c. Cost reduction: According to Anderson [3],
60% of a products cost is determined by
the concept. However, the chance to attain
the lowest possible cost is ignored when
the product concept is based on a research
prototype. Cost reduction activities are not
possible after the parts of the product are
designed based on the research prototype,
and implementing change-orders wastes
valuable resources and compromises
product and process integrity. Furthermore,
researchers, scientists and inventors design
products primarily to optimise functionality
and make parts to fit into the product
concept. They overlook using standard off-
the-shelf parts. Such innovative products
often require customised and unusual
parts (sometimes with cost and availability
problems), which in turn, delays time-to-
market. In contrast, a commercialised
product begins with thorough searches and
selections of off-the-shelf parts and the
product will be literally designed around the
off-the-shelf parts. Parts that are readily
available off-the-shelf are a key element of
commercialisation in order to achieve the
fastest time-to-market, lowest cost, and
highest product quality.
Figure 3: Need for Commercialisation
d. Money and Reputation: Commercialisation
is impor tant in order to motivate
researchers, scientists and inventors
to produce better ideas and innovative
products. An innovative product is likely
to generate monetary rewards if it is
commercialised [2]. Commercialisation
also helps enhance the reputation of
the researcher, scientist or inventor,
making it easier to attract funding from
the Government or potential investors for
future research and product development
as the researcher has established himself
or herself as one who produces useful
research. Organisations that license
the researchers inventions are likely to
help support future research in related
areas, in order to gain access to graduate
students and participate in research and
development relevant to their business.
COMMERCIALISATION PROCESS
In general, there are 12 steps in the
commercialisation process, as follows [5]:
1 Identification of a need: Innovators should
first identify that there is a need for an
37
 INGENIEUR
innovative product in the market. This is
the stage where innovators should conduct
a thorough literature search by examining
the current market and searching through
trade publications and intellectual property
databases to identify any existing innovations
that have addressed the problem. It would
be pointless for innovators to develop an
invention that does not have a target audience.
The chances are that the product could not
be commercialised and generate profits.
Furthermore, it would be pointless if the
invention is an exact duplication of previous
inventions that address market needs. For
example, say the innovator identifies that
there is a need for a health-friendly pesticide,
which kills crop pests efficiently without any
adverse effects on human health. It might be
worthwhile coming up with a chemical formula
that can achieve such a purpose.
2 Problem definition and idea generation: This
is the stage whereby the innovator(s) need to
define the problem statement (what has not
been solved, why the invention is needed,
what is the importance of the invention to
users, the target market of the invention such
as consumer or business markets, feasibility
of researching and developing the invention,
et cetera). Innovators brainstorm ideas for
various products or solutions to address
the problem [6-7]. For example, the human-
friendly pesticide will definitely be a boon
to farmers and cropland owners. However,
what are the alternatives that can be used
to replace poisonous pesticides available in
the market? What are the criteria that can be
used to define a health-safe pesticide? Such
criteria may include pesticides that do not
leave any residue on the crops, pesticides that
are not harmful if inhaled and contacted, and
therefore respirators, chemical splash goggles
and chemical resistant gloves are not required.
3 Design and development: This is the stage
where the innovators need to design and
develop the product. Looking at the health-
friendly pesticide example, this is the stage
whereby innovators will begin to investigate
possible chemical makeups to produce such
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38 VOL
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a product and develop prototypes. This stage
goes hand in hand with the following stage
(i.e. implementing, testing, verification and
validation) as the prototypes need to be tested
under laboratory conditions and clinical trials.
Depending on the results, modifications may
need to be made or the product may need to
be constructed from scratch.
4 Implementing, testing, verification and
validation: This is the stage where intensive
tests are carried out in order to verify and
validate whether the product performs to
the requirements set out in the problem
definition. This stage is performed iteratively
with the design and development stage in
order to observe the products functionality
and performance under laboratory conditions,
clinical trials, et cetera. However at this stage,
the innovative product is still a prototype, as it
has not yet been commercialised. The product
prototype is then finalized after going through
numerous design, development, testing,
verification and validation processes.
5 Disclosure and intellectual property
registration: Prior to commercialisation
of an invention or innovative product, the
product needs to be disclosed (not to the
public); rather to the intellectual property (IP)
office. Inventions can be in any form as has
been described in the previous unit such as
copyrights, industrial designs, layout-designs
of integrated circuits, patents, trademarks,
trade secrets and new plant variety protection.
Several inventions do not require formal
registration, whereas some require formal
registration such as patents and industrial
designs. This step is crucial in order to protect
IP rights. Universities do have a Research
Commercialisation Unit or Intellectual Property
Office in which academic researchers can
consult and liaise with regarding registration
of intellectual properties. It is important for
innovators to emphasise and highlight how
and why their products are different from
existing similar inventions. Innovators also
need to identify who are the innovators
that contributed to the intellectual property.
Inventors (and hence, innovators) are those
 who conceive useful ideas and reduce them
to practice. In this context, conception refers
to the act of coming up with the innovation,
whereas reducing the innovation to practice
means describing how the innovation is made.
Identification of the innovators who contribute
to the product is particularly important for
technology transfer or licensing.
6 Technology transfer or licensing: This is
the stage whereby innovators liaise with the
Technology Transfer Office (in universities,
this office may also be the Research
Commercialisation Unit or Intellectual Property
Office), which handles the paperwork and
agreement to potential organisation(s) that are
interested in licensing a product. An agreement
is made whereby the organisation obtains the
license to manufacture, modify and/or sell the
product by a paying a certain amount of royalty
to the innovators. It is for this reason that it is
important to identify the key players who have
contributed to the innovative product and to
determine the proportion of royalties to be
received by each co-innovator. Shares can also
be distributed equally amongst all co-inventors
if it is appropriate to do so.
7 Preliminar y marke t an d te c hnic al
assessment: This stage onwards is carried out
by the organisation(s), which have obtained
the license for the innovative product. Based
on the key points given by Sanders [8] in a
New Product Development Workshop, an
initial market study is performed to assess the
marketplace, customer requirements, possible
market acceptance and competitive situations.
A technical appraisal of the product is also
carried out to address questions such as Can
the product be manufactured? and How will
the product be manufactured? based largely
on discussions and in-house sources.
8 Detailed market study, pre-development
business and financial analysis: Marketing
research is conducted in detail such as user-
needs-and-wants studies, concept tests,
positioning studies and competitor analyses
and involves lots of field work and in-depth
interviews with consumers. Decision to go into
a full-development programme is made and
involves financial analysis, risk assessment,
qualitative business assessment, looking at
market attractiveness, competitive advantage,
et cetera.
9 Product development and in-house product
tests: Although the product has been tested,
verified and validated by the innovators, it is
important to realise that the product at the
research stage is merely a prototype, and
therefore it cannot be ascertained whether
the product will perform well in an actual
production environment. In this stage, the
physical product is developed and tested
under controlled conditions. Modifications may
still be made in order to optimize the product
in terms of manufacturability, which reduces
time-to-market, operating and production
costs by utilising standardized parts available
off-the shelf. Again, this stage is a repetitive
process. Technical feasibility issues of the
product should be ironed out before full-scale
production.
10 Customer product tests and trial sale: In
this stage, the product is tested on potential
customers during field trials and preference
tests. Customer feedback is gathered in order
to improve and modify the product in terms
of functionality, aesthetics and ease-of-use. A
trial sale is carried out in an attempt to sell the
product to a limited number of customers in
a limited geographical area in order to obtain
feedback on market acceptance.
11 Pre-Commercialisation business analysis: In
this stage, the organisation conducts the final
business and financial analysis prior to launch.
12 Production start-up and market launch: In
this stage, the organisation begins a full-scale
or commercial production of the innovative
product, following a successful trial sale.
The final product is then launched into the
market by implementing the marketing plan.
Hence, it is vital that the sales and marketing
department know how to position the product
39
 INGENIEUR
Figure 4: Commercialisation process
in the market, how to differentiate the product
from its competitors as well as implement
effective promotion strategies.
These steps are summarised in Figure 4.
CONCLUSION
Commercialisation is an important stage in
linking the research and development stages of
a business. Researchers can choose one of the
three paths to commercialisation or a combination
of the paths. Duration of commercialisation
can be very short but in many cases can take a
significant amount of time depending on the
nature of the market. In order to minimise the risks
during commercialisation, this article outlined
systematic steps in the process.
REFERENCE
[1] The National Centre for Technology Innovation
(2007), An Introduction to Commercialisation,
www.nationaltechcentre.org (accessed:
November 2012).
[2] J.D. Phyl Speser, (2008) What Every
Re searcher Needs to Know About
Commercialisation, Foresight Science &
Technology Incorporated, www.foresightst.
com/contact-us (accessed: November 2012).
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40 VOL
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55OCTOBER - DECEMBER 2016
JUNE 2013
[3] D.M. Anderson (2011), Commercialisation,
via: w w w.halfc o s tpro duc t s .c om/
Commercialisation.htm (accessed: November
2012).
[4] C.R. Carlson and W.W. Wilmot, Innovation: The
Five Disciplines for Creating what Customers
Want, Random House, 2006.
[5] A.R Abu Talib and N. Abdullah, Innovation
Methodology, Universiti Putra Malaysia Press,
Serdang, 2013.
[6] A.R Abu Talib, The Key to Innovation Success
- Part 1, Engineering and Technology, A
Publication of the Malaysian Society for
Engineering and Technology, MySET, Issue
29, Jul-Aug, 2015.
[7] A.R Abu Talib, The Key to Innovation Success
- Part 2, Engineering and Technology, A
Publication of the Malaysian Society for
Engineering and Technology, MySET, Issue
30, Sept-Oct, 2015.
[8] I. Sanders (2009) New Product Development
Workshop, Sustainable Innovative Solutions
Ltd., paper presented at the New Zealand
Trade and Entreprise Seminar, Canterbury.
 Where Engineers Excel THE
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INGENIEUR
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41
 INGENIEUR

Malaysian Innovation and

The Global Innovation Index
2016
By Chong Sam Moi
FEATURE

The Global Innovation Index 2016
Winning with Global Innovation
U
nder the current global economic slowdown
and competitive market for goods and
services, developed and developing
countries are clamouring for innovation as the
driving force for economic growth to gain a
competitive edge over others.
A speaker at the BOAO Asian Forum 2016
defined innovation as methods that can change
the traditional way of doing things and provide
products or services that did not exist in the
past. It does not refer to technological innovation
only. Another speaker warned that society should
study the influence of innovations as some
innovations widen the social gap, particularly
between the rich and the poor. He concluded
that innovation is the core of a nations progress
as well as the inexhaustible driving force for a
countrys development and prosperity. With the
rapid advancement of public innovation and
entrepreneurship, innovation is attracting more
extensive attention than in the past.
On comparative terms with other countries,
Malaysia performed well as she was ranked 35th
among 128 countries under the Global Innovation
Index (GII) 2016. This represented second place
among the Upper Middle Income group after
China. (Table 1)

About The Global Innovation Index

Innovation is now a critical factor in the growth of

dynamic clusters of nations that support policies
that empower people beyond national boundaries,
and with the ability to solve problems at all levels
individual, societal, regional, and global. This
growing trend of increasing global connectivity
necessitates a standardised way of measuring and
analysing innovation data through key indicators.

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44 VOL
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 Figure 1: Framework of the Global Innovation Index.
The Global Innovation Index (GII) has been
ranking world economies since 2007 according to
their innovation capabilities using approximately
80 indicators. These include measures of human
capital development and research, development
funding, university performance, and international
dimensions of patent applications among a host
of other important parameters. Over the years, the
GII has demonstrated that the innovation capacity
of any nation is measured not only by what it does
locally, but also by how it impacts globally. Issues
such as poverty, health, urbanisation, access to
water, and climate change are of a global nature
but, at the same time, both the challenges
and their solutions have local consequences.
Therefore innovative breakthroughs that provide
local solutions in the developing world can have
a global impact and can provide an opportunity
for sharing among other emerging nations for their
mutual benefit.
The GII 2016 Conceptual Framework
The GII helps to create an environment in which
innovation factors are continually evaluated. This
year it is providing a key tool of detailed metrics
for 128 economies, representing 92.8% of the
worlds population and 97.9% of the worlds GDP
(in current US dollars).
Four measures are calculated: the overall GII, the
Input and Output Sub-Indices, and the Innovation
Efficiency Ratio (Figure1).
The overall GII score is the simple average of
the Input and Output Sub-Index scores.
The Innovation Input Sub-Index is comprised
of five input pillars that capture elements of
the national economy that enable innovative
activities: (1) Institutions, (2) Human capital
and research, (3) Infrastructure, (4) Market
sophistication, and (5) Business sophistication.
45
xviii INGENIEUR
Global Innovation Index 2016 rankings
Rankings

Country/Economy Score (0100) Rank Income Rank Region Rank Efficiency Ratio Rank Median: 0.65
Switzerland 66.28 1 HI 1 EUR 1 0.94 5
Sweden 63.57 2 HI 2 EUR 2 0.86 10
United Kingdom 61.93 3 HI 3 EUR 3 0.83 14
United States of America 61.40 4 HI 4 NAC 1 0.79 25
Finland 59.90 5 HI 5 EUR 4 0.75 32
Singapore 59.16 6 HI 6 SEAO 1 0.62 78
Ireland 59.03 7 HI 7 EUR 5 0.89 8
Denmark 58.45 8 HI 8 EUR 6 0.74 34
Netherlands 58.29 9 HI 9 EUR 7 0.82 20
Germany 57.94 10 HI 10 EUR 8 0.87 9
Korea, Rep. 57.15 11 HI 11 SEAO 2 0.80 24
Luxembourg 57.11 12 HI 12 EUR 9 1.02 1
Iceland 55.99 13 HI 13 EUR 10 0.98 3
Hong Kong (China) 55.69 14 HI 14 SEAO 3 0.61 83
Canada 54.71 15 HI 15 NAC 2 0.67 57
Japan 54.52 16 HI 16 SEAO 4 0.65 65
New Zealand 54.23 17 HI 17 SEAO 5 0.73 40
France 54.04 18 HI 18 EUR 11 0.73 44
Australia 53.07 19 HI 19 SEAO 6 0.64 73
Austria 52.65 20 HI 20 EUR 12 0.73 43
Israel 52.28 21 HI 21 NAWA 1 0.81 23
Norway 52.01 22 HI 22 EUR 13 0.68 55
Belgium 51.97 23 HI 23 EUR 14 0.78 27
Estonia 51.73 24 HI 24 EUR 15 0.91 6
China 50.57 25 UM 1 SEAO 7 0.90 7
Malta 50.44 26 HI 25 EUR 16 0.98 2
Czech Republic 49.40 27 HI 26 EUR 17 0.82 21
Spain 49.19 28 HI 27 EUR 18 0.72 48
Italy 47.17 29 HI 28 EUR 19 0.74 33
Portugal 46.45 30 HI 29 EUR 20 0.75 31
Cyprus 46.34 31 HI 30 NAWA 2 0.79 26
Slovenia 45.97 32 HI 31 EUR 21 0.74 39
Hungary 44.71 33 HI 32 EUR 22 0.83 17
Latvia 44.33 34 HI 33 EUR 23 0.78 28
Malaysia 43.36 35 UM 2 SEAO 8 0.67 59
Lithuania 41.76 36 HI 34 EUR 24 0.63 75
Slovakia 41.70 37 HI 35 EUR 25 0.74 36
Bulgaria 41.42 38 UM 3 EUR 26 0.83 16
Poland 40.22 39 HI 36 EUR 27 0.65 66
Greece 39.75 40 HI 37 EUR 28 0.61 84
United Arab Emirates 39.35 41 HI 38 NAWA 3 0.44 117
Turkey 39.03 42 UM 4 NAWA 4 0.84 13
Russian Federation 38.50 43 HI 39 EUR 29 0.65 69
Chile 38.41 44 HI 40 LCN 1 0.59 91
Costa Rica 38.40 45 UM 5 LCN 2 0.71 50
Moldova, Rep. 38.39 46 LM 1 EUR 30 0.94 4
Croatia 38.29 47 HI 41 EUR 31 0.65 68
Romania 37.90 48 UM 6 EUR 32 0.72 46
Saudi Arabia 37.75 49 HI 42 NAWA 5 0.61 85
Qatar 37.47 50 HI 43 NAWA 6 0.56 97
Montenegro 37.36 51 UM 7 EUR 33 0.62 80
Thailand 36.51 52 UM 8 SEAO 9 0.70 53
Mauritius 35.86 53 UM 9 SSF 1 0.57 95
South Africa 35.85 54 UM 10 SSF 2 0.55 99
Mongolia 35.74 55 UM 11 SEAO 10 0.72 47
THE GLOBAL INNOVATION INDEX 2016

Ukraine 35.72 56 LM 2 EUR 34 0.84 12

Bahrain 35.48 57 HI 44 NAWA 7 0.58 92
TFYR of Macedonia 35.40 58 UM 12 EUR 35 0.67 56
Viet Nam 35.37 59 LM 3 SEAO 11 0.84 11
Armenia 35.14 60 LM 4 NAWA 8 0.83 15
Mexico 34.56 61 UM 13 LCN 3 0.63 76
Uruguay 34.28 62 HI 45 LCN 4 0.62 81
Colombia 34.16 63 UM 14 LCN 5 0.56 96
Georgia 33.86 64 LM 5 NAWA 9 0.65 67

Table 1 : Global Innovation Index 2016 Rankings

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The Malaysian Government has been most
supportive in creating an innovative ecosystem
as the way forward to boost economic growth.
The Innovation Output Sub-Index provides
information about outputs that are the results
of innovative activities within the economy.
There are two output pillars: (6) Knowledge and
technology outputs and (7) Creative outputs.
The Innovation Efficiency Ratio is the ratio of
the Output Sub-Index score over the Input Sub-
Index score. It shows how much innovation
output a given country is getting for its inputs.
Each pillar is divided into three sub-pillars
and each sub-pillar is composed of individual
indicators, for a total of 82 indicators this year.
It is important to note that each year the
variables included in the GII computation are
reviewed and updated to provide the best and
most current assessment of global innovation.
Other methodological issuessuch as missing
data, revised scaling factors, and new countries
added to the samplealso impact year-on-year
comparability of the rankings.
Most notably, a more stringent criterion for the
inclusion of countries in the GII was adopted this
year, following the Joint Research Centre (JRC)
recommendation in past GII audits. Economies
and countries were included in the GII 2016
only if 60% of the data was available within each
of the two sub-indices and if at least two of the
three sub-pillars in each pillar could be computed.
This more stringent criterion for inclusion in the
GII ensures that country scores for the GII and
for the two Input and Output Sub-Indices are not
particularly sensitive to missing values. As noted
by the audit, this more stringent threshold has
notably improved the confidence in the country
ranks for the GII and the two sub-indices, and thus
the reliability of the GII rankings.
Malaysia bracing for new engines of
growth through Innovation
The Malaysian Government has been most
supportive in creating an innovative ecosystem as
the way forward to boost economic growth. The
global key areas of innovation may be grouped
under the following six fields:
a) Energy Technologies Alternative energy
sources such as solar, wave, wind, storage
technologies, clean technology and smart
electric grids.
b) ICT Internet of things, cloud computing, big
data analytics, new apps, artificial intelligence
and reality devices.
c) Biotechnology Genetic therapy, stem cell
research, micro machines.
d) Manufacturing technology Robotics, smart
automation, 3D printing.
e) Financial Technology Fintech.
f) Defence Technology Development of drones,
advanced weapons.
The Malaysian Governments emphasis on
innovation is well reflected in Prime Minister,
Dato Sri Najib Razaks keynote address in May
2016 at the GSIAC-Khazanah Distinguished
Lecture Series in London. In the speech, he
said that Malaysia must stick to the principle
of innovation, sustainability and inclusivity as it
embarks on the journey to be a developed, high-
income nation by 2020. We must focus not just
on innovation, but on commercialising innovation.
We need to focus on being at the forefront of using
and inventing new technology, so that we gain and
maintain a long term competitive edge.
Source: Credit of contents to Cornell University,
INSEAD and WIPO.
47
 INGENIEUR
Developing
Malaysias ICT Talent
FEATURE
By Lee Soo Leng
M
alaysian Government leaders have spoken
at length on the need for a paradigm shift
to become an innovation-led economy.
Half of the 50 initiatives under the Government
Transformation Program are information
communication technology (ICT)-dependent. And
of the 131 entry points projects identified under
the Economic Transformation Programme, 28 are
ICT-intensive while 57 are ICT-enabled.
The Governments goals were to boost ICT
contribution to GDP from 1.2% in 2009 to 10.2%
by 2015, as outlined in the 10 th Malaysian Plan.
However, it achieved 17% of GDP in 2014 and
is now targeting to reach 20% of GDP by 2020.
Malaysia has a good ICT ecosystem in place. The
Network Readiness Index (NRI) 2016 issued by
the World Economic Forum placed Malaysia 31st
among 139 countries. This strong performance
continues to be supported by the Government
which is fully committed to the digital agenda and
is ahead of its peers in terms of adopting the latest
technologies. With approximately two-thirds of the
population online, individual usage is still growing.
One of the key success factors is to have
sufficient top ICT professionals who can spur the
necessary growth required for transformation
to happen. In an innovation-led economy, talent
is more important than capital assets or raw
materials. An abundance of talent will attract
more industries and investments, creating
higher income opportunities and making the
country more competitive in the global arena. In
an era of increasing competition, the strength of
the countrys pool of talent is the crucial factor
separating the winners from the losers.
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To that end, the Government has announced
it will establish an ICT finishing school in
collaboration with the private sector, to train as
many as 25,000 knowledge workers needed to
take the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) to its
third phase of development. The Government also
intends to issue work permits to the top 1,000
foreign ICT students from local institutions of
higher learning annually to address the projected
shortfall in talent.
Strategic Thrusts
Taking cognizance of the challenges in nurturing
and retaining top-notch talent, the Government
has embarked on various structural reforms to
turn Malaysia into a global ICT talent hub. These
reforms, working in tandem with the Economic
Transformation Programme and coupled with
transformative movements, are designed to create
a pool of high quality talent. The Government is
committed to undertaking the necessary talent
interventions, whether through policy or via public-
private collaborations.
To this end, it has identified three strategic
thrusts for talent interventions. The first is to
optimise Malaysian talent. The second is to attract
and facilitate global talent. The third is to build
networks of top talent.
1.Optimising Malaysian Talent
This starts with raising career awareness by
providing guidance to young talent on career
options and industry needs. Enhancing work-to-
school transition is crucial. This can be achieved
by providing early exposure to the real working-
life environment of the globally competitive ICT
industry.
2.Attracting and Facilitating Global Talent
Besides nurturing local talent, it is important to look
beyond Malaysia to source for Malaysian talent.
As such, outreach efforts must be conducted
to generate greater awareness of career and
collaboration opportunities at home. After that,
there must be support mechanisms in place to
facilitate top-notch returning talent and expatriates.
3.Building Networks of Top Talent
Next, it is important to develop a pool of business
talent to form a high value network to advance
the countrys strategic vision of an innovation-
led economy. This entails a two-pronged strategy
of developing a diasporic network and engaging
the expatriate community. The former entails
establishing networks by key sectors and
geographies to ease access to opportunities
and to enable contributions from abroad. The
latter entails strengthening networks with leading
foreign corporations and creating strong linkages
with them.
The emphasis on talent is based on the
recognition that Malaysia cannot build a
knowledge-based and innovation-led economy
without the necessary talent to drive it. Over
the years, the Government has invested heavily
in nurturing local talent. But the harsh reality of
global competition means that the war for talent
is very real indeed.
This is a situation that obviously has to be
reversed. A country lacking in talent could result
in industries impeded from investing and growing.
This in turn could dampen job opportunities, which
could then result in a more severe brain drain,
triggering a vicious cycle of a reduced talent force
and a weakened economy.
Using developed nations as a benchmark,
Malaysia needs to be as globally competitive in
its ability to produce, retain and attract talent. As
such, the Government is taking action to boost
talent availability.
T hi s t o g e t h e r w i t h t h e Ec o n o mi c
Transformation Programme drives transformative
investments, which in turn creates high value-
added employment opportunities. And thus, an
essential cycle of investment, job creation, talent
inflow and further transformative investment
would be created.
Being a high-income nation will involve the
creation of modern innovation-led jobs within
a highly digital Malaysian economy. It will be
no easy feat but a strong partnership between
the government and leading global technology
companies, working together in close co-operation
is the right formula for achieving that vision.
Malaysian Global Training Centre
collaboration with Huawei Technologies
The Malaysian Government and Huawei
Technologies signed a Memorandum of
Understanding (MOU) to develop some 10,000
telecommunication professionals over a five-year
period through the establishment of a Malaysian
Global Training Centre (MGTC).
With an investment of RM90 million in terms
of equipment and infrastructure, the facility is
designed to provide the latest telecommunication
and ICT technology training to Huawei global
customers from the Asia-Pacific, Middle East,
Africa and Latin America countries.
The global training hub is expected to
contribute up to an accumulated RM1.2 billion
of Gross National Income (GNI) by 2020 with an
average of 20,000 trainee days of workload per
year.
The MGTC is also collaborating with 10 local
universities across the country to set up a Huawei
University Training Lab in each of the university
campuses. With this comes more human capital
development programmes such as Train the
Trainer.
The MGTC in Cyberjaya was set up with the
objective to develop local workers into top-notch
global ICT talent in line with the needs of Digital
Malaysia.
The MGTC has multiple labs offering
comprehensive and cutting edge
telecommunication technologies. The labs are
capable of simulating an end-to-end live network
environment linking the IMS Convergence Lab,
the Access Lab and the Wireless Lab with the Core
Network.
49
 INGENIEUR
ENGINEERING
PROFESSIONALS
IN MALAYSIA
BEM UPDATE
Following legal amendments, there are
now seven categories of engineering
professionals who can be registered
with the Board of Engineers Malaysia.
By Prof. Ir. Dr K S Kannan
The growth of engineering in Malaysia dates
back to the establishment of the Public Works
Department in 1872, which created a great
demand for technical staff to implement
Government projects. Many early engineers were
not trained engineers. Instead they were mainly
technicians who rose up to the ranks to assume
positions of responsibility to implement major
public works projects such as the construction of
public buildings and the infrastructure for water
and power supplies, drainage and irrigation, and
roads and railways.
Nevertheless, a start was made to provide
engineering education at sub-professional level to
locals with the establishment of a technical class
in Kuala Lumpur in 1904. The technical class
was upgraded to a technical school and later to
a college the Technical College and moved to
its new premises in 1955. The College marked
the beginning of the early days of the Malaysian
engineer, a rare breed until then. The Technical
College was the starting point of a tertiary
engineering education. Many of its graduates
went on to continue their studies in universities
in the United Kingdom or sat for UK professional
institution examinations to qualify as engineers.
Then, the ultimate achievement of engineering
education in Malaysia was the setting up of the
Engineering Faculty at the newly established
University of Malaysia in Pantai Valley, Kuala
Lumpur.
Post-independence nation-building resulted
in the implementation of large scale national
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engineering projects at an ever faster pace.
Indeed, Malaysia has been on this continual
spiral of economic development as it rose from
an agricultural- to an industrial- to the current ICT-
knowledge based economy and at each phase,
the country has embarked on the development
of appropriate infrastructural and technological
projects that have led to the increasing
specialisation of engineering disciplines.
Not surprisingly, engineers continue to be in
great demand till this day. There are now close
to 100,000 registered qualified engineers in the
country, many of whom have graduated from
local institutions of higher learning. As at July
2016, there are 15 public universities and 29
private universities offering engineering education
at professional levels. There are also a large
number of private colleges offering engineering
twinning programmes between local and foreign
universities.
The Registration of Engineers Act, 1967
Prior to 1972, engineers could only practice
engineering as authorised persons under the
Architects Ordinance (1952), which restricted
qualified engineers to the submission of reinforced
concrete plans for buildings up to two storeys high
and floor areas not exceeding 3,000 square feet.
The Architects Ordinance was obviously unsuitable
with the advent of high rise buildings. As a result,
the Institution of Engineers Malaysia formed a
Committee in 1959 to work on the Engineers Bill
to be tabled in Parliament through the Ministry
of Works, which was in charge of the Architects
Ordinance. After numerous meetings between
engineers, architects and surveyors, it was finally
agreed that three similar but separate Bills be
prepared one for each profession and tabled in
Parliament. The Bills were passed in August 1967.
That for engineers was the Registration of Engineers
Act (REA), implemented five years later in 1972. The
latest amendment to the Act was in 2015
The main function of the Board of Engineers
(BEM) is to keep and maintain the Register which
contains the following:
Names, addresses and other particulars of:
Part A Professional Engineers
Part B Graduate Engineers
Part D Engineering Consultancy Practices
 Part E Accredited Checkers
Part F Profe s sional Engineer s with
Practising Certificates
Part G Engineering Technologists and
Part H Inspectors of Works
Categories in the Register
Inspector of Works
In view of the fact that engineering covers a
wide spectrum of persons from engineers to
technicians, the Board has decided to register
unregulated engineering technicians in the
construction industry as Inspectors of Works.
The Inspector of Works, employed to look at
the interest of the client, is the person doing
standing supervision on site to ensure that the
structural, mechanical and electro-technical
aspects of building constructions are carried out
in accordance with plans and specifications, to the
required standards.
The Inspector of Works would oversee the
quality and safety of work on a construction site,
making sure that building plans and specifications
are being followed correctly.
Their duties would include:
performing regular inspections of the work
on site and comparing completed work with
drawings and specifications
measuring and sampling building materials
to check their quality
recording results
identifying defects and suggesting ways to
correct them
liaising with other construction staff, such
as contractors, engineers and surveyors
monitoring and reporting progress to
construction managers, architects and clients
Inspectors of Works may also be responsible
for supervising the workforce on the building site
during a project.
A person who holds a technicians qualification
which is recognised by the Board shall be entitled
on application to be registered as an Inspector of
Works. In Malaysia, this is normally an accredited
diploma in engineering.
Engineering Technologist
With the latest Amendment, the Board recognises
another category of engineering professionals
- the Engineering Technologist, apart from the
Graduate Engineer. Anengineering technologistis
trained to be a relatively more practice-oriented
or hands-on engineering professional, and
similar to the traditional engineer, also dedicated
to the development, design, and implementation
of engineering work. Engineering technology
education is more of a broad specialised and
applied engineering discipline compared to the
generalised and theoretical engineering degree
education. The provisions in the Amendment also
provide the engineering technologist a career
pathway to become a Professional Engineer with
a Practising Certificate.
A person who holds a Bachelors degree
qualification in Engineering Technology which
is recognised by the Board shall be entitled on
application to be registered as an Engineering
Technologist.
Graduate Engineer
A person who has graduated from an accredited
engineering programme recognised by the
Board of Engineers Malaysia can be registered
as a Graduate Engineer. The Engineering
Accreditation Council (EAC) is a delegated body
by BEM andthe only recognised accrediting body
for engineering degree programmes offered in
Malaysia. In 2009, the BEM was accepted as the
signatory to the Washington Accord. Since then
the BEM recognises all engineering degrees of
the signatories of the Washington Accord. Other
engineering degrees are evaluated on a case to
case basis by the Examination & Qualifications
Committee of the BEM.
Engineering and engineering technology are
separate but closely related professional areas
that differ in:
Educ at ional C urricular Focu s
Engineering programmes focus on theory
and conceptual design, while engineering
technology programmes instead focus
on application and implementation.
Engineering programmes typically require
additional, higher-level mathematics,
including multiple semesters of calculus
and calculus-based theoretical science
courses, while engineering technology
programmes typically focus on algebra,
trigonometry, applied calculus, and other
courses that are more practical than
theoretical in nature.
51
 INGENIEUR
Career Paths Graduates from
engineering programmes often pursue
entry-level work involving conceptual
design or research and development.
Graduates of four-year engineering
technology programmes are called
engineering technologists, while in
some countries they are referred to as
applications-oriented engineers. They are
most likely to enter positions in sectors
such as construction, manufacturing,
product design, testing, or technical
services and sales. Those who pursue
further study often consider engineering,
facilities management, or business
administration.
Professional Engineer
Any person who is registered as a Graduate
Engineer, obtained the practical experience
as may be determined by the Board, passed
the Professional Assessment Examination (or
equivalent qualifications) and complied with all
the requirements of the Board shall be entitled
on application to be registered as a Professional
Engineer.
A Professional Engineer may submit plans or
drawings to any person or authority in Malaysia
where such plans or drawings are in relation to
a piece of equipment, a plant or a specialised
product invented or sold by him or his employer.
Profes sional Engineer with Practising
Certificate
With the amended REA of 2015, only a Professional
Engineer with a Practising Certificate who is residing
and practising in Malaysia is entitled to submit
plans, engineering surveys, drawings, scheme
proposals, reports, designs or studies to any
person or authority in Malaysia. To be registered as
a Professional Engineer with Practising Certificate,
a registered Professional Engineer must pass
a Professional Competency Examination (in the
branch of his registration) and comply with the
requirements as determined by the Board.
Accredited Checker
The Board may register a person as an Accredited
Checker if he or she is a Professional Engineer
with Practicing Certificate registered in the
relevant branch of engineering approved by the
Board, has at least 10 years of relevant practical

BOARD OF ENGINEERS (BEM)

Registered Persons

Engineering
Graduate Engineer Inspector of Works
Technologist

Pass PAE*

Professional Engineer

Pass PCE**

Professional Engineer
with Practising
Certificate *PAE: Professional Assessment Examination
**PCE: Professional Competency Examination

Figure 1 Route to Professional Engineer with Practising Certificate

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experience in the design and construction of
buildings, and satisfies the Board that by virtue of
his ability, standing in the profession, and special
knowledge or practical experience he is qualified
to be registered under the Act.
Engineering Consultancy Practice
Single Disciplinary Practice (SDP)
The Board shall consider a sole proprietorship,
partnership or body corporate for registration as
an Engineering consultancy practice, subject to
such conditions and restrictions as it may deem
fit to impose, if:-
a. in the case of a sole proprietorship, the sole
proprietor is a Professional Engineer with
Practising Certificate
b. in the case of a partnership, all the partners
are Professional Engineers with Practising
Certificate
c. in the case of the body corporate,
i. it has a board of directors who shall
be subject to such conditions and
qualifications as may be prescribed by
the Board;
ii. its shareholdings shall be as may be
prescribed by the Board
iii. it has a minimum paid-up capital which
shall be of an amount to be prescribed
by the Board.
iv. the day-to-day affairs of the body
corporate shall be under the control and
management of a person who
A. is a Professional Engineer with
Practising Certificate and
B. is authorised, under a resolution
of the board of directors of the
body corporate, to make all final
engineering decisions on behalf of
the body corporate in respect of the

BOARD OF ENGINEERS (BEM)

Single Disciplinary Practice (SDP)

Body Corporate Partnership Sole Proprietorship

Partners must be
Maximum 30% equity Must be P.E. with
P.E. with Practising
for any person/bodies Practising Certificate
Certificate

Remaining equity Note

must be held by Equity and composition of the Board of
P.E.s with Practising Directors are prescribed in the Regulation.
Certificate

At least two-thirds of Directors must be P.E.

with Practising Certificate. Remaining
one-third may be anybody/person and
must named a P.E. with Practising Certificate
in charge Figure 2: Registration of SDPs

53
 INGENIEUR
requirements under the Act or any
other law relating to the supply of
professional engineering services by
the body corporate.
The registration of Single Disciplinary Practice
(SDP) can be summarised as shown in Figure 2.
Multi-Disciplinary Practice (MDP)
Where a body corporate carries on a practice of
providing a combination of services comprising
professional engineering services, architectural
consultancy services or quantity surveying
services, the Board may, subject to such
conditions and restrictions as it may deem fit to
impose, register that part of the service providing
professional engineering services.
Such body corporates must be incorporated
under the Companies Act 1965 and fulfil the
following conditions:-
a. It has a board of directors who shall
be subject to such conditions and
qualifications as may be prescribed by the
Board
b. The shareholdings shall be as may be
prescribed by the Board
c. Has a minimum paid-up capital which shall
be an amount as may be prescribed by the
Board; and
d. the day-to-day affairs of the body corporate
shall be under the control and management
of a person who
A. is a Professional Engineer with
Practising Certificate and
B. is authorised, under a resolution of the
board of directors of the body corporate,
to make all final engineering decisions
on behalf of the body corporate in
respect of the requirements under
the Act or any other law relating to
the supply of professional engineering
services by the body corporate.
The Regulations have been amended to
reflect the amendments to the REA.
Paid up capital & equity and Composition of
the Board of Directors have been inserted as
follows;
Paid up capital & Equity
1 A body corporate registered as an Engineering
consultancy practice under Single Disciplinary
Practice (SDP) shall have:
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i. a minimum p aid up c apit al of
RM50,000.00;
ii. at least 70% of its share equity held by
Professional Engineers each with Practising
Certificate; and
iii. the remaining share equity may be held by
any persons, bodies corporate or persons
and bodies corporate.
2 A body corporate registered under Multi-
Disciplinary Practice (MDP) shall have:
i. a minimum p aid up c apit al of
RM150,000.00;
ii. at least 70% of its share equity held by
Professional Engineers each with Practicing
Certificate, Professional Architects and/or
Consultant Quantity Surveyors; of which
the Professional Engineers each with
Practising Certificate providing professional
engineering services shall hold a minimum
share of 10%; and
iii. the remaining share equity may be held by
any persons, bodies corporate or persons
and bodies corporate.
Composition of Board of Directors
1 A body corporate registered as an Engineering
consultancy practice under Single Disciplinary
Practice (SDP) shall have:
i. a Board of Directors where at least 2/3 of
its members are Professional Engineers
each with Practicing Certificate;
ii. the remaining members of the Board of
Directors may be anybody or persons; and
iii. the person named under sub-section (iv)
of section 7A of the Act shall be a Board
Director of the body corporate
2 A body corporate registered under Multi-
Disciplinary Practice (MDP) shall have:
i. a Board of Directors where at least
2/3 of its members are Professional
Engineers each with Practicing Certificate,
Professional Architects and/or Consultant
Quantity Surveyors;
ii. the remaining members of the Board of
Directors may be anybody or persons; and
iii. the person named under sub-section (d)
of section 7B of the Act shall be a Board
Director of the body corporate.
Memorandum of
Understanding Between
BEM and UniKL for

BEM UPDATE
Registration of Engineering
Technologists
A
Memorandum of
Understanding (MoU) on
Engineering Technologist
Bulk Registration between the
Board of Engineers Malaysia
(BEM) and Universiti Kuala
Lumpur (UniKL) was signed
on October 12, 2016 at UniKL
Kuala Lumpur. The MoU signed
by the President of the Board of
Engineers Malaysia (BEM), YBhg.
Datuk Ir. Adanan Mohamed
Hussain and YB Datuk Dr.
Adham Baba, Pro-Chancellor
and Chairman of UniKL. This co-
operation would contribute to
the enhancement of engineering
education, the profession and efficiently without waiting for the Engineering Team. The need
to the economic and social their convocation. to regulate the Engineering
development of Malaysia. Eng ine ering e duc ation Team; Engineers, Engineering
The purpose of the MoU is and training has evolved from Technologists and Engineering
to facilitate bulk registration its early focus on producing Technicians has led the BEM
of engineering technologist purely pr ac tic e oriente d to amend the Registration
graduates from accredited engineers to the present-day of Engineers Act 1967 to
engineering technolog y focus which involves producing incorporate two new categories:
programmes with the BEM as two categories of engineers; Engineering Technologists and
Engineering Technologist. With theoretical and practical oriented Inspector of Works (also known
the signing of the MoU, UNiKL engineers that complement each as Engineering Technicians). The
can submit applications from other. Internationally, the practice amended Act was ratified by the
their engineering technology oriented engineers are known as Parliament on December 17,
graduates who have been Engineering Technologists and 2014 and effective from July 31,
approved by the Senate in bulk the former as Engineers. Both 2015.
to the BEM to be processed professions are supported by With the amended Act, the
more quickly, effectively and the Technicians that complete Board of Engineers Malaysia

55
 INGENIEUR
is also bound to register the
two new categories, apart
from registering only engineers
prior to this, for the purpose of
the provision of engineering
services. Both Engineers and
Engineering Technologist s
are given the same provision
for practice under the Act.
What may differ is that most
Engineers will be inclined to
Engineering Works in Design
an d Re s e ar c h , w h e r e a s
Engineering Technologists in
Supervision and Maintenance.
The Engineering Technicians
provide the support to the wide
spectrum of the Engineering
Works, ranging from trades to
research.
As Malaysia is poised to
become a developed country,
the need for an adequate
number of engineers and
engineering technologists, and
similarly engineering technicians
become crucial. A ratio of
1:100 engineers to population,
where engineer s include
engineering technologists,
is a common standard for
developed countries. Countries
like Germany and Japan have
even better ratios. Presently,
Malaysia has a ratio of 1:300,
and as such there is a dire need
to bridge the gap, an important
task for Malaysian institutions
of higher education. A ratio of
1:2:4 engineers to engineering
technologists to engineering
technicians is often quoted to
provide the balance needed in
developing a country.
With the amended Act, it
is incumbent upon the BEM
to be responsible to ensure
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that engineering technology
and engineering technician
e du c a t i o n al p r o g r amm e s
fulf il the ac ademic and
training requirements through
the accreditation process.
The BEM has and continue
to accredit engineering
programme s through the
Engineering Accredit ation
Council (EAC). Starting from
2017, the BEM will officially
begin to accredit Engineering
Technology and Engineering
Technician programmes under
the Engineering Technology
Accreditation Council (ETAC).
In keeping with international
standards, the BEM has become
a signatory to the ever expanding
Washington Accord (substantial
equivalency in engineering
programmes) in 2009, and has
commenced its application
in 2016 to be signatories
to both the Sydney Accord
(for Engineering Technology
programmes substantial
equivalency) and Dublin Accord
(for Engineering Technician
programmes substantial
equivalency). All the three
Accords are under the purview
of the International Engineering
Alliance (IEA), headquartered
in Wellington, New Zealand.
With substantial equivalency,
graduates of EAC or ETAC
accredited programmes will be
given the same consideration as
the other signatories graduates
with regards to the academic
standing for the purpose of
employment. The Accords
facilitate mobility of engineers,
engineering technologists and
engineering technicians by
acknowledging their academic
qualifications.
To date there are ten
signatories to the Sydney
Accord; Australia, Canada,
Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong,
Ireland, Korea, New Zealand,
South Africa, the United
Kingdom and the USA. The
Dublin Accord has eight
signatories, namely, Australia,
Canada, Ireland, Korea, New
Zealand, South Africa, United
Kingdom and USA. Becoming
a signatory to the Sydney and
Dublin Accords (as with the
Washington Accord) is a step
forward to ensure all the three
categories of our engineering
programmes maintain their
quality standard, and continually
push for improvements.
The BEM is also beginning to
provide professional pathways
for registered engineering
technologists and engineering
technicians. Presently, a pathway
for engineering technologists to
become professional engineers
has been established, through
lateral movement by bridging
the academic constituents. The
BEM is already a signatory to
the International Professional
Engineers Agreement and the
APEC Engineers, for mobility of
professional engineers. Being a
signatory to the two agreements;
the International Professional
Eng ine er ing Te c hno lo g i s t
Agreement (IETA) and the
Agreement of International
Pro fe s sio n al Eng in e e r ing
Technicians Agreement (AIET) will
be pursued upon the BEM being
a full signatory of the Sydney and
Dublin accords.
 Izinkan saya memanjatkan kesyukuran yang
tidak terhingga kepada Allah SWT kerana
dengan rahmat-Nya, Majlis Menandatangani
Memorandum Persefahaman (MoU) antara
Lembaga Jurutera Malaysia dan Universiti Kuala
Lumpur akhirnya menjadi realiti.
Tujuan MoU ini ditandatangani adalah bagi

BEM UPDATE
merealisasikan pendaftaran secara berkelompok
graduan kejuruteraan Universiti Kuala Lumpur
atau UniKL dengan Lembaga Jurutera Malaysia.
Pendaftaran secara berkelompok melalui sistem
atas talian ini adalah merupakan sebahagian
daripada proses memudahcara pendaftaran
dan penambahbaikan berterusan oleh Lembaga
Jurutera Malaysia.
Dengan termeterainya MoU ini, UniKL
boleh mengemukakan permohonan graduan
kejuruteraan yang telah diluluskan oleh Senat,
secara berkelompok kepada Lembaga Jurutera

Ucapan
Malaysia untuk diproses dengan lebih pantas dan
berkesan tanpa menunggu tarikh konvokesyen.
Dalam usaha melengkapi dasar kerajaan

Presiden
meliberalisasikan sektor perkhidmatan dan
bagi memantapkan lagi pasukan kejuruteraan
atau engineering team demi kepentingan dan

Lembaga
keselamatan awam, dua kategori pendaftaran
baru selain Jurutera Siswazah iaitu Teknologis
Kejuruteraan (Engineering Technologist) dan

Jurutera
Pemeriksa Tapak (Inspector of Works) telah
dimasukkan di bawah kawalselia Lembaga
Jurutera Malaysia melalui pindaan Akta

Malaysia
Pendaftaran Jurutera 1967 yang diluluskan
di Parlimen pada 17 Disember 2014 dan
berkuatkuasa pada 31 Julai 2015.
Saya mengambil kesempatan ini untuk
Datuk Ir. Hj. Adanan Bin Mohamed Hussain merakamkan penghargaan dan ucapan terima
kasih kepada UniKL yang sudi menjalin kerjasama
dengan Lembaga Jurutera Malaysia bagi
merealisasikan inisiatif pendaftaran Teknologis
MAJLIS MENANDATANGANI Kejuruteraan secara berkelompok bagi menyahut
MEMORANDUM PERSEFAHAMAN dan melaksanakan hasrat kerajaan untuk
(MoU) menjadikan Malaysia negara yang maju menjelang
tahun 2020.
ANTARA Inisiatif mendaftar Jurutera Siswazah dan
Teknologis Kejuruteraan secara berkelompok
LEMBAGA JURUTERA MALAYSIA (BEM) sebaik sahaja mereka bergraduan ini, bukan
sahaja membantu merealisasikan hasrat
dan kerajaan, malah secara langsung memastikan
graduan UniKL mematuhi Akta Pendaftaran
UNIVERSITI KUALA LUMPUR (UniKL) Jurutera 1967 di mana graduan diwajibkan

57

INGENIEUR
Dengan termeterainya MoU ini, UniKL boleh mengemukakan
permohonan graduan kejuruteraan yang telah diluluskan oleh Senat, secara
berkelompok kepada Lembaga Jurutera Malaysia untuk diproses dengan
lebih pantas dan berkesan tanpa menunggu tarikh konvokesyen.
berdaftar dengan Lembaga Jurutera Malaysia bagi
membolehkan mereka bekerja sebagai Jurutera
dan Teknologis Kejuruteraan dan seterusnya
memberi perkhidmatan kejuruteraan kepada
mana-mana orang perseorangan, agensi kerajaan,
syarikat atau organisasi.
Lembaga Jurutera Malaysia mengambil
maklum bahawa salah satu kayu pengukur bagi
mengiktiraf sesebuah negara itu sebagai negara
maju adalah nisbah jurutera kepada populasi
negara itu. Bagi negara maju, nisbahnya adalah
di dalam lingkungan 1 jurutera dengan 100
penduduk. Terkini, nisbah di Malaysia mengikut
bilangan jurutera yang berdaftar dengan Lembaga
Jurutera Malaysia ialah 1 jurutera dengan 300
penduduk. Diharap MoU ini mampu merapatkan
jurang nisbah tersebut.
Saya amat berbangga dengan komitmen
yang diberikan oleh UniKL dan mengucapkan
syabas kepada pengurusan UniKL sebagai
Institusi Pengajian Tinggi Swasta yang pertama
menjayakan program pendaftaran graduan
terknologis kejuruteraan secara berkelompok
dengan Lembaga Jurutera Malaysia.
Adalah menjadi hasrat Lembaga Jurutera
Malaysia memastikan program-program ijazah
teknologi kejuruteraan diiktiraf di persada
antarabangsa. Malaysia, melalui Majlis Akreditasi
Teknologi Kejuruteraan (ETAC), telah membuat
permohonan rasmi pada awal tahun 2016 bagi
menjadi Penandatangan kepada Persefahaman
Sydney (Sydney Accord) dan Persefahaman Dublin
(Dublin Accord).
Persefahaman Sydney dan Dublin adalah
dua buah persefahaman antarabangsa yang
menjalankan penetapan standard dunia bagi
pengakreditasian ijazah teknologi kejuruteraan
dan juruteknik kejuruteraan. Persefahaman
ini mengiktiraf program ijazah di setiap negara
penandatangan sebagai sama taraf dan
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58 VOL
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JUNE 2013
menyarankan bahawa graduan berkenaan di
setiap negara penandatangan diiktiraf oleh
negara-negara lain sebagai memenuhi kelayakan
akademik yang ditetapkan dan layak untuk
menjalankan kerja-kerja kejuruteraan di mana-
mana negara ahli penandatangan.
Sehingga hari ini, terdapat 10 negara-
negara penandatangan Persefahaman Sydney
termasuklah Australia, Kanada, Chinese Taipei,
Hong Kong, Ireland, Korea, New Zealand, Afrika
Selatan, United Kingdom dan USA.
Manakala Persefahaman Dublin pula
dianggotai oleh lapan negara iaitu Australia,
Kanada, Ireland, Korea, New Zealand, Afrika
Selatan, United Kingdom dan USA.
Penyertaan dalam kedua-dua persefahaman
ini akan melengkapkan keahlian Malaysia
dalam Pakatan Kejuruteraan Antarabangsa
ataupun International Engineering Alliance di
mana Malaysia telah menjadi Penandatangan
Persefahaman Washington sejak tahun 2009 bagi
memastikan kualiti pendidikan dalam profesyen
kejuruteraan adalah setaraf dengan yang terbaik
di dunia.
Sehubungan itu, saya menyarankan UniKL
khasnya dan universiti-universiti lain amnya,
untuk bersama-sama dengan Lembaga Jurutera
Malaysia menyediakan graduan yang berkualiti
tinggi dan berdaya saing bukan sahaja di dalam
negara tetapi juga di arena antarabangsa.
Akhir kata, sekali lagi saya merakamkan
ribuan terima kasih kepada Jawatankuasa
Penganjur UniKL dan Lembaga Jurutera
Malaysia di atas sumbangan berharga mereka
dalam memastikan kejayaan MoU hari ini.
Saya berdoa agar kerjasama antara UniKL dan
Lembaga Jurutera Malaysia ini akan menjadi
suatu usaha yang berjaya dan gemilang serta
diberkati Allah SWT. InsyaAllah. Sekian, terima
kasih.
AGENSI INOVASI MALAYSIA

BOOSTING THE INNOVATION

SPECIAL REPORT
ECO-SYSTEM
Malaysia cranks up its innovation capacity with various
initiatives spearheaded by Agensi Inovasi Malaysia.

I
nnovation they say, is the
process of translating an
idea or invention into a good
or service that creates value.
It involves intensive research,
venture capital, as sor ted
patents and entrepreneurs.
For a country, it is considered
a major element required to
ascend the economic ladder. In
the eyes of the world, Malaysia
is in relatively good standing in
terms of innovation. The Global
Innovation Index 2015 ranks
Malaysia at number 32 among
141 countries. Switzerland, UK,
Sweden, Netherlands and the
USA took the lead positions.
Over the year s, many Global Innovation Index Rankings
Ministries and specific be dissolved in 2020, it has
p r o g r am m e s h ave b e e n done considerable groundwork
created to kickstart Malaysias and will leave behind several
innovative journey. An extra push entities to continue sustainable
was initiated with the setting programmes.
up of Agensi Inovasi Malaysia Rozario pointed out that AIM
(AIM), a statutory body, via the did not follow a specific model
Agensi Inovasi Malaysia 2010 of any innovation agency from
Act. The agencys objectives are other countries. It is led by a
to jump start wealth creation 17-member Governance Council
Mark Rozario
through knowledge, technology comprising various Ministries,
and innovation to stimulate The Board of Engineers industry and academia partners,
and develop the innovation Malaysia met with AIMs and led by the Prime Minister
eco-system in Malaysia. We lay Chief Executive Officer, Mark as Chairman. It focuses on
the foundation of innovation Rozario and found that many six approaches for promoting
that will inspire and produce a innovative programmes and innovation in Malaysia:
new generation of innovative collaborations have taken off. 1. Cultivating a thinking
entrepreneurs. Even though the agency will culture

59
 INGENIEUR
THE AIM 2010 ACT ALSO ENUMERATES THE
SPECIFIC MANDATE OF THE STATUTORY BODY

Formulate national policies, strategies and

directions relating to innovation
Organise, cooperate in and coordinate the
performance of activities with the public
and private sector to stimulate innovation in
Malaysia
Conduct enquries, surveys and analysis of
data, research and development relating to
innovation and the national innovation eco-
system
Promote and facilitate investment activities
and initiatives by the public and private sector
in relation to innovation
Promote the culture of innovation in the public,
private and education sectors in Malaysia
Advise the Government in matters relating
to innovation, and make recommendations
relating to the innovation component of
existing or future strategic national projects

2. Innovation for and by
society
3. Facilitating industry-
academia collaboration
4. Transforming strategic
sectors
5. Innovating organisations
6. Catalysing
commercialisation
On the intellectual front, AIM
started a programme to enhance
thinking skills for primary and
secondary school children. Its
i-Think. programme has been
rolled out to 1,000 schools and
is now spreading nationwide. It
is expected to benefit 5.2 million
students and 450,000 teachers
around the country.
Targeting young graduates
and professionals, AIM initiated
Malaysias first design thinking
school. Located in Petaling
Jaya, Selangor, the Genovasi
school teaches a unique
discipline called design thinking
to focus on innovation and
problem solving. Rozario adds
that senior executives can also
attend a three-day programme
at the school. The school will
continue to be open after AIM
winds down. (See accompanying
article)
Another innovation-related
move by AIM was the setting
up of the Steinbeis Malaysia
Foundation, a non - prof it
organisation which acts as a
central coordination unit to
facilitate engagement between
industry players and academia.
It is modelled after the Steinbeis
Foundation located in Stuttgart,
Germany. Steinbeis has
branches in 50 countries and
is internationally recognised
as a successful catalyst for
knowledge and technology
transfer from universities
and research institutions to
industries and companies.
The Foundation provide s
consult ancy ser vice s for
identifying industry needs and
facilitating collaboration with
researchers and professors. The
Foundation has vast expertise
in assisting companies in
capability development, export
readiness and IPO readiness
assessment. Financial
assistance is also provided to
eligible companies.
AIMs wholly-owned
subsidiary PlaTCOM Ventures
Sdn. Bhd., in collaboration with
SME Corporation Malaysia,
assists entrepreneurs in the
e n t ire c o mm e r c i ali s a t i o n
process- from Intellectual
Property (IP) services, legal
services, capacity building,
technology scouting to funding.
This company will also continue
once AIM closes.
Under the High Impact
Programme 2 of the SME
Masterplan 2012-2020 of
SME Corp, PlaTCOM Ventures
has admitted 110 Malaysian

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SMEs with a total Government
commitment of RM 55 million
with a further RM 43 million
contributed by the 110 SMEs
themselves. The companies will
receive end-to-end facilitation
anywhere from concept to
commercialisation in moving
their innovations to the market.
Fourteen of the innovations
have already moved into
commercialisation within a short
period 18 months following
PlaTCOM facilitation. Examples
of these innovations include an
innovative automobile engine
dry cleaning technology which
cleans car engines efficiently,
a novel oil-water deep fryer
technology that keeps cooking
oil fresh and clean, a real-time
monitoring system for holistic
operating theatre management
that saves costs and time, and
an innovative battery recycling
technology for mobile electric
powering designed for urban
and rural needs.
In terms of IP monetisation,
PlaTCOM has facilitated the
transfer of 112 Intellectual
Property Rights from Malaysian
universities, public research
institutes and from Business-
to-Business. This leadership
in technology transfer activity
has helped to narrow the
gap in industr y- academia
collaboration.
AIM played a major role in
defining strategies to transform
strategic sec tor s of the
Malaysian economy under the
National Biomass Strategy 2020
and the National Graphene
Action Plan 2020.
The National Biomas s
Strategy 2020 was initiated in
November 2011 to assess how
Malaysia can gain more revenue
from its palm oil industry
through the utilisation of the
leftover biomass. It is a result of
extensive collaboration between
the Malaysian Government and
private sector companies as well
as domestic and international
a c a d e m i c an d r e s e ar c h
institutes.
The National Biomas s
Strategy Delivery Unit (1MBAS)
led by AIM, was setup in
March 2012 to serve as the
Central Government Agency to
strengthen the execution of the
National Biomass Strategy 2020.
State-specific strategies
were developed for the two
states in East Malaysia that
are bestowed with more than
50% of the available biomass,
namely the Sarawak and Sabah
Biomass Industry Development
Plan (SSBIDP). The key is to
ensure that local players will
participate in the real biomass
value creation, migrating from
feedstock supply into higher
value added downstream
ac tivitie s that are b oth
sustainable and commercially
viable.
The National Graphene
Action Plan 2020 was developed
by NanoMalaysia Berhad,
Per formance Management
and Delivery Unit (Pemandu)
and AIM. The Plan focuses
on developing the graphene
down s tream value chain
from intellectual proper ty,
to prototyping, to scale-up
manufacturing. Rozario reveals
that assistance is currently
being given to 22 companies
who are involved various stages
of product development. Under
the plan, there are five priority
areas in graphene application
which are conductive links,
rubber additives, nanofluids,
lithium-ion batteries and plastic
additives. (See accompanying
article)
Thanks to AIMs quick
delivery of innovation-related
programmes and institutional
support, the momentum of
the innovation eco -system
in Malaysia has begun to
accumulate. However, it will
take longer than 2020 to
evaluate whether AIM has
inspired a new generation
of innovative entrepreneurs
and successfully generated
additional revenue to Malaysias
GDP. - Inforeach
61
 INGENIEUR

LEARNING TO INNOVATE
VIA DESIGN THINKING
SPECIAL REPORT

Malaysias only Design Thinking School - Genovasi,

offers graduates, entrepreneurs and senior executives
unique learning experiences to solve real-life problems.

A mind map about Geovasi, the school for Design Thinking.

C
oined by renowned design company IDEO
founder David Kelley, the term Design
Thinking refers to a set of principles, from
mindset to process, that can be applied to solve
complex problems. The study of design thinking
is said to facilitate the innovation process and
thereby create future innovators. In short, anyone
can learn to innovate.
Two institutions, namely the d.school in
Stanford, California and the Hasso-Plattner-Institut
(HPI) School of Design Thinking in Potsdam,
Germany are pioneers in the development and
dissemination of Design Thinking. These schools
have unique teaching methods and real-life
relevance as they work with project partners to
solve everyday problems in industry and public
institutions.
Design thinking can be described as
a discipline that uses the designers
sensibility and methods to match peoples
needs with what is technologically feasible
and what a viable business strategy can
convert into customer value and market
opportunity.
Tim Brown CEO, IDEO
The Design Thinking process combines
methodology from engineering with experimental
aspects from the teaching of design. It minimises
the uncertainty and risk of innovation by engaging
customers or users through a series of prototypes
to learn, test and refine concepts. Design thinkers
rely on customer insights gained from real-world
experiments, not just historical data or market
research.

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 The Design Thinking Process
Students of Design Thinking seek innovative
solutions sought by real world partners. The latter
can be large, globally active corporations as well
as small and medium-size businesses, public
institutions and non-Government Organisations
(NGOs). The issues or problems cover all areas of
society and include health, energy, mobility, safety,
education, finance, logistics and sustainability. The
results are viable and useful such as an improved
vacuum cleaner, new security checks at an airport
and a portable baby incubator.
GENOVASI
In Malaysia, the only Design Thinking school
is called Genovasi, an initiative under Agensi
Inovasi Malaysia (AIM). The school in Petaling
Jaya was created in collaboration with the HPI
School of Design Thinking which helped develop
its programmes and conduct trainers workshops
and assessments. Genovasi opened its doors in
2013 and aims to promote a culture of innovation
through its education and training programmes.
According to Genovasi, students will be exposed
to the five major phases in design thinking.
1. Emphatise. Become keen people watchers
by talking to people about what they are
doing, ask questions and reflect.
2. Define. Becoming aware of peoples needs
and developing insights.
3. Ideate. Brainstorming a myriad of ideas
and suspending judgement
4. Prototype. This is a rough and rapid portion
of design process. A prototype can be a
model or a cardboard box which can convey
an idea quickly.
5. Test. This is to learn what works and what
doesnt and then iterate. This means going
back to the prototype and modifying it
based on feedback.
Design Thinking can be applied to anything
that needs to be optimised for human interaction.
One can even design-think the way one leads,
manages, creates and innovate. It cuts across
all industries and situations, in a personal or
professional capacity.
Some examples of Design Thinking application
include:
Product design and redesign
Service design and redesign
Business model redesign
Organisational design
Event experience
Social innovation
Participants who enrol in Genovasis 10-day
Innovation Ambassador Development Programme
(IADP) learn the core design thinking methodology.
Course fees are fully sponsored by AIM for
qualified applicants. This programme is open to
University students and aspiring entrepreneurs up
to the age of 35.
To under stand the Design Thinking
me tho dolog y, s tudent s c ollab or ate in
multidisciplinary teams of four to six to work on
different challenges posed by top Malaysian
companies who are the schools project partners.
Some of Genovasis project partners have been
Teach for Malaysia, Jabatan Kerja Raya, Sunway
Group and Maxis.
Genovasi partners with organisations (both
profit and non-profit) who will work with them in
designing a product or a service that addresses
63
 INGENIEUR

Genovasi Office

challenges that the organisations may face. A

partner will collaborate on design thinking
challenges and interact with the Genovasi staff
before they scope out the potential project and
then work with the teams for the duration of the
programme. At the end of the project, students
will present their proposed solution and the
insights that led them to the concept to the
partner.
Genovasi also conducts an intensive three-day
Design Thinking Workshop that enhances senior
executives ability to drive innovation in their
respective organisations. Participants will learn
and apply Design Thinking methods, use them Design Thinking Class
in small project settings and take home a shared
experience of an innovation culture.
At the advanced level, Genovasi runs a With a dedicated Design Thinking school,
six-week d.leadership programme, a first in Malaysians have opportunities to learn a new skill
Malaysia. It is a structured leadership programme that can help them in their career and business
in collaboration with the Stanford Center for development. In the long run, this can contribute
Professional Development. The course teaches to an innovation mindset that will also benefit the
coaching and leadership skills needed to drive countrys economic wealth. - Inforeach
good design processes in groups. Participants
SOURCE:
will work on Design Thinking projects within
organisations. They will gain real-world experience www.genovasimalaysia.com
as they experiment with their leadership style www.hpi.de
while leading an innovation project. www.emergentbydesign.com

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 THE GRAPHENE RACE
Innovation in Malaysian made graphene-

SPECIAL REPORT
enhanced products will be a game changer in
the countrys economic growth prospects. It is
a tight race as many countries are also pursuing
the same path.

I
t is the age enhancement with graphene in lithium-ion battery
of disruptive anodes and flexible displays, and specialty plastic
t e c h n o l o g y . and rubber composites.
In the area of What makes graphene such an amazing
nanomaterials, material?
di s r up t i o n i s It is 200 times stronger than steel, yet
expected from incredibly lightweight and flexible.
graphene, a It is electrically and thermally conductive
single atomic but also transparent.
layer of carbon It is the world's first 2D material and is one
which can million times smaller than the diameter of a
change the single human hair.
performance and efficiency of many consumer Globally, graphene-related research and
products. Billed as the wonder material of the commercial innovation has been pursued by many
21 st century, graphene can lead to stretchable countries. The UK, US, China, Australia, Germany
National Graphene Action Plan 2020 15
mobile phones, high definition televisions as thin and Canada have allocated huge sums of money
as paper and 10 times more energy storage in to build graphene hubs. Malaysia too has entered
lithium-ion batteries for electric cars. Companies the graphene race as it wants to inject new value
EXHIBIT 6
like Samsung, Bayer MaterialScience, BASF into existing industries and expand into new
and Siemens are currently exploring product growth areas.
Many governments globally are making significant investments into
developing Graphene hubs
National commitments to Graphene research

EU USA Japan China S. Korea Singapore1

$1.3B over $50M+/year Undisclosed Undisclosed ~$300M over $32M
10 years National National 10 years
Funding Funding (potential)

# of patent
170 1500 500 1160 800 20
applications

1 Disclosed direct spend on Graphene, for prototyping and rapid development, additional funding channels available, but
are not Graphene specific
SOURCE: Press releases, European Commission, USAF, US NSF/DOE, Expert interviews

Commitments to graphene research by country

Similar to these early adopters, Malaysia has to decide whether and how much to invest in its
65
Graphene capabilities. Based on Malaysias scale and its aspirations to become a developed| 7

nation by 2020, the Malaysian government will adopt a downstream-focused approach, with
the aim of fostering concrete commercial benefits across key industries. Therefore, this action
 Both the applications selected for Malaysias initial focus as well as subsequent uptake can be
divided into the three horizons presented in Exhibit 7 above.
INGENIEUR
EXHIBIT 8

Identified applications are at varying stages of R&D maturity and time to

commercialization
Project timeline to commercialization Protective Composites
coatings
Rubber w/o LiB anodes/
regulation Ultracaps.

2020+
Nanofluids Conductive
inks Plastics Rubber w/
regulation

2014-
2015-
2015
2020

Long-term business
opportunities
Medium-term business
Commercially ready opportunities
projects

| 9

This report Identified graphene

does not address the applications and timeline
feasibility of Graphene to commercialisation
applications and opportunities
beyond 2020, reflecting the view that while development of post-2020 applications is
ongoing, there is a lot of inherent uncertainty around the winning applications.

National Graphene
Based Actionfrom
on best practices Plan 2020 nations andMalaysia
innovating numerouswill place initial
interviews withfocus of its graphene
companies
and academics in Malaysia, there is a clear role foraction plan onto
government large
playdomestic industries
in fostering the and areas
Methane gas, a by-product in palm oil production is targeted by the Government
development of a Graphene ecosystem in Malaysia. The governments role in facilitating for innovation and
the feedstock from which graphene is derived. As growth. This includes rubber
Graphene adoption is discussed in detail in The Role of Government to Capture the products, lubricants,
the oneOpportunity
of the worlds largest producers of crude plastics, batteries for electric vehicles, conductive
section.
palm oil, the Malaysian Government wants to tap inks for radio frequency identification (RFID) and
into the vast potential presented by graphene. photovoltaic cells.
The countrys emphasis is on the downstream
segment, as defined in the National Graphene
Action Plan (NGAP) 2020 unveiled by Pemandu, Enhanced Rubber Products
Agensi Inovasi Malaysia (AIM) and NanoMalaysia
in 2014. The plan outlines the countrys focus on The global rubber industry represents a RM 900
the downstream value chain with five priority areas billion market, in which Malaysia is a leading
conductive links, rubber additives, nanofluids global player in several product categories
(drilling fluids and lubricants), lithium-ion batteries notably rubber gloves, industrial rubber products,
and plastic additives. condoms and tyres. When incorporated as an
According to the NGAP 2020, graphene additive to rubber, graphene offers superior
could generate substantial income for Malaysia properties such as increased strength, excellent
through commercialisation of graphene-enhanced conductivity (electric and thermal), and better
products. The projected GNI generated could impermeability.
reach RM20 billion by 2020. If executed correctly, For gloves and condoms, graphenes strength
the downstream players investing in graphene can be combined with the elasticity of latex to
R&D and developing proprietary products will produce an enhanced material that is thinner,
capture this opportunity. stronger and more impermeable. Graphene can

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increase the strength of tyres and industrial
rubber products up to seven times more
than carbon black, while providing increased
conductivity, impermeability and flame resistance.
Revolutionary types of graphene-enhanced rubber
products will serve to increase the countrys global
competitiveness.
Lithium-ion Batteries for Electric Vehicles
DISCOVERY OF GRAPHENE
Discovered in the UK in 2003 at the University
of Manchester by Andre Geim and Konstantin
Novoselov, graphene is a crystalline form of
carbon in which a single layer of carbon atoms
are arranged in a regular hexagonal pattern.
The discovery earned them a Nobel prize in
2010.

Malaysias National Automotive Policy (NAP) places

emphasis on the assembly of electric vehicles
and energy efficient vehicles (EEV), creating the
need for lithium-ion battery manufacturers to
produce on a larger scale. Lithium-ion batteries
are a crucial component for hybrid and electric
vehicles as they enhance battery performance
and lower production costs, creating a competitive
advantage. Graphene can unlock greater market
opportunity for hybrid and electric vehicle
manufacturers.

Picture from http://www.ox.ac.uk

Conductive Inks for Radio Frequency
Identification (RFID) and Photovoltaic Innovative Lubricants
Cells
Innovation in lubricants holds a lot of potential
Graphene-enabled conductive inks have the
for petrochemical companies producing base
potential to catalyse the growth of several new
oils, palm oil plantation owners seeking outputs
industries in Malaysia, namely in radio frequency
for their biomass, and automotive manufacturers
identification (RFID) and photovoltaic (PV) cells.
seeking to reduce manufacturing costs and to
Conductive inks can replace printed wiring, which
promote green products.
can be especially beneficial for small circuitry that
Graphene presents a unique opportunity for
needs low cost production methods. In RFID,
innovation in this sector because its tribological
graphene conductive inks can be used to produce
properties (relating to friction, lubrication, and
much cheaper tags by inkjet printing the RFID
wear of interacting surfaces) are superior to other
antennae. Today, due to the high costs, Malaysian
commonly-used additives. Researchers have
RFID system integrators choose to import chips
found graphene to be useful in both wet and dry
manufactured in Taiwan and China and only carry
applications. In wet application, the immediate
out the assembly locally.
advantage is in producing a less toxic wet lubricant
Graphene will be valuable to local solar cell
since the base fluid can be water-based.
producers as it enables lower manufacturing costs
since graphene conductive inks can replace the
silver-based mesh currently covering individual Platinum NanoChem
cells. By leveraging on this opportunity, Malaysian
domestic PV cell producers and assemblers According to press reports, one Malaysian firm
can get ahead of the innovation curve and spur has made innovation headway as a graphene
domestic production. application developer in nanofluids. Platinum

67

INGENIEUR
N an o C h e m S dn B h d, a
subsidiary of Malaysian-owned
Graphene Nanochem PLC,
a. Minority matching funding support for late-stage R&D and prototyping. This will
include expanding existing funding platforms and identifying accessible prototyping.
Prototyping equipment and facilities are available at government research agencies
and in universities (Exhibit 16).
EXHIBIT 16
Exhibit 16
Government research agencies and universities in Malaysia NON EXHAUSTIVE
that already have prototyping facilities
Government research agencies Universities

entered into a joint venture in Universiti Teknologi

Petronas (UTP)
2014 to produce graphene- SIRIM AMREC
Nottingham University
enhanced drilling fluids and
additives for the oil and gas Malaysian Rubber
Universiti Malaya (UM)

industry. The company has Board Universiti Sains

Malaysia (USM)
develop ed an integr ated Government
Universiti Putra
graphene dispersion process Malaysia (UPM)
MIMOS
for fluid matrices and solutions Universiti Teknologi
Malaysia (UTM)
to create fluids enhanced by Universiti Teknologi
graphene for oilfield chemicals CREST
Mara (UiTM)

and drilling applications. Universiti Pendidikan

Sultan Idris (UPSI)
Platinum NanoChem produces Various equipment and facilities already exist but are fragmented, facilitation by the Government
the graphene - enhanced 8 will greatly speed up the process

nanofluids at its factory in Research agencies and universities that have prototyping facilities| 19
Senawang, Seremban. Exhibit1 1
EXHIBIT NEW
b. Facilitating access and connection to potential sources of Graphene (Exhibit 17), made
to specification. Based on the governments impartiality, the provided Graphene
Government to play publicly
a critical role in establishing and maintaining
Enhanced Plastic supplier lists represent
Graphene project
available
development
information about global producers. While the
government does not endorse specificactivities
producers, all things being equal, preference for
products local suppliers will always be encouraged.
Project execution

For Malaysian plastic s

R&D and Access to
companies, enhancing current prototyping Graphene suppliers
Facilitate minority Facilitate connection to
products or developing entirely Awareness funding for R&D and potential sources of
required prototyping Graphene Scale up
building &
new product lines with graphene, facilitating
facilities t support
are keys to capturing additional projects
Access to IP
markets. Graphenes unique advice Access to expert
Facilitate introduction network
properties position it to be a to IP advisory services Manage & connect
companies to expert
for patent application
highly value-added additive. As or protection networks

a reinforcing filler, graphene can

increase the mechanical rigidity Coordination & monitoring
and strength of its host plastic.
Graphene also adds properties Governments role in graphene project development activities
similar to that of other carbon
additivesincreased electrical The first will be to build awareness about Graphene, its versatility and potential applications | 1
to Malaysian industry. In addition to the publication of this report, the government will lead
and thermal conductivity and ultraviolet light effort to continue generating awareness and call companies to action.
an extended outreach
protection. Graphene also provides cost savings
Second, duringas
to producers (compounders or converters) execution,
a
HOW GRAPHENE IS MADE
the government will also play a role in encouraging companies to
FROM BIOMASS
invest in late-stage Graphene-related R&D as well as early commercialisation. This includes
cheaper alternative to existing strength enhancing
facilitating access to Graphene suppliers, domain experts, and prototyping facilities (e.g.,
additives and by allowing producers to and
facilities useinfrastructure
less Theoffered Chemical
by SIRIM and Vapour
Technology Deposition method
Park Malaysia); is a the IP
navigating
plastic. bottom-up
landscape; and providing access approach,
to any available which uses methane
funding support.
(derived from biomass) as a feedstock to
Finally, once a company with the help of its partners has prototyped a product and is ready
Government Support produce
to commercialise, it can leverage graphene.
existing programmes The feedstock
to scale is passed
up its operations as required
overfrom
including incentives available a the
catalyst atInvestment
Malaysian high temperatures which(MIDA)
Development Authority
While graphene opens many opportunities for
and others. results in graphene forming on the surface of
growth in various industries, much groundwork the catalyst. On completion of this process, the
In parallel, given the potentially large number of parties involved in this action plan from both
needs to be done to realise the itspublic
potential. system
and private sector, is cooled
the government willand theactive
play an catalyst is removed
monitoring and coordination
role to ensure
Incorporating graphene into various materials progress. from
Two the
areas graphene.
will be monitored closely: the progress of Graphene-
related projects (especially when public funds are used for R&D), and the quality of partners
is not straightforward. It requires in-depth
both Graphene suppliers and domain experts, to ensure Malaysian companies are able to
access the highest quality partners within each category.
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Eventually, once there is active downstream participation, the government will seek to attract
a cluster of Graphene producers. Moreover, the scope of targeted applications can also be
extended to other industries where Graphene is expected to play a revolutionary role in the
knowledge of the materials characteristics and
specific behaviours in the context of specific
applications. In addition there is also the need for
FGV-Cambridge
comprehensive prototyping and testing.
As outlined in the NGAP 2020, the Malaysian
NanoSystems
Government, through NanoMalaysia as the lead
Cambridge NanoSystems started out as a young
implementing agency, will assist local companies
company born out of Cambridge University that
and industries to successfully innovate graphene
specialises in producing graphene and other
applications by providing specific support . Its
advanced materials, as well as working with
main roles are:
organisations to incorporate and test graphene
in their various applications.
Awareness building and facilitating projects:
In late 2013 Malaysias Felda Global
NanoMalaysia will be responsible for conducting
Ventures Holdings Berhad (FGV), a global
an extended outreach effort and generating
agricultural and commodities business acquired
awareness and comprehension within industry
a majority equity in Cambridge NanoSystems.
of the potential applications of graphene. The
FGV has an abundant supply of methane as
Government will also facilitate partnerships and
that is a by-product of their large-scale palm oil
collaborations across the various stakeholders
production. The FGV-Cambridge NanoSystems
in the ecosystem (e.g., between industry and
partnership aims to use its proprietary
academia, or between upstream and downstream
technology able to crack waste methane into
producers).
valuable graphene.
In early 2015, a large scale graphene
Project Execution: Companies can get assistance
production plant was opened in Cambridge
with late stage R&D and prototyping. The four
UK, with a production capacity of five tonnes
basic project execution support functions are R&D
per year. Production capacity will continue to
and prototyping, access to graphene suppliers,
increase in subsequent years. In September
access to IP advice and access to expert
2015 it achieved the internationally recognised
networks. Several Malaysian universities already
ISO 9001 certification and in May 2016, ISO
have prototyping facilities.
14001 certification.
FGV and Cambridge Nanosystems are
Scale-up support: At the commercialisation
currently planning to build another plant in
stage, NanoMalaysia will facilitate introductions to
Malaysia to supply the Asian market.
existing Government agencies such as Pemandu
and MIDA to access available resources, tax
incentives and EPPs to support in the scale-up
process.

Co-ordination and monitoring: NanoMalaysia

will be tracking and monitoring progress and
development of all graphene application areas.
This includes the progress of projects especially
when public funds are used for R&D and scale-up,
and the impact on the economy in terms of GNI,
investments and job creation.
REFERENCE
With numerous avenues of Government
support, it is up to the private sector to seize the www.graphene-info.com
opportunities in graphene applications. Their www.graphenemanchester.ac.uk
innovations will give a strong push to Malaysias www.graphenenanochem.com
economic growth beyond 2020. - Inforeach National Graphene Action Plan 2020 booklet

69
 INGENIEUR

Process
Safety
SAFETY & HEALTH

Concept and
Importance
By Azizul bin Buang, Centre of Advanced
Process Safety (CAPS), Universiti Teknologi
Petronas &
Ir. Abdul Halim Shah bin Maulud, Chemical
Engineering Department, Universiti
Teknologi Petronas

I
n process industries, raw materials are
converted into intermediate or final products
using physical and/or chemical processes.
Process industries produce, store, transport, use
and dispose of large quantities of materials, most
of which are inherently dangerous. The potential
for catastrophic accidents is very high due to
the hazardous nature of the chemicals used and
the hazardous process reactions and operations
e.g. temperature, pressure, radioactivity etc. The
potential loss of life and the economic costs due
to process accidents are huge and industries must
take steps to prevent them and minimise their
consequences.
Accidents in process industries have, in the
past led to loss of life and damage to equipment,
economic losses and environmental pollution.
Because of the inherent potential for the
catastrophic losses, the process industries have
rigorously pursued operational/process safety.
Process safety is of critical importance to
ensure the sustainability of industrial activities.
It is to ensure safe processes and operation
throughout the life of an industrial plant.
Unfortunately, the importance of process safety
has often only been promoted after high-
visibility industrial incidents. The driving force for
operational and process safety has been primarily
based on catastrophic events, characterised by
dramatic casualty tolls, significant environmental
damages and financial losses.
What is Process Safety?
Simply, process safety is a subject on how to make
sure processes are safe. Process safety is centrally
concerned with preventing critical releases of
energy or of substances in harmful quantities, and
with limiting the magnitude and consequences of
such releases should they occur. Process safety is
achieved by reducing hazards and their associated
risks to a level which is deemed acceptable by the
organisation and society at large. Consequently,
process safety mainly involves identification and
control of process hazards.
Why Process Safety?
In the 1970s and 1980s there were sequences
of severe process safety accidents causing major
loss of life and asset damage. The best known
were Flixborough (1974), Bhopal (1984) and
Philips Pasadena (1989).
The release of methyl isocyanate (MIC) from
the Union Carbide chemical plant in Bhopal,
India, in December 1984 has been called the
worst industrial accident in history. At least 2,000
people died and another 200,000 were injured
when toxic gas enveloped the city. The accident
was linked to human error - a relatively new worker
was assigned to wash out some pipes and filters,
which were clogged [1, 2]. The worker properly

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closed the valves to isolate the MIC tanks from
the pipes and filters being washed but he did
not, however, install a required slip blind (safety
disc) to protect the valves in case they leaked.
The worker who had been assigned the task of
washing the pipes reportedly did not check to
see whether the pipe was properly isolated. The
maintenance department was responsible for
inserting the safety discs, but the maintenance
sheet did not contain instructions to this effect. It
was reported that there was no supervisor during
the shift since that position had been eliminated
in a cost-cutting effort and hence the pipe-
washing operation was not under supervision.
These conditions merely identified the part of the
complex process involved in the causation of the
accident.
It is relevant to link the work by James Reason
[3] with this discussion on complexity of accident
causation. Reasons model addressed the issue
of two kinds of errors: active errors and latent
errors. Active errors were those where the effect
is felt almost immediately and latent errors
which tend to lie dormant in the system largely
undetected until they combined with other factors
to breach system defences. Reason highlighted
that accidents were not solely due to individual
operator error (active errors), but lay in the broader
array of systemic organisational factors (latent
conditions) in the upper levels of an organisation.
In Bhopal, it was clearly specified that the
refrigeration unit must be operating whenever MIC
was in the system with the aim that MIC was to be
maintained at a temperature no higher than 5C to
avoid uncontrolled reactions. A high temperature
alarm was to sound if the MIC reached 11C. The
refrigeration unit was turned off, however, to save
money and the MIC was usually stored at nearly
20C. Consequently, the threshold of the alarm
was adjusted, accordingly, from 11 to 20C and
logging of tank temperatures was halted, thus
eliminating the possibility of an early warning of
rising temperatures. Other protection devices at
the plant had inadequate design thresholds. The
vent scrubber, had it worked, was designed to
neutralise only small quantities of gas at fairly low
pressures and temperatures. The pressure of the
escaping gas during the accident exceeded the
scrubbers design by nearly two and a half times,
and the temperature of the escaping gas was at
least 80C, more than the scrubber could handle.
Similarly the flare tower (which was supposed to
burn off released vapour) was totally inadequate
to deal with the estimated 40 tons of MIC that
escaped during the accident. In addition, the MIC
was vented from the vent stack at about 33 m
above the ground; well above the height of the
water curtain intended to knock down the gas.
The water curtain reached only 12 to 15 m above
the ground. The water jets could reach as high as
about 35 m, but only if operated individually. The
above shows that in a complex system, accidents
often result from failed interaction among
components [1, 2].
Reasons models provided a change in thinking
about accidents and recognition of the complexity
of the causation of accidents. The model indicates
that major accidents were a result of a failure to
recognise the hazards in the system and the need
to establish a variety of defences to prevent their
adverse effects. And that is why process safety is
so important.
How does Process Safety Work
The major thrust of process safety is to prevent
and mitigate accidental or unintentional loss
of containment of hazardous materials. And
it works through a proven concept that has
been found useful in preventing and minimising
process safety incidents. The concept involves
the use of layers of protections or barriers [4].
These include systems for prevention, mitigation,
and recovery. Examples of prevention barriers
include basic process control systems, alarms
and maintenance. Examples of mitigation barriers
include dikes and containment, facility placement,
and fire protection systems. Examples of recovery
barriers include medical capability, mutual aid,
back-up structures and spare part systems.
Anatomy of an Accident
In order to understand how the concept of layers
of protections works, it is important to familiarise
ourselves with the anatomy of incidents or how
process incidents can occur [5]. Figure 1 shows
the anatomy of a process safety accident. During
71
 INGENIEUR
Figure 1: Anatomy of an Accident: Example of fire/explosion due to pipe rupture
normal operations, process hazards are contained
and controlled but they are still present. An
initiating cause or event such as a process upset
(e.g. pipe rupture) will result in a deviation (e.g.
abrupt pressure change due to an imbalance in
pressure with the atmosphere that will result in a
process hazard (e.g. a flammable gas in storage)
becoming a loss event (e.g. a leak of a flammable
vapour that ignites and explodes) with subsequent
impacts (such as injuries and structure damage).
Good layers of protection design prevents
or mitigates all forms of loss of containment by
controlling the process so that it remains within
its normal operating conditions and contains
or controls hazards. Figure 2 shows the basic
concept of layers of protections.
Once an initiating cause occurs, normal
operation cannot continue without a process
or operational response. If an initiating cause
develops, then the Basic Process Control System
(BPCS) is the first layer of defence to help bring
the process back into control. The control basically
provides the early process or operational response.
The BPCS addresses process deviations as they
occur and has either built-in control systems or
requires operator actions to bring the process back
into control. Many protective features are built into
basic process control systems which depend on
automation to maintain process variables at set
points, which are fixed at specific values to ensure
safe and normal operating conditions. If operator
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actions are required, the alarm system is installed
as the second layer of protection. The alarm brings
the unusual situation to the attention of relevant
persons at the plant who will analyse the situation
and decide on appropriate actions to regain the
defined safe condition.
The direct result of an initiating cause is a
deviation - an unusual situation, outside design
set-point or operational parameters. If a deviation
continues uncorrected (i.e. the BPCS failed
to regain control), it will cause a loss event -
irreversible releases of process material/energy.
If this situation occurs, the third layer of protection
plays an important role. Since the normal control
could not be regained, the appropriate next course
of action is to obtain a safe process condition.
This usually involves shutting down the process
in order to bring it into a safe working condition.
Normally, Safety Instrumented Systems (SIS) are
used to shut the process down. The SIS aims to
avoid any loss of containment.
If the process cannot be shut down in time,
then a relief system may be called into action.
The relief system tries to divert the material in
containment to achieve a reasonable pressure and
hence protect the containment. This mitigation/
protection layer may allow some impact event to
occur i.e. partial release of material/energy, but
they reduce the severity of the event. Pressure
relief systems for example, prevent catastrophic
rupture of the vessel, but they may release the

vessel contents to the environment. Although
this results in a loss of containment, the fluid is
discharged at an appropriate/minimum quantity
and to a specific safe location. The aim of relieving
the system is to avoid the catastrophic rupture of
the system by depressurising it.
As depicted via the example of a relief system,
the layers of protection basically employ actions
to minimise the impact of a loss of containment
event. Such layers of protections limit the extent of
the loss event. There are common cases in which
process plants provide secondary containment
or diking for flammable tank areas to ensure only
small areas are affected due to any discharge
of hazardous and environmentally unfriendly
material. The mitigation action also includes
installation of fire water systems which consist of
deluge systems or water curtains and long-range
water cannons.
Another layer of protection is provided when
operations are fully prepared for an emergency.
There must be an effective emergency response
plan which requires reliable communication
from the detection of loss of containment to the
discharge of the released gas to warn surrounding
areas of potential problems and to trigger-start
early and proper responses to minimise the impact
of the loss event.
As highlighted earlier, process safety is to
prevent and mitigate accidental or unintentional
loss of containment of hazardous materials. The
Figure 2: Line of Defence / Layers of
Protection in Process Safety
implementation of layers of protections provide
barriers to prevent undesired impact events from
reaching people, the environment, or equipment
thereby accomplishing process safety objectives.
Why Accidents still happen
Some recent process safety accidents include
the Texas City (2005) and Buncefield (2005)
explosions. Even though the layers of protections
system may have been implemented for many
decades and as a result most hazardous, out
of control conditions are known and protected,
serious accidents still happen today. And one can
therefore ask oneself, why do these accidents still
happen?
The occurrence of these accidents was not due
to unknown physical or chemical process hazards.
The Buncefield explosion, for example, was due
to the ignition of a vapour cloud emanating from
spilled gasoline due to overfilling a storage tank
[6]. And it has long been recognised that fires or
vapour cloud explosions can occur as a result
of spillage of flammable materials from above-
ground storage tanks in tank farms. Common
causes that could unleash spills include overfilling,
leaking from worn-out and corroded containment,
and loss of containment due to pipeline ruptures.
In the Buncefield incident, investigators said faulty
gauges and safety devices led to overfilling a fuel
73
 INGENIEUR
storage tank resulting in an escape of unleaded
petrol and the formation of a cloud of flammable
vapour that ignited. The causes which were
uncovered during the investigation highlighted the
failure of multiple levels of protection due to:
inappropriate procedures in testing and
operation,
failure to pass critical design knowledge
down the supply chain of safety systems,
lapses in maintenance and fault reporting,
and
poor interface design.
The initial failures leading to the accident were
a combination of a stressful working environment,
and undocumented filling and handover
procedures.Similar to the Bhopal accident, it was
shown here that major accidents often result from
interaction among components caused by the
occurrence of a variety of flaws and deficiencies,
together forming a bedding for the accident to
happen [7].
The accidents which have been discussed have
to be linked with changes driven by competition,
cost pressure, management methods and
human behaviour. The complexity of the process
installations and technologies are observable but
are not dominant in causing the accidents [7]. The
accidents can be linked to;
poor management,
weak competency,
extreme operating conditions,
focus only on reducing cost and saving time,
but at the same time loss of knowledge and
expertise,
complex safeguarding and control systems,
and
slipping maintenance and unclear
responsibilities,
All these produced conditions in which risk
awareness slowly declined. It can be seen that
due to such scenarios which can be linked to the
complex causation mechanism, process safety
incidents will still happen.
Process Safety Management
Operations supported by multiple layers of
protection may result in increased security for
employees, the public and increased profits. It is
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important though to acknowledge that not all the
layers totally cover the entire potential risk. Each
of the layers has its own weaknesses as previously
mentioned e.g. complex control systems, slipping
maintenance, low reliability of safeguards etc.
However, together, the whole suite of layers offers
a thick blanket of protection. Nonetheless it is
not enough to have these layers of protection
and to design systems to reduce the risks. It is
also important to consider how these layers of
protection and consequent chemical process
safety, can be managed.
The promulgation of 29 CFR 1910.119
Pro c e s s S afe t y M anagement (P SM) of
Highly Hazardous Chemicals Standards by
Occupational Safety and Health (OSHA) US
applies the principles of management systems
to the safety of chemical processes [8]. The
bulk of PSM Standards contains general
requirements which are performance based
and not site - specific. The PSM standard
emphasises the management of hazards
through a comprehensive programme that
integrates technologies, procedures, and
management practices. The standard has
14 elements that are fundamental to running
a safe chemical operation. These include
procedures to;
ensure employee participation,
train employees and contractors,
ensure mechanical integrity of equipment,
manage change procedures,
investigate incidents,
plan for and respond to emergencies,
audit for compliance.
Requirements to establish the PSM on-site
include information on the chemicals, equipment
and technology of the process, hazard analysis,
written operating procedures for the facility, and
detailed documentation of data collected to
assure for mechanical integrity.
The challenge with PSM is that it is not an
easy standard to understand or implement. But
as processes become more complex and the
number of operational conditions to be controlled
becomes more overwhelming, the PSM standards
offer a systematic and structured approach to
identification, prevention, and mitigation of risks
associated with hazardous chemicals to ensure
safe operation.
 By proactively identifying hazards, assessing
and characterising risks via obligatory process
hazard analysis, and taking actions to reduce
the identified, quantified risks, organisations can
prevent accidents and reduce the potential for
death, injury, property damage and environmental
impacts.
The PSM Standards also require written
operating procedures for correct operation to
ensure that tasks are conducted in a safe manner
and in accordance with the safety precautions
developed during process hazard analysis.
Implementation of mechanical integrity
assures that process equipment is in a
satisfactory condition to safely and reliably
perform its intended design function and operate
properly within the limits of established process
parameters as documented in the facilitys
process safety information.
In PSM, relevant changes that can affect the
process safety information upon which the process
hazards analysis is based, must be managed
through the management of change elements to
ensure that the operation and maintenance of the
process continues in the safest manner possible.
An audit to check that the process is operated as
required is critical. The main reason for auditing
or measuring the process safety performance is
to provide ongoing assurance that risks are being
adequately controlled.
The above describes the significant purpose
and integration of some of the PSM elements
for safer plant operation. Without question,
all the PSM elements are important and must
work together to provide the multiple layers of
protection that are relied upon for safe operation.
Conclusion
The layers of protections, even with their inherent
flaws, as a whole provide thorough defence for
safer process operation. Nevertheless, due to
weak competency, extreme operating conditions
of the processes, complexity of the processes and
the safeguarding systems plus the changes driven
by competition, cost pressures, management
methods and human behaviour, accidents do
still occur. Consequently, the provision of the
structured PSM programme elements should
systematically work to ensure reliable protection
in order to achieve the desired operational safety
objectives, which are to eliminate (or greatly
reduce) the number and severity of process-
related incidents.
REFERENCE
[1] Chouhan, T.R. (2005). The unfolding of
Bhopal disaster. Journal of Loss Prevention in
the Process Industries 18, pp. 205208
[2] Leveson, N. G., Stringfellow, M., & Thomas,
J. (2009). Systems Approach to Accident
Analysis. IT Technical Report. Available:
http://sunnyday.mit.edu/safer-world/refinery-
edited.doc, Accessed August 1, 2015.
[3] Reason, J.T. (2008). The Human Contribution:
Unsafe Acts, Accidents and Heroic
Recoveries. Surrey: Ashgate
[4] Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS)
(1993). Guidelines for Safe Automation of
Chemical Processes, American Institute of
Chemical Engineers, New York.
[5] Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS)
(2008). Guidelines for hazard evaluation
procedures, American Institute of Chemical
Engineers, New York.
[6] COMAH Competent Authority Investigation
Team (July 2007), Buncefield: Why did it
happen? Final investigation report, Available:
http://www.hse.gov.uk/comah/ buncefield/
buncefield-report.pdf, Accessed July 25,
2015.
[7] Knegtering, B. and Pasman, H.J. (2009).
Safety of the process industries in the 21st
century: A changing need of process safety
management for a changing industry. Journal
of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries
22, pp. 162-168.
[8] Occupational Safety and Health Agency
(OSHA) (1992). Process Safety management
of Highly Hazardous Chemicals.
Available: ht tps://w w w.osha.gov/pls/
oshaweb/ owadisp.show_document?p_
table=STANDARDS&p_id=9760, Accessed
August 1, 2015.
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 INGENIEUR
What Others Say About
Innovation
By Samniang Saenram
IN BRIEF
United Nations Development Programme
(UNDP)
Innovation for development is about identifying
more effective solutions that add value for the
people affected by development challenges
people and their Governments, our users and
clients. And we firmly believe that achieving the
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) requires
deliberate, calculated investments in testing new
ways of triggering change.
Technology is often a powerful enabler and
vessel for innovation. But technology does not
equal innovation per se. The key aspect is the
value added and measurable progress to bring
about real improvements in peoples lives.
Principles of Innovation
Design with the User
Develop context appropriate solutions
informed by user needs.
Include all user groups in planning,
development, implementation and
assessment.
Develop projects in an incremental and
iterative manner.
Design solutions that learn from and
enhance existing workflows and plan for
organisational adaptation.
Ensure solutions are sensitive to, and useful
for, the most marginalised populations:
women, children, those with disabilities,
and those affected by conflict and disaster.
Understand the Existing Ecosystem
Participate in networks and communities of
like-minded practitioners.
Align to existing technological, legal, and
regulatory policies.
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Design for Scale
Design for scale from the start, and assess
and mitigate dependencies that might limit
ability to scale.
Employ a systems approach to design,
considering implications of design beyond
an immediate project.
Be replicable and customisable in other
countries and contexts.
Demonstrate impact before scaling a
solution.
Analyse all technology choices through the
lens of national and regional scale.
Factor in partnerships from the beginning
and start early negotiations.
Build for Sustainability
Plan for sustainability from the start,
including planning for long-term financial
health, i.e. assessing total cost of
ownership.
Utilise and invest in local communities and
developers by default and help catalyse
their growth.
Engage with local Governments to ensure
integration into national strategy and
identify high-level Government advocates.
Be Data Driven
Design projects so that impact can be
measured at discrete milestones with a
focus on outcomes rather than outputs.
Evaluate innovative solutions and areas
where there are gaps in data and evidence.
Use real-time information to monitor and
inform management decisions at all levels.
When possible, leverage data as a by-
product of user actions and transactions
for assessments.
Use Open Standards, Open Data, Open Source,
and Open Innovation
Adopt and expand existing open standards.
Open data and functionalities and
expose them in documented Application
Programming Interfaces (APIs) where use
by a larger community is possible.
Invest in software as a public good.
Develop software to be open source by
default with the code made available in
public repositories and supported through
developer communities.
Reuse and Improve
Use, modify and extend existing tools,
platforms, and frameworks when possible.
Develop in modular ways favouring
approaches that are inter-operable over
those that are monolithic by design.
Do no harm
Assess and mitigate risks to the security of
users and their data.
Consider the context and needs for privacy
of personally identifiable information
when designing solutions and mitigate
accordingly.
Ensure equity and fairness in co-creation,
and protect the best interests of the end-
users.
Be Collaborative
Engage diverse expertise across disciplines
and industries at all stages.
Work across sector silos to create co-
ordinated and more holistic approaches.
Document work, results, processes and
best practices and share them widely.
Publish materials under a Creative
Commons license by default, with strong
rationale if another licensing approach is
taken.
Michael E. Porter The Competitive
Advantage of Nations
Create pressures for innovation. A company
should seek out pressure and challenge, not
avoid them. Part of strategy is to take advantage
of the home nation to create the impetus for
innovation. To do that, companies can sell to the
most sophisticated and demanding buyers and
channels; seek out those buyers with the most
difficult needs; establish norms that exceed the
toughest regulatory hurdles or product standards;
source from the most advanced suppliers; treat
employees as permanent in order to stimulate
upgrading of skills and productivity.
Seek out the most capable competitors as
motivators. To motivate organisational change,
capable competitors and respected rivals can be
a common enemy. The best managers always run
a little scared; they respect and study competitors.
To stay dynamic, companies must make meeting
challenges a part of the organisations norms. For
example, lobbying against strict product standards
signals the organisation that company leadership
has diminished aspirations. Companies that
value stability, obedient customers, dependent
suppliers, and sleepy competitors are inviting
inertia and, ultimately, failure.
Establish early-warning systems.Early-warning
signals translate into early-mover advantages.
Companies can take actions that help them see
the signals of change and act on them, thereby
getting a jump on the competition. For example,
they can find and serve those buyers with the most
anticipatory needs; investigate all emerging new
buyers or channels; find places whose regulations
foreshadow emerging regulations elsewhere;
bring some outsiders into the management team;
maintain on-going relationships with research
centres and sources of talented people.
Christensen Institute - Disruptive
Innovation
The theory of disruptive innovation was first coined
by Harvard professor Clayton M. Christensen in
his research on the disk-drive industry and later
popularised by his bookThe Innovators Dilemma,
published in 1997.
The theory explains the phenomenon by which
an innovation transforms an existing market or
sector by introducing simplicity, convenience,
accessibility, and affordability where complication
and high cost are the status quo. Initially, a
disruptive innovation is formed in a niche market
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 INGENIEUR
that may appear unattractive or inconsequential
to industry incumbents, but eventually the new
product or idea completely redefines the industry.
Its important to remember that disruption
is a positive force. Disruptive innovations are
not breakthrough technologies that make good
products better; rather they are innovations that
make products and services more accessible and
affordable, thereby making them available to a
much larger population.
The DIPLOMAT - Asias Great Innovation
Leap Forward
Asian countries are moving on up in the latest
innovation ratings. Can the region sustain its
progress?
China has joined the ranks of the worlds top
25 most innovative economies for the first time in
the latest global survey. Can Asia sustain its rise
up the rankings?
Western nations topped the leader board in
the2016 Global Innovation Index, with Switzerland
placing first for the second straight year, followed
by Sweden, Britain, and the United States.
However, the Asia-Pacific region also featured,
with Singapore moving up one place from the
2015 survey to sixth, South Korea gaining three
spots to 11th, Hong Kong down three spots to 14th,
Japan up three places to 16th and neighbours
New Zealand and Australia placing 17th and 19th,
respectively.
Japan was among four economies that stood
out in innovation quality a top-level indicator qualified, technically trained people. Respondents
that looks at the calibre of universities, number
of scientific publications, and international patent
fillings, said the report compiled by Cornell
University, INSEAD, and the World Intellectual
Property Organisation.
Elsewhere in Asia, Malaysia ranked 35th and
Thailand 52nd among the regions upper middle
income economies, while Vietnam (59th) led the
lower middle income economies, followed by
the Philippines (74th) and Indonesia (88th). Low-
income economy Cambodia placed 95th , with
every economy within East and Southeast Asia
and Oceania ranking within the top 100, unlike in
2015.
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Digital Mckinsey - Digital innovation in
Asia: What the world can learn
Companies in the region are transforming their
digital operations to great effect and building
some of the worlds most successful tech giants.
In Asia, a few factors make the impact of digital
more pronounced than in other markets, including
social penetration, consumers openness to new
technologies, the mobile Internet, and willingness
by companies to innovate.
Report from the Harvard Business School
(HBS) Asia Business Conference
Asian countries are no longer just a place to get
cheap labour or programming skills. Innovation is
on the rise.
Although Asian countries have been able to use
cost advantages and software coding prowess to
attract outsource business from around the world,
the region is quickly moving up the value chain to
challenge Americas leadership in innovation.
A recent survey of 200 mostly Fortune 500
companies found an irreversible process of
traditional white-collar jobs being sent to Asia.
Among the preliminary findings is that most
companies are not deterred by security or
intellectual property concerns when considering
outsourcing moves to Asia, Lewin said. The survey
also found that the factors driving offshoring
started with the need to find software smarts to
prepare for Y2K, but now include a shortage of
said they are likely to send work to the following
countries: India (69%); China (8%); the Philippines
(5%); Latin America (5%); Eastern Europe (4%); and
the Caribbean/Mexico (2%) i.e. in the States.
HBS professor McFarlan said it is clear that
Asia has benefited from the Internets ability to
send workincluding highly-skilled workeasily
around the globe. Asia is competing in the global
technology-enabled game, he said. That means
U.S. researchers will soon have as much to fear
from this trend as call center employees have in
the recent past.
BOAO Asia Forum
The future of Smart Devices
Wearables and smart devices are currently in infancy
where their potential has yet to be fully tapped. Key
success criteria for wearables include unparallel
useability, unique and smooth experience as well as
an attractive price point. Wearables should not be
seen solely as a hardware device, but an ecosystem
and a portal that has omnipresent interconnectivity
and a wealth of content available. Healthcare is
among the most promising sectors for smart devices.
Wearable technology can enable virtual care by
collecting sophisticated data for both doctors and
patients. The future form and evolution of wearables
is uncertain. However, we can be sure it will be
different by leaps and bounds from todays offerings.
Wearables and smart devices manufacturers must
keep the following in mind: small is beautiful, sensor
explosion, price matters, fusion of technologies, be
disruptive and integrate vertically.
Big data and traditional analytics are merging
Big data is no longer the hot buzzword it was a
few years ago that people strained their brains to
understand. It has now entered the mainstream
and can be viewed as an extension of traditional
data crunching.
The term big data generally refers to the idea
of analysing enormous volumes of information to
make better business decisions and improve the
performance of a companys internal computer
systems. Additionally, all that information doesnt
have to be stored in one place, like an Oracle
database, for example. It can be scattered across
multiple databases and systems.
Now, the new hot topic is cognitive computing,
which generally refers to computer systems built
to simulate human thinking and reasoning using
artificial intelligence techniques like machine-
learning algorithms. Cognitive computing systems
can recognise speech, identify objects in pictures,
and even learn to adapt to dangerous road
conditions if embedded within a self-driving car,
for example.
Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Innovation is the core of a nations progress
as well as the inexhaustible driving force for a
countrys development and prosperity. With the
rapid advancement of public innovation and
entrepreneurship, innovation is attracting more
extensive attention than in the past.
There are many types of innovations, which
play different roles in social and economic
development. They may produce different
outcomes, some of which are even undesirable.
If the social gap caused by innovations cannot be
bridged effectively, society will pay a bigger price.
Nations need to make breakthroughs in basic
studies and common technologies; and the public
should apply technologies in different fields. The
outcomes of innovations are uncertain; therefore,
investors should have an in-depth understanding
of the fields of innovations before investing in
them.
UNITED NATIONS ESCAP Harnessing
Science, Technology and Innovation for
Inclusive and Sustainable Development in
Asia and the Pacific.
In the closing months of 2015, the United Nations
General Assembly adopted its most ambitious, all-
encompassing agenda ever attempted, to guide
the advancement of humankind for the next 15
years. Collectively known as the 2030 Agenda,
the agreements call on all countries to advance the
welfare of their citizens in a sustainable manner to
ensure the long-term viability of all development
and growth. A key means of implementation of
these Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
is the effective use of science, technology and
innovation (STI).
The conceptual framework calls for two
normative shif ts in policy stance. First,
innovation policy for inclusive and sustainable
development must move beyond its traditional
focus on economic competitiveness to include
social justice and environmental protection.
Second, the principles of openness and
inclusivity must be integrated into innovation
strategies to complement policies promoting
competition as a driver of innovation. Those
countries that attempt to move forward in
isolation risk a perpetual state of catch-up and
under performance.
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ENGINEERING NOSTALGIA

The Old Waterworks

of Malacca
By Cheo Hong Keyong
This old style Malay waterwheel
known as the kincha was used
for paddy irrigation in Malacca
and around Kuala Pilah, Negeri
Sembilan in the pre-war era.

Undated photo showing a

wooden waterwheel propelled
by the current lifting river water
into the adjacent bamboo
channel to be transported to
the paddy field nearby.

Photos courtesy of Jabatan

Penerangan Malaysia.

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