Workers in factories in Singapore are increasingly being trained to work alongside robots, in line with a wave of new technologies sweeping across the manufacturing sector.

Companies say that workers who are well versed in emerging skills such as data analytics are in demand, especially as firms fight to maintain their edge amid shortening product cycles and stiff global competition.

These comments came as the Industry Transformation Map (ITM) for electronics manufacturing was unveiled over the weekend. The road map includes plans to help electronics manufacturers diversify into new growth opportunities, transform existing factories and deepen workers’ skills. It aims to create S$22.2 billion in value-add and 2,100 jobs for professionals, managers, executives and technicians by 2020.

The ITM includes a Skills Framework for the sector listing the skills needed and relevant training programmes. Skills in demand include those related to artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, data analytics, robotics and automation.

These are in line with emerging sources of demand, said Russell Tham, regional president for Southeast Asia at semiconductor equipment supplier Applied Materials, who added that “emerging transformational technologies are heavily reliant on innovations in advanced semiconductors”.

Tan Yew Kong, vice-president and general manager of semiconductor company Globalfoundries, said the moves announced under the ITM will equip the workforce with industry-relevant skills.

“When people join the sector with structures already in place to train them, it makes it easier for companies like us to grow our business. It is a win-win situation,” he said.

Globalfoundries was among the first in the sector to incorporate a mobile robot in its factory, he said.

“To be on the shop floor, not |just with other workers but with a robot running around, is something workers need to be familiar with – dos and don’ts, what to do when the robot malfunctions and so on,” Tan said.

Ajayan Ramachandran, regional head of people development at Infineon Technologies Asia Pacific, said: “We are eliminating the low value-added jobs and bringing in robots. Workers will increasingly have to work in an environment where they collaborate with robots.”

The robot dog, developed by startup Next Technology, can check for foot odour.

Next Technology is based at the National Institute of Technology in Kitakyushu College in Kitakyushu, Japan.

It aims to market the 15-centimetre-long stuffed robot next spring at a price tag of between 100,000 yen and 200,000 yen.

Hana-chan has an odour-detection sensor in its nose.

The robot reacts in three different ways according to the degree of a detected odour. If the odour is weak, the robot nestles up to you; if the odour is moderate, the robot barks; and if the odour is strong, the robot faints.

Next Technology set the level at which Hana-chan faints using socks that had been worn for two days straight. The company plans to add a deodorant-spraying function to the robot in the future.

Next Technology president Takashi Takimoto, who is also an associate professor at Kitakyushu College, and others visited the Kitakyushu city government office on September 7 to introduce Hana-chan to mayor Kenji Kitahashi.

Hana-chan sniffed the mayor’s feet and nestled up to him. “It’s a great idea for interacting with robots in our daily lives,” Kitahashi said.

“The development of venture capital in Indonesia has been very explosive in the last five years. It has grown by 60 times,” said Mifza Muzayan, sales operations and strategy lead at Google, as reported by tempo.com.

Meanwhile, Google Indonesia managing director Tony Keusgen said that startup investment in 2016 was recorded at US$1.4 billion, while in the first-eight months of 2017 investment had already reached $3 billion.

“We can see that this year, investment value has already doubled, compared to the figure in 2016. This finding is very useful and we hope that it |will help to further increase startup investment,” said Keusgen.

The research on “Indonesia’s Venture Capital Outlook 2017”, held between May and August, indicates that the Indonesian startup environment was still |in an initial stage, but it held promise of high growth, particularly in the e-commerce and transport sectors.

The research shows high |confidence among venture |capital investors in the invest-ment opportunities in Indonesia, taking into account the country’s economy, growing middle-class population and the large number of technologically savvy young people.

Meanwhile, Alessandro Gazzini, partner at AT Kearney, said he was surprised about the high enthusiasm among venture capital investors. “They are convinced by the high market potential in this country,” Gazzini said.

Uber and Grab have made competition stiffer than ever, forcing traditional taxi firms suffering from a decline in market share to make technology-driven innovations.

Seven taxi firms in Vietnam have developed their own car hailing apps, besides Uber and Grab, under a government approved pilot project to apply science and technology in passenger transportation. The seven apps were now available on AppStore and Play Store.

What’s significant is that |car hailing apps of taxi firms do not increase fares during rush hours.

According to Nguyen Van Thanh, president of the Auto Transport Association, the 4.0 industrial era is approaching and it is, therefore, vital to encourage transportation firms to apply advanced technologies.

“The market will certainly witness positive developments,” said Thanh. “However, it is of significant importance that management policies ensure healthy competition to benefit both providers and passengers.

“As a matter of course, the competition will be fierce in |both passenger and goods |transportation.”

Thanh added that supply exceeded demand to some extent, raising a pressing question about appropriate management policies amidst a rapid increase in cars even as transport infrastructure was severely overloaded in large cities.Thanh cited statistics of the VietNam Register, according to which the number of cars reached 200,000 in July.

Proposal for Grab, Uber

Recently, taxi firm Vinasun proposed that Grab and Uber should be managed as taxi firms in Viet Nam.

Viettel telecom recently signed a comprehensive strategic cooperation agreement with Vietnamese transportation |start-up Gonow.

Accordingly, Viettel will |provide Gonow with support |in developing websites, along |with a sales network, customer care system and payment |services. In addition, Viettel |will hold 30 per cent stake in Gonow.

Founded one year ago, Gonow is a platform that connects drivers or car owners with customers to provide passenger and goods transportation services, as well as car leasing.Gonow now operates in 64 provinces and cities nationwide and plans to expand to international markets from the end of 2018.

At present, the platform has more than 170,000 members, a whopping rise from just 3,500 in the first quarter of this year.

Having said that Singapore should learn from China in emerging areas such as cashless payments, Lee took the lead with his visit to the artificial intelligence (AI) company that focuses on facial recognition, big data analysis and deep learning.

SenseTime, set up in 2014, is a rising star in China’s start-up scene and counts major companies China Mobile, UnionPay, Weibo and Huawei among its clients.

Lee was also shown technologies that Singapore has been trying to roll out under its Smart Nation initiative. These include an AI-enabled surveillance camera network that the Chongqing government has used to monitor and track 70 suspected criminals. Fourteen have been nabbed to date using the system.

SenseTime’s chairman, Professor Tang Xiaoou, showed Lee how traffic cameras can be made smarter: Using the firm’s technology, computers are able to differentiate different forms of passenger and vehicular traffic from a livestream feed of vehicles passing right outside the office.

The company also demonstrated the military applications of its technologies. Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen saw how AI can be used to analyse satellite imagery for military assets, and topographic and terrain data. The technologies also have disaster-relief applications, such as the mapping of road conditions and detecting cracks.

Singapore has been on a push to not only roll out more sensors such as surveillance cameras and air quality monitors, but also harness technology such as machine learning to make sense of the vast sea of data that is being collected.

The applications of AI as demonstrated by SenseTime, including the use of facial recognition as an authentication method, are relevant to three major projects under way in Singapore: The Smart Nation Sensor Platform, the National Digital Identity and e-payments.

SenseTime’s technology touches all three fields.

Tang shared that his firm’s facial recognition is being used by a major retail client for payments in a trial cashierless department store. It is successful enough that a second one has been planned.

SenseTime has raised at least US$410 million (Bt14.6 billion) to date in venture capital, and is valued at US$1.5 billion, putting it at No 56 on the China Money Network’s China Unicorn Ranking of private tech companies valued at US$1 billion or more in China.

A PAC P-750 XSTOL turboprop aircraft, built by the New Zealand plane manufacturer Pacific Aerospace, has been modified into an unmanned aircraft and has recently begun conducting taxiing tests.

“The plane will make its maiden flight in early October if preparation work proceeds well,” said Chen Xiang, director of unmanned aircraft vehicle guidance at Aviation Industry Corp of China’s Xi’an Flight Automatic Control Research Institute.

“Once its flight tests are finished, it will become the world’s first large transport drone that is ready for commercial operations,” Chen told China Daily in an exclusive interview on the sidelines of a civilian-military integration development expo last week.

The refit was done by designers and engineers from several domestic institutes such as the Institute of Engineering Thermophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the AVIC Xi’an institute. The work is being done for SF Express, the second largest courier service in China after State-owned China Post.

The cargo drone first will be used for technological demonstrations and the civil aviation authorities’ certification process and then will be put into commercial operation, according to the AVIC Xi’an institute.

Amazon, DHL

International giants such |as Amazon.com and DHL |Express have begun to deploy drones for delivery service on a small scale and are continuing to develop new models. However, the drones in service or under development are all small and could not compete with the large Chinese drone in speed and carrying capacity, Chen said.

“The reason we lead in this field is that China is leading in online commerce and thus has a bigger demand for such drones than others.”

Engineers removed the pilot’s instruments in the P-750’s cockpit and installed ground-control and automated flight devices, which are the most important apparatus on an unmanned plane, he said. Others of the institute’s engineers then rearranged the cabin and mounted additional equipment on the aircraft.

After the modification, the plane has a maximum takeoff weight of 3.4 metric tonnes, a carrying capacity of 1 tonne and a flight range of more than 2,000 kilometres, according to the designer.

Chen said that compared with manned cargo planes, a freight drone’s operational costs would be about 30 per cent less. It will be used for short-haul deliveries of time-sensitive goods such as fresh food and medical supplies.

“Next, we will focus on how to improve the drone’s safety, reliability and intelligence. Future models will also be based on utility aircraft with a takeoff weight of 3 to 5 tonnes and will likely be capable of conducting an automated takeoff, cruising flight and landing with no manual manipulation,” he said.

“The project team is in talks with the Civil Aviation Administration and other related authorities on issues of policy and airworthiness certification. The administration is open to the service of cargo drones.”

SF Express said it owns an aircraft fleet of 40 Boeing cargo jets and has rented 15 planes from leasing firms.

The company plans to expand the number of its own cargo planes to 100 by 2021.

Trucks and ships

Wang Yanan, editor-in-chief of Aerospace Knowledge magazine, said there is no large transport drone now available in the market and regional freight transportation in China relies on trucks and ships because the air transport is restrained by high costs, strict airspace controls and a shortage of pilots.

“Each manned cargo plane requires an average of 3 million yuan (Bt15 million) each year for its crew. Meanwhile, there has been a personnel gap of at least 10,000 aviators in the domestic market, which hugely contributes to the slack growth of cargo air transport,” he said. “Therefore, unmanned cargo aircraft will be a reasonable solution for couriers to expand their network and boost their efficiency.”