- 9 minutes ago
Kecerdasan buatan (AI) kini mula mengubah operasi kilang sawit di Malaysia, termasuk sebuah kilang di Perak yang mengintegrasikan teknologi ini bagi meningkatkan kecekapan, mempercepatkan proses kerja, mengurangkan kesilapan dan mengoptimumkan penggunaan tenaga kerja. Sejauh mana AI mampu mentransformasikan industri sawit negara ke arah operasi yang lebih pintar dan kompetitif?
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:07Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh
00:08Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh
00:08Anda bersama saya dalam segmen ini
00:09Saya Kabir Aziz
00:10Dan dalam segmen ini
00:11kita akan berbincang tentang
00:13topik AI
00:14yang sekarang mempunyai
00:15palm oil mills di Malaysia
00:17dan tanpa selanjutnya
00:18saya akan bersama
00:18Puan Surendran Kuranaden
00:20Puan Puan dan Puan Eksekutif
00:23Puan Iray Sendirian Berhad
00:25Selamat pagi Puan Surendran
00:26Selamat pagi
00:27How are you?
00:28I'm good
00:28So today we're going to talk about
00:30an industry that is very traditional
00:32in a sense
00:33but you are one of the pioneers
00:35of integrating AI into palm oil mills
00:38So maybe just a gist of it
00:40How would you explain
00:41what are you doing?
00:43What is Iray doing
00:43in integrating AI into palm oil mills in Malaysia?
00:47Thank you Kabir
00:48First of all
00:49Iray stands for
00:50Artificial Intelligence Robotics Engineering Industries
00:53and Iray has been
00:56substantial in terms of
00:58powering AI solutions
01:00into the whole supply chain of palm oil
01:03be it in the plantation or the nursery
01:05and also the mills
01:07and the processing facilities thereafter
01:09So we have been introducing AI solutions
01:12not only software
01:12software embedded with AI
01:14into making the whole supply chain more efficient
01:19and also technology advanced
01:20but when you talk about
01:22integrating this AI technology
01:25and palm oil
01:25as I said
01:26palm oil industry is quite traditional
01:28and how would you
01:29you know
01:30at the beginning
01:31how were you confident
01:32that you know that
01:33integrating AI and palm oil
01:35would work
01:36and as excellent as it is
01:38you are doing right now?
01:39This is a difficult point
01:42where we are surpassed
01:44because palm oil has this mentality
01:46of you know
01:47working with reality
01:49which means that you know
01:50they want something they can see
01:51they can feel
01:52and they can touch
01:53that is how the whole fraternity works
01:55but when we introduce AI into the industry
01:58it was a big mindset shift
02:00which we needed
02:01and we had to show real results
02:04in terms of incorporating AI
02:06and how it's actually transforming the industry
02:09for example
02:10if a palm oil mill
02:11we just are not going to involve
02:13something to do with AI
02:14and tell them that you know
02:15this is what is going to be the result
02:17we have to prove it
02:19and there are a lot of factors
02:20which we need to work together
02:21in order to come up with the results
02:23so that is how we have been able
02:25to significantly show
02:27in terms of the adoption of AI
02:30has actually brought a transformation
02:31to the industry
02:32and you know
02:34we have from my reading
02:36we have around 450 palm oil mills in Malaysia
02:38so maybe can you explain
02:40how many have you integrated AI
02:42and how are people accepting
02:45that AI integration
02:46so back in 2024
02:48we introduced the first AI smart palm oil mill
02:51which was about 45 ton per hour capacity
02:54and that is the first meal
02:56it was officiated by then
02:58the Honourable Minister of Plantation and Commodities
03:01Dato Johari Gani
03:02and that was the first significant project
03:06where we have been able to reduce
03:08about 53% of manpower
03:10in the factory alone
03:12which was very significant
03:13and then the direct impact
03:17of reducing the manpower
03:18was where we saw an increase in efficiency
03:21and also the revenue
03:22in terms of the extractions
03:24so that was the impact we have started
03:26then we have also came up to the second mill
03:28which was only launched about a month ago
03:30which was in Langkap
03:31it was a bigger capacity
03:33and an older mill
03:34the first one was about 43 years old
03:37and the second one was about 48 years old
03:40so we have been retrofitting our solutions
03:42into a very old setup
03:43and where there is also an increase
03:46in terms of extraction
03:47and also we are looking at reducing the manpower also
03:50so that is our stages of success
03:53and we are also looking at expanding this project
03:56to Indonesia, India, Africa and also in Latin America
04:00so now you say that you are coming to the second
04:03Yes, correct
04:04so from the first one, going to the second
04:06I guess there must be have a lot of challenges
04:09in terms of integrating for a palm oil mill that is 40
04:13more than 40 years old
04:14so maybe how would you describe the challenges from the first one
04:18and then now coming to the second one
04:20maybe what change between those two palm oil mills?
04:24the common factor we had to deal with was the mindset shift
04:29which is basically the understanding of the people in the mills
04:36or the factories are usually people who have been working with machineries
04:41and you know very less tech involvement
04:43and when you bring in AI which is a new jargon in town
04:47and you have to tell them and explain to them
04:50and you know bring down to the level of operators
04:54to make them understand that we are not here to eliminate them
04:58we are here to empower them with AI
05:00that was the biggest challenge
05:01and when you go to the next level
05:03it is the retrofitting which comes in
05:06you have been bringing in sensors
05:08where into an environment where it's robust, it's hot, it's steamy, it's oily
05:13so this kind of things has to be fitted in a proper manner
05:17without interrupting the operation
05:19because palm oil is dealing with fresh products
05:22and you are talking about running a mill at 24 hours
05:25and it runs 24-7
05:27for a week it actually runs about 6 days
05:29and they stop for a day for maintenance on Sundays
05:32so we cannot interrupt by telling the millers
05:35that we need to stop the production
05:37and then we are going to do our work
05:38it has to go concurrently simultaneously
05:41so these are all the constraints we face
05:43and we have to have a time span of maybe 9 months to fit all this thing
05:48to get the control room ready
05:50and then we have to train the people there
05:52because it's totally and entirely new technology
05:54and then come to the point of embarking into the journey with the mill itself
06:00so that was the constraints we faced
06:02oh, I mean, I guess it's quite hard for the people to accept that
06:06you know, you guys are going through a transformation
06:09because you know, in Perak, it's a village-oriented place
06:12and especially in Langkap
06:14and also the first one was Kuala Kangsa
06:16Kuala Kangsa
06:17my hometown
06:18so, when you talk about
06:20you know, finally integrating these AI technologies
06:22you said that it significantly boost the production
06:26and also, you know, the income that comes with into it
06:29maybe you can tell the viewers out there
06:32like how much has it improved
06:35compared to having manpower and now integrating AI
06:38okay, the first thing which is tangible
06:42we are looking at the savings of the manpower
06:47because when you are talking about a factory or a mill
06:50we are always having the thought that you know
06:54we need a lot of manpower
06:56usually 70, 80, 100
06:59and this 80% of this force is always foreign workers
07:03and that was what which is we were trying to retrofit our senses
07:11and try to reduce the number of foreign labour in the mills
07:15and we are totally dependent on foreign labour to run our industry
07:19especially the palm wood, be it the plantation or even the mills
07:22so, what we are doing here is that we are trying to reduce the number of foreign labour
07:27and we are trying to empower our own Malaysians with the technology
07:31the savings of that is very significant
07:34that is the first thing
07:35the second one is in terms of extraction rates
07:38when we are reducing the humans or the operators, the foreign operators
07:43we are also reducing the human errors which has been the main cause of oil losses
07:49this is oil which is being lost in the production line
07:52and when you are actually using the machine to control all the parameters
07:55all the parameters are set at its optimum rates
07:58the room for error has been reduced
08:00and that actually increases the efficiency whereby it also increases the extraction rates
08:06and that extraction rate in the last project we have seen
08:09even in the news it was published by the owner of the mill itself
08:13it has increased about 0.1 to 0.2% which is substantial also
08:17and the third one is we are looking at reducing the maintenance which is being done in the mill
08:23which is the breakdown rates
08:24and we are able to prevent a lot of things
08:28because AI will give us predictive and prescriptive reports
08:32it actually tells you what can go wrong before it can go wrong
08:36so those kind of things is very important for us to prolong our production
08:41and keep it at productive hours
08:43so these are the three savings we have seen
08:45in terms of manpower you don't need to pay so much in terms of labour
08:49the second one is your revenue in terms of your extraction increase
08:53and the third one is you save a lot in terms of your maintenance cost
08:57that is the substantial savings
08:59yeah and this is a very big and significant innovation for the palm oil industry
09:03if you want to be an economic hub for palm oils
09:06and I guess that you know this is your first year
09:10I mean the second pump oil mill that you have integrated AI
09:14now since we are at the end of the show
09:16we would like for you to give the hopes and you know what maybe your long term plan
09:21in five years maybe how would you see this innovation thrive in Malaysia
09:26and what would happen in five years time
09:27yeah I always tell to my friends in the industry
09:32we are only at the first stage of the innovation
09:35which is the AI where we are fitting in
09:37this is like the version one where we are creating the awareness
09:40and with the results being seen
09:44it creates a lot of interest in people adopting AI
09:47so when AI is coming in
09:49the next the whole idea is to actually make the industry sexy again
09:54because palm oil is an industry which is actually losing its popularity
09:58oh really?
09:59because the Gen Z's are no longer interested in coming into the palm oil industry
10:03they don't want to be gardeners
10:04they don't want to be in the trees
10:06yes so people look at palm oil as something like the exact word you said gardeners
10:10so who wants to be labelled as a gardener
10:13nobody wants to say my boyfriend
10:14nobody wants to do hard labour
10:15yes exactly
10:15so what we are trying to do is we are trying to you know innovate the processing facility first
10:21which is where we embed AI
10:23the AI is something where we no longer need people to go and do the hard labour
10:28everything is being done
10:30yes of course we need a little bit of people to do the maintenance
10:33and things the replacements and stuff
10:35so the first part is we are trying to make it into something where the Gen Z could come and
10:40render their services
10:41there is AI there is a way how to run the mill in a proper manner and things like that
10:46it is no longer with all those hard labour kind of an attitude
10:49that is the first phase that is for the processing facilities
10:52and we also are embarking into robotic projects where we are trying to bring robots into the plantation sector which
10:58is the upstream
10:59that could also make the industry much better because we need to increase the yields in the plantations as well
11:05so that is another project we are also working with a lot of partners
11:09so down the road in five years we are looking at digitising and revolutionising the whole palm oil industry
11:15which is due time and somebody has to do it
11:17yeah I think you know Gen Zs they want white-collar jobs
11:22exactly
11:22so I think by integrating this technology you are kind of changing this blue-collar industry to somehow a light
11:30blue-collar industry
11:31and Gen Zs will be more interested because yeah I talked with one of the CEOs of MPOB and he
11:36said like Gen Zs are not interested at all
11:38and this this industry is majorly more done by people who are older
11:44and as you said foreign workers so I think by this technology it is a very important innovation
11:50for us to make the palm oil industry to go forward a bit and for us to become more significant
11:58because we are competing with Indonesia with all the other countries around us
12:02and thank you so much to Mr. Surendran for explaining to us about this very important innovation
12:08and I hope that for everyone hearing this is maybe a pioneer for us to maybe go into the palm
12:14oil industry
12:14don't wait too long because people are trying to get into the technology right now
12:18and if you invest right now maybe you will reap the seeds in the future
12:23thank you so much Mr. Surendran and that is all from me Kabir Aziz
12:26thank you so much for watching and we will see you again later
12:32thank you so much for watching and I'll see you again later