INGENIEUR
engineering and automation utilising Industry
4.0 technologies seem to be good prospects to
consider to bring new services and products to
the customer. Already there are new emerging
technologies and applications, such as drones
and augmented- and virtual-reality based
applications that can enhance and provide value
to the aerospace engineering sector in various
fields (refer Figure 6).
Engineering Services in Malaysia
T h e M al ay s i an Ae r o s p a c e In du s t r y i s
considered by the Malaysian Government
as one of the strategic industries that can
have a big potential in shaping the country’s
future industrialisation and technological
development programmes 2 . One of the major
initiatives by the Government is to fulfil the
vision of the Aerospace Industry’s Blueprint,
which is “to achieve no. 1 aerospace nation
in South East Asia (SEA) and as an integral
part of the global market by 2030”. As a part
of this ambitious national goal, Engineering
Services are considered one of the four main
pillars of the aerospace sector and important
steps to upscale the sector must be taken to
ensure that the country becomes a competitive
aerospace nation in world markets by 2030.
The Malaysian Aerospace Industry Blueprint
2030 sets a vision for Malaysia to be the top
aerospace nation in South East Asia and to
become a part of the integral global market by
the year 2030 with a projected annual revenue of
RM55.2 billion while creating 32,000 high income
jobs in the process 2 . According to the National
Aerospace Industry Co-ordinating Office (NAICO),
revenue for Malaysia’s aerospace sector rose
6.67% to RM14.4 billion recorded in 2018, from
RM13.5 billion in 2017. The aerospace sector
delivers long-term earnings visibility for local
players, particularly in the supply chain network
for the original equipment manufacturers (OEMs)
including Airbus and Boeing. This is because
the sector receives between RM500 million and
RM800 million worth of investments annually from
both foreign and local investors. Hence, there
are ample opportunities to grow the aerospace
supply chain network and engineering services is
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one sector that will require increased investment
in order to meet the market penetration
expectations 2 .
Why Engineering Services are a Key
Component of the Local Aerospace
Ecosystem
Malaysia has a lot of potential to be the hub of the
engineering services for the region, particularly in
the aerospace manufacturing and aviation sector.
Malaysian companies however need to expand
their networks to leverage on their strength and
experience in their engineering expertise. This can
be achieved by studying the regional markets and
diversifying their current local client portfolios to
become a regional or even global player rather
than being easily contented to service only their
home market.
Malaysia will need to produce more highly
skilled engineers for both upstream and
downstream engineering activities in aerospace
product realisation and maintenance technical
services respectively. The depth and level of
capabilities of people involved will increase as
complexity of the work increases. Aircraft prime
manufacturers are pushing for higher “value-
addition” to the services provided to them. Thus
the industry will require engineers with more
expertise and experience. Today, for example,
maintenance engineers are mainly working
according to aircraft manuals but in the future,
they may be involved in defining and writing the
contents in the manual.
One of the key challenges for the local
market is the lack of maturity (compared to
developed countries) and fragmented nature of
the industry. In order to leverage on its support
capability, it requires the engineering services’
customers to provide them with consistent
work in order to sustain the high cost base
structure of engineering services operations.
The development of a tightly-knit ecosystem
approach is required where the availability and
growth of local engineering services matches
closely with the current operations and future
capacity planning of the manufacturing or MRO
customers. This will ensure the sustainability and
growth of engineering service organisations.