Ms Nirupa Chander, Nirupa Chander - Country Service Manager, Singapore and Digital Lead for South-East Asia Region of ABB Group

Vietnam is thriving to catch up the wheel of the Fourth Revolution. So what are the advantages and challenges of Vietnamese enterprises, especially in manufacturing industry to approach and apply digital technologies, Industry 4.0 technologies?
Vietnam is well placed with a young digitally savvy workforce and leveraging Industry 4.0 technologies will be key to keep its competitive edge. We believe the government can stimulate adoption with the right policies and lead by examples in their own investment decisions.
With the projected growth in renewables, electronics manufacturing – Vietnam has a huge opportunity. Technology will also give Vietnam a key role in the region as it has the potential to become the supply base where local and international suppliers will build competence that can be used to export technology and deploy in the region. Continued courage and leadership in national and local government and a transparent, rapid roll out of policies will help Vietnam realise the opportunity.
To be specific, which sectors of Vietnam’s manufacturing industry that should and tend to apply more technologies in the time ahead?
Adoption of digital technology will be key for Vietnam to keep its competitive edge and firmly secure its position as a global manufacturing powerhouse. The utility generation and transmission/distribution infrastructure will need to leverage on digital technology with the changing energy mix and consumer demands. This will include addition of renewables in the network and also new loads like DC charging infrastructure with the projected growth in electric vehicles.
Manufacturing growth in Vietnam will also be sustainable through technological adoption. For example, Manufacturing Execution Systems can provide end to end visibility by integrating process intelligence, manufacturing execution, production intelligence and optimization.
How can the application of technology affect the profit of manufacturing firms?
Industry 4.0 and digitalization will be one of the key drivers to unlock signification values for businesses. With ABB Ability, we deliver digital and connected solutions that enable our customers to improve quality, flexibility, productivity and reduce production cost. This means increase in profitability and margins for the customers.
In addition, flexible and agile operations are becoming more and more beneficial to businesses especially in consumer industries where we are seeing a shift from product centric to customer centric.
For example, using condition monitoring and predictive maintenance tools, manufacturing customers can now improve their uptime, reduce quality issues and deliver faster. All these benefits result in dollars straight to the bottom line. Using technology to eliminate waste, improve productivity will give significant gains.
Some worry that the increasing application of technologies, smart solutions in manufacturing can boost the productivity, yet at the same time threat to “steal” the jobs of humans. In Vietnam’s case, what can you comment about this?
Every technology advancement, leads to changes in the needs of employers and employees. The key is not to try to ‘fight’ technological innovation, but embrace the opportunities that it brings, and ensure that the next generation of students is well equipped with relevant and practical training. For example ABB has just invested in a robotics training and service center and hired over 20 engineers to help manage the installation and optimization of robots.
Also ABB’s technology is first and foremost helps remove humans from tedious and sometimes even hazardous tasks. This allows our customers to deploy those resources to other, more relevant activities. And this is an aspect where reskilling and upskilling needs to be a key focus area for industry, government and institutions.
Thank you very much!