Withholding Tax

 1. Withholding tax is an amount withheld by the party making payment (payer) on income earned by a non-resident (payee) and paid to the Inland Revenue Board of Malaysia.

2. 'Payer' refers to an individual/body other than individual carrying on a business in Malaysia. He is required to withhold tax on payments for services rendered/technical advice/rental or other payments made under any agreement for the use of any moveable property and paid to a -resident payee.

3. 'Payee' refers to a non-resident individual/body other than individual in Malaysia who receives the above payments.

Key Metrics To Track Industry 4.0

 1. The following are the most valuable types of metrics for managing manufacturing operations today:

- Financial metrics that are based on real-time data monitoring from the shop floor 
- Customer responsiveness and satisfaction metrics
- Supplier and product quality metrics
- Efficiency-based metrics
- New Product Development & Introduction (NPDI) time-to-market performance

2. Operations teams are also designing their smart factory IT and Operations Technology (OT) systems to capture real-time data when possible on the following types of metrics:

- Asset and maintenance metrics including preventative metrics
- Inventory management, turns, and velocity
- Compliance metrics

3. The following are the valuable metrics to manufacturers as they plan, pilot, and launch smart factories.

Product Spotlight - bio-based additives (Estolide)

1. Biosynthetic® Technologies announced the launch of their new product line of novel additives for the metalworking fluids (MWF) market called Biocea™. 

2. Biosynthetic Technologies has developed a revolutionary new class of high-performance bio-based additives for the use in metalworking fluids, called Biocea. 

3. These novel sustainable additives use the patented estolide technology and are biobased, biodegradable, non-bioaccumulative, and non-toxic. 

4. Biocea additives leverage Biosynthetic Technologies’ proprietary estolide technology for high demanding water soluble, synthetic, and conventional oil additive applications. 

Product Spotlight - Glass-filled polyamide AKA Nylon

1. Glass-filled polymer (or glass-filled plastic), is a mouldable composite material. It comprises short glass fibers in a matrix of a polymer material. It is used to manufacture a wide range of structural components by injection or compression moulding.

2. It is an ideal glass alternative that offers design flexibility, chemical, durability, and chemical and shatter resistance.

High Tech Facility – National Investment Aspirations (HTF-NIA) Financial Assistance

1. As announced in the Budget 2021 speech by the Minister of Finance, Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) is establishing a RM1 billion High Tech Facility – National Investment Aspirations (HTF-NIA), as part of efforts to provide additional assistance for SMEs affected by COVID-19.

2. The facility is aimed at supporting high-tech and innovation-driven SMEs affected by COVID-19 to recover and revitalise the nation’s innovation capacity. 

3. This is critical to strengthen Malaysia’s competitive positioning in global value chains, preserve the supply chain ecosystem and safeguard high-skilled jobs.

China’s Incentives for Integrated Circuit, Software Enterprises

1. On August 4, 2020, China’s State Council released the Policies of Promoting High-quality Development of Integrated Circuit Industry and Software Industry.

2. The document lays out a wide range of policies to shore up the development of the integrated circuit (IC) and software industries, applying to all companies registered in China, regardless of nationality.

3. China has provided support policies for the two sectors since 2000, which are updated every decade – this is the second such update since their roll-out.

Updates on BOI (Thailand)’s Investment Promotion Packages

 1. The meeting of the Board of Investment of Thailand (the “BOI”) held on 4 November 2020 approved a large number of packages in order to promote more investment in various businesses. 

2. Updates regarding the BOI measures can be categorized into three (3) types as follows:

RCEP - world's largest Free Trade Agreement, Background, Scope & Chapters

 BACKGROUND
1. The RCEP negotiations was launched in November 2012 at the 21st ASEAN Summit in Phnom Penh, Cambodia but the negotiations only formally started in 2013.

2. Initially, RCEP was negotiated by 16 countries, consisting 10 ASEAN Member States (AMS) and ASEAN’s Free Trade Area (FTA) Partners or better known as AFPs. The AFPS are Australia, China, India, Japan, Korea as well as New Zealand.

3. Later in November 2019, during the ASEAN Summit, Prime Minister of India, Mr Narendra Modi announced that India cannot join RCEP in its current form.

4. In gist, the objective of RCEP is to streamline and amalgamate the ASEAN FTAs with its Dialogue Partners (ASEAN + 1 FTAs) into a single regional trade agreement that can contribute to strengthening regional value chain actives in the region as well make RCEP more user-friendly and simpler to use especially for the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs).

5. The ASEAN + 1 FTAs are:

ASEAN-China FTA

ASEAN-Australia New Zealand FTA

ASEAN-India FTA

ASEAN-Japan FTA

ASEAN-Korea FTA

Product Spotlight - 0.6 Millimeters Hot Rolled & Endless Strip Production (ESP)

1.  2018, an Arvedi ESP (Endless Strip Production) line installed in a plant belonging to the Chinese steel producer Rizhao Steel Group Co., Ltd (Rizhao) produced ultra-thin hot rolled strip with a thickness of just 0.6 millimeters for the very first time. 

2. Hot rolled strip as thin as this had never before been achieved anywhere in the world. 

3. This thin strip can cover more than 80 percent of regular commercial cold-rolled thicknesses. 

Challenges and Implementing Big Data

1. Manufacturers today seek to achieve true business intelligence through collecting, analyzing, and sharing data across all key functional domains. In this architecture, production systems are not only more efficient but can also respond in a timely manner to changing business needs, including signals from partners and customers.

Product Spotlight - Hot rolled steel vs cold rolled steel

Differences between Hot rolled steel vs cold rolled steel, advantages, disadvantages, characteristics, and usage.

Industry 4.0 real-world applications

 1. Embracing Industry 4.0, digital manufacturing and the interconnectivity that comes with it opens a myriad of benefits for companies, including greater agility, flexibility and operational performance.

2. we’ll be exploring the key technologies behind Industry 4.0, as well as real-world applications.

Product Spotlight - Anodizing Machined Parts for Electronics Manufacturers

1. The practice of anodizing — a form of electrolytic passivation that thickens the oxidized outer layer of a metal part — has existed for around a hundred years. 

2. Most widely used on aluminum, anodizing can also be applied to metals like magnesium, titanium and zinc, providing those materials with a hardened, corrosion-resistant coating.

3. Anodizing produces a number of positive effects and is therefore used for a variety of applications. 

4. However, it can be particularly useful in the electronics industry, where CNC machined aluminum parts are required to be long-lasting, aesthetically pleasing and safe for consumer use. You can see anodized aluminum on products by Apple and other market leaders.

Integrating EBOM/MBOM into PLM systems

1. A BOM can define products as they are designed.” Most people now acknowledge the role of another critical enterprise business system to manage product design, which is product lifecycle management or PLM software.

2. The concept of an engineering bill of material (EBOM) was introduced in PLM systems, since there is very rarely a single tool that fully defines the design intent of a product. This is most commonly due to the increasing number of products that require mechanical, electronics, and software engineering — also referred to as mechatronic products.

3. Each of these engineering disciplines have different design tools that are used. When this is the case, the PLM EBOM addresses individual design tool limitations by synchronizing the CAD design structures from multiple tools to items in a single product’s EBOM.

Implementing BOM into ERP System

1. Poor master data management is often a hindrance to using an ERP system well. Bills of Material, BOMs, are a key piece of that ERP master data. Let’s look at a BOM to understand how it can be used and managed in your ERP system.

2. A BOM is organized by levels and includes all the parts that are used to build your product. Level 0 is the final product sold to your customer. Level 1 might be one or more subassemblies used in level 0. There is no limit to the levels but generally you want as few as possible to keep things simple.

3. Within a BOM level are a list of part numbers and the quantity needed to make up the next level. 

4. Part descriptions, units of measure, procurement types, etc. are often thought of as parts of a BOM but they really are items in the part master file which is a different ERP master data item. 

5. Those values will affect how the BOM works in your ERP and they are very important.

Creating An Effective Bill of Materials (BOM)

1. A bill of materials (BOM) is a comprehensive list of parts, items, assemblies, and other materials required to create a product, as well as instructions required for gathering and using the required materials.

2. The bill of materials can be understood as the recipe and shopping list for creating a final product. The bill of materials explains what, how, and where to buy required materials, and includes instructions for how to assemble the product from the various parts ordered. 

3. All manufacturers building products, regardless of their industry, get started by creating a bill of materials (BOM).

4. Because the bill of materials pulls together all sorts of product information, it is common that several disciplines (design and engineering, document management, operations, manufacturing, purchasing, contract manufacturers, and more) will consume data contained within the BOM record to get the job done right. 

5. In fact, engineers and manufacturers rely so heavily on BOMs that their own special subsets called the engineering bill of materials and the manufacturing bill of materials.

6. The BOM guides positive results from business activities like parts sourcing, outsourcing, and manufacturing, so it is important to create a BOM that is well organized, correct, and up-to-date. 

7. And for companies that outsource manufacturing activities, it is especially important to create an accurate and revision-controlled bill of materials. Any time the BOM is handed off to a contract manufacturer (CM) or supplier, it should be correct and complete to avoid unnecessary production mistakes and product launch delays.

ABC (Value) & XYZ (Demand) Inventory Analysis

 1. ABC inventory analysis is a method used to classify a business’s stock items into three categories – A, B and C, based on their value to the business. 

2. A items are the most important in terms of the value they bring a company, whilst C items are the least valuable. 

3. ABC inventory analysis is important as it helps managers focus their time on their most valuable / important products and adapt their inventory control policies accordingly.

Sales Forecast Basics and ABC Inventory Classification

1. A sales forecast is a prediction of future sales revenue. Sales forecasts are usually based on historical data, industry trends, and the status of the current sales pipeline. Businesses use the sales forecast to estimate weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual sales totals.

2. New businesses that don’t have much data about their own sales process may need to rely on industry averages or even educated guesses. On the other hand, more established companies can use their historical data to model future performance.

Inventory Demand Forecasting Techniques, Forecasting for Subassembly levels and Bills of materials

1. Inventory demand forecasting is the process of predicting customer demand for an inventory item over a defined period of time. 

2. Accurate inventory demand forecasting enables a company to hold the right amount of stock without over or under-stocking, for optimum inventory control. 

3. Historical data trends and market knowledge of how demand can fluctuate are often used to forecast inventory demand.

4. Forecasting inventory can be as basic or as complex as you make it. 

5. As a simple rule, the more sophisticated your inventory forecasting techniques, the more accurate your predictions will be. 

6. Accurate demand forecasts allow you to efficiently serve customers’ needs without investing capital in large amounts in stock, effectively helping you lower your overall operational costs. 

7. However, inventory forecasting can be challenging to undertake without the right guidance, so starting with basic forecasting techniques is advisable.

Utilizing ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) for Forecasting Fuctionality

1. There are many ways to forecast business trends and all of them fall under two extensive categories like qualitative & quantitative. Let’s discover more about these models: