Product Spotlight - Fully Foldable Solar Cells & Existing Issues with Flexible Solar Cells

1. Flexible solar panels are another category of foldable devices receiving lots of scientific attention. And while many advances are being made, researchers have been having a challenging time making the panels fully foldable (repeatedly bend without breaking) until now.

2. Engineers at Korea’s Pusan National University created fully foldable prototype solar cells. Such panels would simplify storage and transportation and integration into everyday devices like cars, windows, phones, and clothing.

3. While flexible solar cells do exist, their bend is limited, like a card; If they bend any further, they break. A genuinely efficient foldable conductor can withstand the pressure of turning within a tiny radius while maintaining its integrity and function. That’s what the Korean engineers found.

4. Unlike merely flexible electronics, foldable devices are subject to much harsher deformations, with folding radii as small as 0.5 mm. This is not possible with conventional ultra-thin glass substrates and metal oxide transparent conductors, which can be made flexible but never fully foldable.

Product Spotlight - Float Switches In The Food and Beverage Industry

1. Float switches are used for point-level detection and are commonly used to control other devices such as alarms and pumps when a liquid level rises or falls to a specific point. 

2. Float Switches are used in a variety of industries and applications including applications in food and beverage, water and wastewater, and chemical industries.

3. Below are examples of food and beverage industry applications Float Switches are used in.

2021 Manufacturing Trends

1. It’s time to turn our attention away from Industry 4.0 and toward Industry 5.0. Where the fourth industrial revolution focused on using technology to optimize the means of production, the fifth is all about connecting man and machine — that is, collaboration between humans and smart systems.

2. Depending on who you ask, Industry 5.0 is either on the immediate horizon, or it’s already here, its arrival accelerated by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

3. Regardless which viewpoint you subscribe to, there can be no doubt that manufacturers must continue to embrace change in order stay ahead of competitors and win market share in an ever-evolving industry. Those who wish to not just survive, but thrive, must leverage the latest technologies and trends.

Ifo Business Climate Survey & Index

 1. The Ifo Business Climate Survey is a leading indicator of German economic activity, compiled by the Munich-based Ifo Institute for Economic Research. 

2. The ifo Business Climate Index is a highly-regarded early indicator of economic developments in Germany published on a monthly basis. Detailed results of the ifo Business Survey are published in the ifo Konjunkturperspektiven (in German).

Implementing Transit-Oriented Development

1. Pursuing TOD is a core requirement for cities to achieve a significant modal shift away from reliance on private vehicles. It requires long-term vision and investment. Cities as diverse as Portland, Cape Town, Curitiba, Tokyo and Stockholm are leading the way, and this is how cities can join them.

Thailand Develops Eastern Corridor with Deep-water Port, LNG Terminal &, Industrial Port Development

1. The EEC is part of the government's strategy to move Thailand towards a high-tech economy.

2. The area spans a combined 30,000 rai of land in the provinces of Chon Buri, Rayong and Chachoengsao to accommodate investments in targeted industries, focusing largely on advanced technology.

Steel & Magnet Wire Market & Forecast

1. The global steel wire market size is projected to grow from USD 93.2 billion in 2020 to USD 124.7 billion by 2025, at a CAGR of 6.0%. The steel wire industry is growing due to the rise in demand for steel wires from various applications, globally. The demand for steel wire is expected to decline in 2020 due to COVID-19. However, the end of lockdown and recovery in the end-use industries will stimulate the demand during the forecast period. 

2. The global magnet wire market size is projected to grow from USD 32.7 billion in 2021 to USD 41.8 billion by 2026, at a CAGR of 5.0%. The magnet wire market is growing due to the rise in the demand from wind electrical & electronics, industrial, infrastructure, and transportation industries. Growing tax incentives along with government stimulus packages are fuelling the growth of magnet wire market across the world.

Measuring Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) & its application & challenges

1. At its most basic, overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) is a simple calculation that can be the foundation of great process analysis. It is used to evaluate one machine, one station, or an entire factory. 

2. It’s understandable by operations, engineers and executive management, and it can guide real-time and long-term process improvements.

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.