Sebastien Giard, SIO Transformation Director and Clement Lix, Centre of Excellence Director of Air Liquide.

Air Liquide was founded in 1902 and has grown to become a prominent world leader in gases, technologies and services for industry and health, with gases bringing in 96% of their revenue. The company is currently present in 80 countries, serving a vast market of 3.5 million customers. Most of their operations are managed from their central headquarters in Paris, France, whilst their footprint in Malaysia began in 1927 where they became one of the pioneers of the gas industry in the region.

In 2017, Air Liquide launched its Financial Shared Services Centre in Malaysia, whose key function involved the managing of financial transactions of all the company’s entities throughout the Greater Southeast Asia region.
 
Fast forward to January 2018, they opened their Smart Innovative Operations (SIO) Centre in Malaysia to cater to the management and production of their industries across the Greater Southeast Asia region. This came in line with their sustainability goal by improving reliability and optimising operations across its sites. The recently opened SIO Centre also serves to complement its sister centre in Shanghai.
 

Leveraging Technological Advancements

“This SIO centre serves as an innovation hub that allows us to deliver on new technologies that came about due to Industry 4.0 and digitalisation. It also serves to decentralise operations management and be closer to our customers. Digitalisation is our gateway to transformation and is a way for us to better collaborate and disseminate  , which in turn increases our value. We expect to deliver greatervalue to our stakeholders, but our focus is still primarily on our customers as they are at the heart of our transformation,” said Clement.
 
The SIO Centre utilises predictive analytics and digital technologies in their operations across the region,allowing them to meet the rapidly changing needs of customers. This is made possible through big data acquired from their data reservoir, which enables them to improve their production-unit energy efficiency and around-the-clock,seven days a week responsiveness.
 
A new analysis programme was conceptualised by the SIO centre to analyse statistical and historical data, which allows them to identify any signals that may lead to a malfunction. Thus technical interventions can be executed before a situation is on hand.
 
“Looking at our operations here in Malaysia, we are concentrating on four main aspects. Firstly, we are aiming to be at the forefront of automation in the process industry. Secondly, we intendto raise the bar on our data analytics capabilities. Besides that, we are looking at expanding in the field of digitalisation and on the hunt fo r expertise to nurture and drive the business forward. Essentially, once achieved, we would have a cocktail of strengths that would move us up the valuechain,” shared Sebastien.
 
Some of the reasons why Malaysia was chosen as a location for their SIO include the strong value represented through its developed infrastructure, young and motivated talent pool, and a growing ecosystem.
 
Both Sebastien and Clement believe that Malaysia’s ecosystem is a vibrant one, with the presence of quality local talent in areas of data mining and analytics, and the support from startups and incubators.
 
“This is the new frontier and everything is converging on digital transformation. In Greater Southeast Asia, Malaysia is one of the leaders in this aspect, and we are proud to be part of this movement,” said Clement.

Thriving Collaborative Initiatives

As part of their open innovation strategy,their branches in Malaysia and those abroad have been actively engaging with startups and academia to form meaningful collaborations.
 
One major collaboration carried out by their overseas branches was with the startup AMA to develop connected glasses that would allow information to be visualised in augmented reality. Not only are experts able to analyse the safety of the premises and its maintenance procedures in real time, they are also able to provide visual indications to technicians. This new technology has since been deployed at major Air Liquide production sites across the globe.
 
“In the local scene, MDEC and MaGIC have connected us with many startups whom we have worked on proof of concepts. One such collaboration was with 3D CapsLock Sdn. Bhd. in the area of virtual reality, allowing viewers to take a take a tour of our SIO Centre remotely. We have recently worked together with a local startup and competed in the French Malaysian innovation challenge where we won first place. This presents the perfect value proposition for us and proves that the startup scene in Malaysia has many collaborative opportunities. We are certainly looking to partner with more startups both here and the ASEAN region,” shared Clement.
 
Air Liquide Malaysia also has formed an agreement with University Malaya and Multimedia University, where they will be participating in their career fair and promoting their organisation. They are also proposing internships and looking into research collaborations with these universities on specific topics.

A Robust Talent Pool

In the last two years, Air Liquide has more than doubled its presence in Malaysia and are committed towards developing the talent pool. These local talents range from subject matter experts, equipment experts, data scientists, IT developers, as well as technical experts.
 
According to Sebastien, “At our company, we welcome open innovation, as it is what enhances our history and legacy. Which is exactly what we discovered from the local talent we hired here in Malaysia.They also have a strong sense of ownership in the projects they manage and are very motivated towards developing new and exciting ways to better serve our customers. There is also a big appetite here in the adoption of new tools and technologies, which bodes well for the future of digital in Malaysia.”