SYNOPSIS

Major palm oil producers in Malaysia and Indonesia are facing huge labour shortage in their oil palm plantations and new technological inputs are vital to keep the industry operating at sustainable level, avoiding any shocks of labour shortage. The existing technologies for land clearing, planting, maintenance, harvesting and delivery of the harvested crops to the processing plants need continuous improvements. The sustainability and profitability of the oil palm industry may depend on the empowering technology in robotics and digitalisation. R&D in oil palm mechanisation is fervently being undertaken by the industry to develop and embrace newer technologies to reduce climate related hazards and reduce industry wastages in order to remain relevant and profitable.


SPEAKERS BIODATA

Ir. Kumar Subramaniam graduated from Universiti Putra Malaysia in 1993 and obtained his Executive Master in Business Administration in 2012. He has been involved in engineering projects in the palm oil industry since 1993. He set up his own engineering consultancy company, SGT Konsult Sdn Bhd in 2004, and the projects completed include palm oil mills, kernel crushing plants, CPO refinery, palm oil mill wastes treatment, methane gas power plant, biomass power plant and compost plant. He was Adjunct Lecturer at Universiti Pertanian Malaysia (UPM) in 2014, an Academic Advisor 2013/14 at University Nottingham Malaysia and an Academic Advisor 2011/12/14 at University Malaysia Perlis (UNIMAP). He was Chairman of AFETD 2009/2011 and an IEM Council member since 2013.

Ir. Ooi Ho Seng graduated from University of Malaya in 1972 (B.E.) and in 1974 (M.Eng.Sc). He had done research on harvesting of oil palm FFB (fresh fruit bunch) and infield transportation of the harvested FFB at MARDI in 1974-1975 before the mechanisation research works were taken over by PORIM (Palm Oil Research Institute of Malaysia). He was directly involved in the design, development and improvement of the Serbatrek, an all-terrain infield FFB transporter that was commercialized by Howard Alat-Pertanian in 1986-1990. Presently Ir Ooi is a director of SGT Konsult Sdn Bhd. He is an Academic Advisor at University Nottingham Malaysia and is active in AFETD since its formation in 2000.