Maximising Business Value: Featuring Data-driven Transformation Projects from Malaysia (Part 1: SEB, ALCOM, PETRONAS, TNB)
In today's fast-paced digital world, businesses across various industries are adopting transformative strategies to remain competitive and address changing customer demands. From utilities to manufacturing, companies are utilising data-driven approaches and advanced technologies to foster innovation and enhance efficiency. This diverse set of insights provides a snapshot of the digital transformation efforts of organisations such as Sarawak Energy Berhad , Aluminium Company of Malaysia (ALCOM) , PETRONAS , Tenaga Nasional Berhad .
These leading Malaysian companies are harnessing the power of artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced digital technologies to drive innovation and operational efficiency. Not only do these initiatives address specific operational challenges, but they also set the stage for future advancements in data accessibility, predictive analytics, and overall business intelligence.
Sarawak Energy developed an AI model to detect fraudulent behaviour targeting non-technical losses (NTL) called Retail Fraud Analytics. The transformation moved their approach to detecting fraudulent activities in consumer meters from ‘Inspect & Detect’ to ‘Detect & Inspect’. This initiative showcases strong collaboration between Sarawak Energy’s Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and Retail teams. It involved data automation & consolidation and AI model-building, eventually leading to analytics outcomes being represented in a digital dashboard for the Retail team, empowering them to perform targeted inspections.
Currently, we are also exploring the potential of Gen AI, in particular, in the creation of a knowledge base of chatbots, and personal productivity to prepare for an enterprise wide implementation. Therefore, we are also looking into modernising our day by core system by exploring potential corporate solutions and showing our data quality and then building data service and allowing that accessibility enterprise wide. We believe with all these concerted effort, our organisation will be able to remain competitive in order for us to forge ahead to unlock business insights.
- Ru Wee New, Senior Executive, Sarawak Energy Berhad
Over the past year, Aluminum Company of Malaysia Berhad (ALCOM) has embarked on the strategic integration of the IoT sensors, AI, Cloud computing and real-time dashboard to modernise their Caster Line 3 (CL3) operations. This piloting initiative aims to create a smart factory environment where CL3 machines and equipment are outfitted with IoT sensors to collect real-time data on every aspect of the casting process. These sensors monitor critical parameters such as temperature, pressure, and equipment performance, providing a comprehensive and co-relate overview of production efficiency and identifying potential quality issues before they escalate.
We have a digital roadmap for the whole ALCOM. We are just starting this journey at the making of aluminium. But it doesn't stop there. We want to digitise this along the whole process because ALCOM has not only made the aluminium part, but we have rolling, we have cutting power, and there's a whole supply chain that we want to digitise. The way that we can stay ahead is by employing AI for business outcomes.
- Heon Chee Shyong , CEO, ALCOM
PETRONAS has embarked on a transformative digital journey, aimed at enhancing data accessibility, integration, and security within PETRONAS. Central to this initiative is the groundbreaking development of J.AI Chat and J.AI Search, two AI-powered tools poised to redefine how employees engage and unearth relevant content and documents within the organisation.
J.AI Chat enables natural language interactions with documents, leveraging AI for secure and insightful data access. J.AI Search improves the search experience within the Data+ platform, using NLP and semantic search to make data more discoverable and accessible, thereby enhancing knowledge sharing across PETRONAS.
Ir Zohairen Muhamad Sori , Head of Enterprise Knowledge Management, PETRONAS
When Tenaga Nasional Berhad started its digitalisation journey about a decade ago, it faced some data challenges, hence leading to the establishment of the Enterprise Data Governance (EDG) program in 2020. Some of the data related issues include:
Unclear data ownership and responsibilities
No standardised data management processes at the enterprise level
Data quality issues
The data governance tool journey is aimed to provide the right tools for the data community to manage the data asset more efficiently towards trusted data, so that TNB could internally monetise the data for better operation efficiency, better customer satisfaction and centricity, and more business opportunities… At the same time, it has also improved the culture itself, I would say almost 100% of the staff are fully aware, because we have this data capability maturity assessment, and from year to year we assess and we know that the machine has been increasing over time. And of course, it leads us to more opportunities besides the AI journey, it is also how we monetise our data internally and most probably externally in the future.
- Erverna Navamalar Thanasegaram , Lead (Enterprise Data Governance), Tenaga Nasional Berhad
The digital transformation initiatives undertaken by SEB, ALCOM, PETRONAS, and TNB exemplify the strategic use of AI and digital technologies to drive efficiency, innovation, and competitive advantage. From fraud detection and smart factory environments to advanced data governance and AI-powered tools for enhanced data accessibility, these companies are pioneering new approaches to business operations. The collective efforts of these organisations underscore the critical role of digital transformation in achieving operational excellence and unlocking new business insights in the modern digital economy.
We will be delving deeper into data and AI applications, as well as data privacy for Malaysia’s Digital Economy at the upcoming AIBP Conference & Exhibition Malaysia this coming 4 & 5 September in KL - be part of the conversation here or drop me a note!
This article was originally written by Vanessa Kwan
