What a great way to start off 2020 - our state-of-the-art facility in Singapore has been designated as an Advanced 4IR Lighthouse by the World Economic Forum (WEF) Global Lighthouse Network! The announcement by WEF on 11 January 2020 marks the first time that a Singapore site has received such an accolade and reflects Micron’s success in adopting and integrating cutting-edge 4IR technologies. Established in 2018, the World Economic Forum (WEF) Global Lighthouse Network (GLN) is managed in collaboration with an independent expert panel that evaluates facilities worldwide. Advanced 4IR Lighthouses are factories at the forefront of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and lauded for their success and leadership in adopting 4IR technologies at scale to drive operational and environmental impact. Lighthouses lead the transformation of the manufacturing industry in scaling digital analytics solutions, creating business impact and guide the way for the broader community of manufacturers.
Micron is a leading global semiconductor company and one of the largest employers in Singapore with a team of about 8,000. Comprising of three wafer fabrication facilities and one assembly and test facility, Micron Singapore serves as the base for worldwide operations and plays a critical role in developing leading-edge NAND. Through the deployment of AI and big data, we have raised our product quality standards and doubled the speed at which new products are ramped. Our products enable new technology trends such as IOT, 5G, Cloud computing and Autonomous driving.
People are at the centre of these technological innovations and Micron has invested in training to reskill and upskill its team members to build their capabilities in new skillsets such as data science. Micron also partners with secondary and tertiary educational institutions to nurture new talent. The combination of right skills and technologies allowed us to demonstrate the enormous business value of industry 4.0 technologies and mobilize the organization to further embrace the transformational journey.
The WEF Global Lighthouse designation provides an exciting platform to live out our vision to transform how the world uses information to enrich life. The World Economic Forum acknowledged that “global production industry is lagging in its adoption of Fourth Industrial Revolution manufacturing technologies, with more than 70 percent of companies stuck in pilot-phases…[there is] a need for a neutral learning platform to showcase top-use cases, roadmaps and organizational approaches to adopting and scaling technologies from which other companies globally could benefit.” As part of the GLN, we are looking forward to sharing knowledge and best practices with peers, supporting new partnerships and helping other manufacturers deploy technology, adopt sustainable practices and transform their workforces.
In conjunction with WEF’s Lighthouse announcement, Manish Bhatia, Micron’s Executive Vice President, Global Operations was interviewed on Singapore Tonight, Channel NewsAsia’s primetime news program. He shared about the significance of the Lighthouse recognition to Micron Singapore, our journey in the adoption of 4IR technologies and reiterating our role as a Lighthouse “to propel the entire global manufacturing industry into the fourth industrial revolution.”