NIBONG TEBAL, 18 January 2016 – Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) Engineering Campus received an 11-member delegation visit from PROTON headed by its Professor, Dr. Shuhaimi Mansor here recently.

The USM Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and Innovation), Professor Dato’ Dr. Muhamad Jantan in receiving the delegation said that, the visit reflected positive steps towards establishing a cooperation with an industry partner.

“They have their own action plan and is now trying to further understand our capabilities in various fields such as ICT and not merely in engineering,” he stated. 

“I am positive that this cooperation will lead to larger scale collaboration between USM and PROTON that will greatly benefit the national automotive industry in terms of research and innovation,” he said when met after touring the Graphene Research Lab located at the School of Aerospace Engineering.

Meanwhile, the newly appointed Director of USM Engineering Campus, Professor Dr. Ahmad Farhan Mohd Sadullah said, the discussion has identified that the expertise available at the Engineering Campus can be utilised to fulfil the various requirements of PROTON.

“This would be the best opportunity to initiate the knowledge nexus which would be centred at the Engineering Campus as outlined by the USM Vice-Chancellor recently in his Annual Address 2016,” he said.

Ahmad Farhan added, “we should do away with the ‘silo’ mindset and work more across disciplines, specialisations and Schools, leveraging on the collected strength.”

Meanwhile, Shuhaimi said, the final aim of this cooperation is for commercialisation purposes of the end product which would benefit the consumers.

According to him, this time PROTON has 3 missions in coming to USM, which are to identify, cooperate and implement.

“We are very impressed with the expertise available and researches being carried out in the Engineering Campus, and we intend to come back in one month’s time for further discussion,” he added.

Shuhaimi hoped that with the availability of such technology and the action plan, PROTON and USM would be able to produce products of superior standards.

Through this mission, PROTON has shared its technological direction in the production of its cars, so as to ensure that the future PROTON models would be more competitive not only in the local but also in the global market.

The discussion was also attended by Deans from the respective Schools, Directors of Centres of Excellence and USM lecturers involved in the research relating to automotive engineering, as well as the Vice-President of Innovation Office, NANO Malaysia, Dr. Daniel Bien Chia Sheng, NANO Malaysia senior officers and two representatives from International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM) Dr. Nabilah Ramli and Dr. Wan Wardatul Amani.

Translation: Mazlan Hanafi Basharudin & Tan Ewe Hoe

Text: Mohd Kamil Ashar / Photos: Bani Faidzzainami Baniyamin