Jabil’s vision is to be the most technologically advanced and trusted manufacturing solutions provider via the global business services they offer — end-to-end turnkey services that include design, engineering, manufacturing, product management and supply chain services

Jabil is a manufacturing solutions provider across 100 locations in over 25 countries. It offers comprehensive design, manufacturing, supply chain and product management services to customers from 400 of the world’s best-known brands across a broad range of industries like capital equipment, computing and storage, defence and aerospace, healthcare, energy, networking and telecommunications industries.

Patrick Yeoh, Jabil’s IT Director said, “Our Penang manufacturing facility is the company’s first site in the Asia-Pacific region and today, we have seven sites in Malaysia employing some 15,000 people.” Since 1995, Jabil’s 400 customers have been served by Malaysian manufacturing operations since as early as 1995.

Jabil Penang’s Global Business Centre (GBC) was established in 2009 with a headcount of 100 employees. Today, it has grown to a 1,100 strong team and houses Jabil’s global information technology (IT), supply chain, centralised procurement and finance functions. 

Patrick described that this GBC is presently one of the largest shared services centres in the island state. “ Our customers are our internal employees, which totals more than 200,000 people.”

Futuristic capability

High expectations from internal customers had meant various digital transformation initiatives alongside Jabil’s ambitions to be a future-proof state-of-the-art manufacturing capability, as well as a digital factory.

As part of the IT Big Plays – Jabil’s digital transformation roadmap, it is focused on simplifying, optimizing, standardizing and automating (SOSA) critical areas of its operations and elevating the services it provides to its internal customers,

Patrick said, “We have also become an award-winning organisation that has ascended the value chain by moving from transactional roles to more strategic consulting and advisory ones to include finance, global business services, centralized procurement and risk governance, among others.”

Jabil’s vision is to be the most technologically advanced and trusted manufacturing solutions provider is underscored by the many awards they have received for finance IT.

“One of our key differentiations is the services we offer — end-to-end turnkey services that include design, engineering, manufacturing, product management and supply chain services that enable innovation, growth and customer success. 

The manufacturing industry is much more advanced and competitive since Jabil began its Malaysian operations in 1995. Patrick Yeoh, Jabil’s IT Director opined, “We are seeing seismic shifts with the convergence of technologies across operations, IT, finance and supply chain, creating predictable data-driven environments that enable enhanced productivity and operational excellence.”

The manufacturing solutions provider is not shy about leveraging emerging and leading technologies to enhance enterprise’s capabilities in real-time data to power AI for more automated decisions and processes.

Jabil’s DX roadmap

As part of the IT Big Plays – Jabil’s digital transformation roadmap, it is focused on simplifying, optimizing, standardizing and automating (SOSA) critical areas of its operations and elevating the services it provides to its internal customers, which invariably extends to the experience Jabil’s customers have when interfacing with its technology platforms. 

The SOSA approach is fundamental to an effective change management strategy in the digital transformation agenda and how we do things as we merge the physical and digital, break functional silos, accelerate globalisation with unified governance and deploy the latest technology tools.

 An example of this is the work our Technology Incubation team does. One result of developing more advanced and bespoke services, is their award winning AI-based computer vision solution. Designed by a team based in Penang, it offers higher accuracy with improved product inspection quality and first-past-yield, cost-effectiveness with reduced scrap, and fewer manual inspections.

Since then, this AI computer vision use case have expanded to other critical manufacturing areas including workplace safety and security.

Manufacturing jobs in global business services are becoming “cooler”

Jabil has noted that interest in manufacturing jobs is growing.

This shift in perception that was discovered by Deloitte, and the rise of Gen Z and millennials highlight the promise of a revitalised industry. Motivated by rapid factory digitalization and the principles of IR4, smart factories and machines, digital factories and big data are reasons the industry offers perceived-to-be “cool” jobs.

The manufacturing industry has evolved from manual assembly to precision handling, so there must a re-focus on upskilling our workforce with technology growth. Employees with “digital dexterity,” who are ready to adapt and innovate and adopt digital tools that enhance manufacturing processes, will successfully implement new technologies and maintain operations, bringing unprecedented agility and resilience to manufacturing and its operations.

Patrick said, “As such, Jabil GBC continues to invest more strategically in hires more technical in nature such as data architects, technical leads and programme managers, and we encourage diversity in our talent base.”