Sinopharm Tech, the Federation of Hong Kong Industries (FHKI) and the Vocational Training Council (VTC) last week signed a memorandum of understanding to launch the course "Smart Manufacturing Training Programme for Personal Protection Equipment Industry" (SMT Programme).
Otherwise known as the “SMT Programme”, the course will include practical operation know-how on automated mask production lines and mechanical assembly, as well the introduction of new technologies to improve production quality under the trend of digital transformation, such as an overview of Industry 4.0, artificial intelligence production monitoring system, remote data collection and analysis of Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) to name a few.
With the current COVID-19 pandemic (COVID-2019), the strong demand for personal protection equipment such as masks and has led to the emergence of the local personal protection equipment manufacturing industry in Hong Kong.
However, the large professional talent gap and insufficient technical support in the industry have become major challenges for the industry.
(Back row L-R) VTC Deputy Executive Director Dr Eric Liu, FHKI Chairman Dr Daniel Yip and Sinopharm Tech Group CEO Tony Chan.
Sinopharm Tech is pioneer in the local personal protective equipment manufacturing industry in Hong Kong. The company’s practical experience and technical resources can be learned from and be used for reference, by industry participants or potential entrants through the SMT Programme course. This will help accelerate the overall improvement to the management and production excellence of the industry.
Chan Ting, executive director and chief executive officer of Sinopharm Tech, reiterated the company’s commitment to quality by “our product quality into another level” with recent partnerships with world leading melt blown manufacturers, together with its investment in setting up a world-class testing laboratory.
“Quality staff is the most critical contributing factor to high quality product. With the rapid development of mask manufacturing in Hong Kong, the whole industry is lacking experienced workers and machine technicians,” Chan said. “We are very happy to work with VTC and FHKI, to contribute our professional know-how and experiences. We hope more people will understand the potential of the mask manufacturing industry and join Sinopharm or other mask manufacturing companies to fight Covid-19 together."
Through training programmes on production, processing, and quality monitoring, the practitioners will be able to put theory into practice to effectively ensure the efficiency and quality of the manufacturing process. The knowledge from the education chain of smart manufacturing of personal protection equipment manufacturing industry continually benefits the practitioners, while this continuous supply of professional talents to the market will help to further Hong Kong's reindustrialisation.
The SMT Programme is running under the recently launched “Reindustrialisation and Technology Training Programme” (RTTP) of the Hong Kong SAR Government. While the SMT Programme will be under the RTTP, and the SMT Programme will provide practitioners in the personal protection equipment industry with both theoretical and practical training. In addition, the SMT Programme will also cover Hong Kong "Q-Mark" Scheme and related international standards of testing knowledge and certification.
