PKT Logistics signs MoU with UiTM and UUM in effort to raise standards in logistics industry and provide the universities industry-relevant experience, writes JOY LEE.

It’s no secret that PKT Logistics Group CEO Datuk Michael Tio hopes to see Malaysia becoming the next big Asean logistics hub and is putting in a lot of effort to help realise this goal.

Tio, who sees the collaboration between the education and the private sectors as vital in building critical mass in the logistics industry, recently inked MoUs with Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) and Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) to look into possible areas of cooperation. This includes such areas as research, consultancy, industrial engagement and internships.

“To provide quality education, graduates need industry relevance. And we are becoming an enabler for that to happen,” Tio says.

“They are able to tap into our network and resources because we serve customers from different industries. The universities will also be able to carry out more research work that is relevant to the industry by working with the private sector like us,” he adds.

According to Tio, the collaboration may also explore opportunities for lecturers from these institutions to spend their sabbatical period at PKT to gain industry experience.

The tie-up with the education sector would also enable PKT to tap into the expertise of academicians and their relevant research work. The lecturers could also study the effectiveness of the programmes already put in place by PKT.

“We want to raise the standards in the industry and address the shortfall of logisticians in the country. So we have implemented a lot of new things in our company and introduced programmes like our Smart Trucker and Anak Belajar Ibu Bekerja (ABIB), and I think the education sector can make a case study of our processes and programmes and publish them,” says Tio.

Through this, Tio hopes the collaboration with the education sector would help PKT to commercialise its programmes and make them viable for other local logistics players to emulate. In this way, the standards of the industry can, hopefully, be lifted.

The agreement with UiTM will mainly focus on PKT’s efforts to build quality local manpower for the industry through its human resource practices and CSR programmes, like Smart Trucker and ABIB. UiTM will be working closely with PKT’s logistics hub in Klang, which receives an average of 3,000 visitors a year — 70% of them students.

The collaboration with UUM, on the other hand, will centre on research and data collection in the logistics industry. This will see the setting up of a research centre in One Auto Hub, which is located in Batu Kawan, Penang.

“I think we have been doing well in our efforts to transform the logistics industry, and we want to showcase what we have been doing right,” he says.

Tio was also recently appointed by the Education Ministry to the CEO Faculty Programme, a key project under the Malaysian Higher Education Blueprint designed to get Malaysian as well as foreign chief executive officers to commit time and effort to lecturing in institutions of higher learning in the country.

But Tio, who is adjunct professor at UUM, says this academic-industry collaboration is not limited to the logistics industry as other sectors and companies would also benefit from such a relationship.

“Other SMEs can also tap onto the expertise of the education sector to help them with the R&D because that’s their expertise so that the industry can focus on quality. And the education sector will be able to carry out more relevant research by working with other sectors,” he says.