HIMA opens Singapore Customer Solutions Centre
On 22 June, HIMA celebrated the simultaneous opening of Customer Solutions Centres in Singapore and Germany, with the aim of creating new opportunities to experience, test and further develop safety and security solutions with customers.
Five disciplines are combined in each Customer Solutions Centre: Consulting, Applications, Academy, Security Lab, and the Experience Room. In Singapore, the launch was also attended by:
- Ms. Rachel Ong, Vice-Chairperson of West Coast Town Council, Member of Parliament for West Coast GRC,
- Dr. Norbert Riedel, Ambassador of German Embassy Singapore, and
- Dr. Tim Philippi, Executive Director, Singaporean-German Chamber of Industry & Commerce (SGC).
Friedhelm Best, Vice President of the Asia Pacific Region and head of the Customer Solutions Centre in Singapore, said he sees the creation of the centre as an important milestone in strengthening HIMA’s presence in the Asian market.
“This Customer Solutions Centre is all about safety, and specifically, it’s all about safety for critical infrastructure, oil and gas, chemical mining and the railway industry,” he remarked in his speech at the launch. “What will make this industry safe? There are risks in all of these industries, but the first step is to identify the risk and see how we can bring them in because there should be no impact on people, environment and asset. To reduce these risks, we have to work with measurements in place; this can be a redesign of the production process, or by putting mechanical measurements in place.”
HIMA Academy
An integrated part of the Customer Solutions Centre, the HIMA Academy addresses everything to do with technical training for customers and users. As Best explained, “These centres will be a platform of choice for engineers and executors to converge and advance their expertise and experience… We will train and educate engineers in the field of functional safety and security. Practitioners can develop and test new solutions here in the centre before using these solutions in their facilities.”
The HIMA Academy will also aid in shaping and maturing data engineering intelligence in the Asia-Pacific region, increasing the number of certified functional safety engineers in Singapore and the Southeast Asian region by helping industries and practitioners gain knowledge and safety competencies in the industry’s various fields, such as cybersecurity and data protection.
“Nowadays, devices and networks are more interconnected, and in the downstream sector processes are quite complex; different companies are combining their assets. We are integrated with the security lab, which allows customers and partners to constantly stay ahead of the curve in cybersecurity. That’s where security comes in, to ‘harden’ the networks and workstations, and put measurements in place. You have to put processes in place, procedures, the training of people and to have the right equipment for that.”
Speaking to the future, Best shared that HIMA was working with local tertiary institutions and universities to bring students in for some hands-on practice.
“We have lectures at universities, so [students] already have a good understanding of safety… Now, with the Customer Solutions Centre, we would like to bring students in so that they get practical experience on the equipment – and not only on a base level of understanding methodologies, but they can really experience how it is when it’s programmed, how it is with the hardware and software. That is the next step.”