AYS Ventures forms JV to cash in on Tokyo Olympics

PETALING JAYA: AYS Ventures Bhd has set up a jointventure company with Japanese firms Okaya & Co Ltd and Kondo Steel Corp from Japan to cash in on the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan.
Okaya International (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd managing director Takaya Wada said the Olympic Games is a big project and Japanese construction firms that are preparing for the project will need technologies including Building Information Modeling (BIM) technology.
“Our function here is supporting Japanese construction. Then, accumulating technology and educating the employees here. When the new regulation comes in 2018, we continue to support the industry, expand our business to this country. This is our strategy,” he told reporters at the signing of a joint venture agreement last Friday.
Ann Yak Siong Hardware Sdn Bhd (subsidiary of AYS Ventures) sales and marketing senior general manager Desmond Woon Yang Leng said its partner, Kondo Steel, is already working with many major construction companies in Japan on a regular basis.
“We are very confident in getting involved in all these jobs in the future ... currently we do a lot of export but not processed steel.
In the future maybe we will export processed steel. When we are exporting, we will be exporting a component of the building, not just raw materials. When we are exporting components, we need to have precise information. This BIM technology will help us in producing very precise structure elements for export,” he said.
“We also intend to try and change a little bit of the steel structure construction in Malaysia. As CIDB (Construction Industry Development Board) is promoting IBS (industrialised building systems), we are expecting a lot of steel components should be pre-fabricated and made in an automatic environment. Therefore, this BIM system will help the industry to produce precise components and that would be leading into the IBS,” he added.
In addition, CIDB also recently announced that BIM will be mandatory in 2018 for all engineering submission of construction projects, as part of the BIM roadmap for Malaysia.
BIM is a methodology of using a 3D model as a medium to authorise, manage and extract data throughout the project cycle, replacing the traditional 2D blue prints.
AYS Ventures executive director Sam Oh Yung Sim said the new company, named AOK Engineering Service Sdn Bhd, will employ BIM technology with Japanese fabrication know-how to produce 3D modeling steel structure detailing in its steel supply business.
He said it will spend at least a year servicing its Japanese clients and training local engineers before it begins servicing the local and regional markets towards end of 2016. The group’s target is to service the Asia Pacific market, starting with Southeast Asian countries.
AYS Ventures and Kondo Steel will each have a 45% stake in the new company while Okaya & Co will hold a 6% stake and Okaya International (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd will hold the remaining 4%.
Oh said AYS Ventures is confident of further collaboration with the Japanese firms and is looking into potential collaboration in various value-added services.