Perodua Officiates New RM500 Million Engine Plant

Daihatsu Motor Co Ltd and Perodua have officiated the Daihatsu Perodua Engine Manufacturing Sdn Bhd (DPEM) joint venture facility located in the Sendayan Techvalley today. Built at a cost of RM500 million, DPEM is commissioned to mainly supply engines to Perodua, but is also open to doing business with other manufacturers.

Operating on two duty shifts per day, DPEM has a production capacity of 18,000 engines per month, which can potentially be tripled with expansion to the surrounding land. The plant is a full-fledged manufacturing facility complete with its own foundry to perform casting of aluminium engine blocks and other components.

Since operations began in May 2016, the plant has already churned out 35,000 engines of the Toyota-Daihatsu NR family, out of which 90% have been supplied to Perodua for use in 1.3-litre variants of the newly-launched Bezza sedan.

The remaining 10% of engines are supplied to a manufacturer which Perodua has declined to officially name in respect of client confidentiality. We are fairly certain, however, that the engines are being supplied for installation in the Toyota Vios that was recently updated with the new 1.5-litre 2NR-FE Dual VVT-i engine.

The DPEM plant is Daihatsu and Perodua’s second major investment in the Sendayan Techvalley area following the adjacent Akashi Kikai Industry (M) Sdn Bhd transmission plant that opened only last year.

Speaking at a press conference following the officiating ceremony, Perodua President & CEO Datuk Dr Aminar Rashid Salleh remarked that Sendayan was chosen as the venue for both the engine and transmission plants due to strong support from the Negri Sembilan state government.

He also added that Sendayan’s proximity to both air and sea port facilities further supported the decision because the two plants were setup with export plans in mind for the future.

“With both DPEM and Akashi Kikai now online, we are able to offer a comprehensive engine component solution to other (automotive) original equipment manufacturers (OEM),” said DPEM Chairman, Tan Sri Asmat Kamaludin, who is also Group Chairman of UMW Holdings Bhd.

Asmat further said that DPEM and Akashi Kikai were established to reap potential opportunities expected to arise from a fully liberalised automotive market by offering high quality engine components at competitive prices. He also added that DPEM is on the lookout for more manufacturers to supply engine components to in the future.

At present, the engines and transmissions supplied DPEM and Akashi Kikai are shipped separately to Perodua’s Rawang plant to be integrated. Datuk Aminar mentioned that Perodua is studying the possibility of instead having the engines and transmissions integrated in Sendayan before being transported to Perodua for installation into new vehicles.