On 19 June 2020, an online MOU signing ceremony was held among 13 organizations to forge an implementation of Industry 4.0 via Industrial IoT and Data Analytics (IDA) Platform. The signing was witnessed by Dr. Suvit Maesincee, Minister of Higher Education, Science, Research and Innovation (MHESI).
The concept of IDA platform is to apply IoT and data analytics to machine and process data in order to optimize decision-making and enable intelligent operations. The IDA platform can be utilized in several applications such as 1) energy monitoring to collect and analyze energy consumption in factories and improve energy efficiency, 2) overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) to improve productivity, and 3) predictive maintenance to save operating costs and improve operational efficiency. The partnership aims to implement IDA platform in 500 factories over a period of 3 years. A pilot project launched this year will have 10-20 factories testing the equipment and system.
Joining the partnership are NSTDA, the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT), the Digital Economy Promotion Agency (DEPA), the Department of Alternative Energy Development and Efficiency (DEDE) and the Federation of Thai Industries (FTI), all sharing the common goal of enhancing the competitiveness of Thai SMEs by embracing Industry 4.0. In addition to government agencies, this partnership also includes eight global and local enterprises who are leaders in the development of technologies for Industry 4.0. These companies are Siemens Industrial, Cisco Systems (Thailand), Mitsubishi Electric Factory Automation (Thailand), Omron Electronics, Palo Alto Networks, NEXPIE, Bangkok Industrial Gas and Sumipol Institute of Manufacturing Technology (SIMTec). All eight companies will support their solutions for the pilot project, share their knowledge and engage in the training of workforce.
With a firm commitment to develop technology and innovations to elevate competitiveness of Thai industry, NSTDA is setting up ARIPOLIS – an innovation platform for automation, robotics, and intelligent electronics – at the Eastern Economic Corridor of Innovation (EECi), Thailand’s new innovation hub, to facilitate the transformation to Industry 4.0 and underpin the Bio-Circular-Green Economy (BCG) agenda. The agency is proposing an establishment of Sustainable Manufacturing Center (SMC) in ARIPOLIS to accelerate translational research.