SME, local firms to benefit from Microsoft’s Smart Manufacturing Toolkit

GEORGE TOWN: Local small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and large companies are set to benefit from using the Smart Manufacturing Toolkit which is capable of reducing the maintenance costs of their production machinery.

Penang Skills Development Centre (PSDC) Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Muhamed Ali HajahMydin,saidthecentrewasworkingclosely with Microsoft, Moxa Inc and Omron Electronics to provide access to the Smart Manufacturing Toolkit, developed by Microsoft.

He said Microsoft was also setting up a Federated Lab at PSDC to train local manufacturing companies in using newer technologies through cloud solutions.

“With the savings, they could invest to enhance their competitiveness. Currently, about 25 companies are keen to use the Smart Manufacturing Toolkit,” he told reporters after the launch of PSDC Industry 4.0 week by Special Adviser to Prime Minister (Northern Corridor Economic Region), Datuk Seri Zainal Abidin Osman, here yesterday.

Also present was Northern Corridor Implementation Authority CEO, Datuk Redza Rafiq.

Muhamed Ali said Moxa and Omron were the partners providing the hardware connectivity for the manufacturing companies to use Smart Manufacturing Toolkit, which enabled manufacturing companies to perform predictive maintenance that would save them up to 15 per cent on maintenance cost.

Meanwhile, Zainal Abidin said, since its inception, the Northern Corridor Economic Region (NCER) had attracted RM79.9 billion worth investments and created 103,597 jobs as of Dec 31 last year.

He said the NCER Development Blueprint 20162025, launched by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak recently, was set to transform Peninsular Malaysia’s four northern states into a world-class economic region with an economy worth RM300 billion by 2025. — Bernama