Nectec says digitise production or be left behind

The National Electronics and Computer Technology Centre (Nectec) is encouraging local manufacturing companies to improve their information technology expertise and digitise production lines to be able to collaborate with bigger ones and avoid being left behind.

Chai Wutiwiwatchai, executive director of Nectec, yesterday told attendees at the centre’s Smart Factory IoT Challenge 2020 event that the majority of manufacturing plants dealing with overseas partners still rely on decadesold production technologies.

Mr Chai said newer technologies are changing the world, and traditional practices are at risk of being out phased. To counter this trend, he suggested that manufacturing companies begin investing money to upgrade their technologies to help boost production.

He also suggested the companies use domestically made components as they are reasonably priced and will help increase production output. Mr Chai also said digitisation can help smaller plants improve their production capacities to meet the demand of larger companies that often deal with smaller production lines.

“If the sub-contracted companies can’t produce the items on demand, they will lose big clients, which will seek other companies that can,” he said. “[Smaller plants] will be left behind if they can’t adjust to fit with the Internetof-Things (IoT) world.”

Factories equipped with the latest technologies that can also produce high-quality goods efficiently are preferred by bigger manufacturing companies, Mr Chai added. “For example, IoT can prevent the loss of production,” he said. “The internet can be used by machine units to communicate with each other.”

Through online connectivity, an early warning system could be set up to detect problems in an engine. A technician would still have to manually repair it, but he or she would be prompted to do so immediately to prevent a halt in production. Nectec has developed Network Platform for the Internet of

Everything [Netpie] and the Universal Remote Terminal Unit (uRTU), which are tools to allow machines to send signals via the internet.

They were made to promote Thaimade digital technologies in the manufacturing sector. The centre said the move is “paving the way for the country to achieve 4.0 technology.”

According to Nectec, there are 19 million workers in the manufacturing sector, producing 30% of GDP. However, only less than 5% of some 100,000 plants are digitised.