Intel Implements IoT Technology to Save Costs at Malaysian Plant

Intel produces the low-cost and low-power Quark processors, specifically made for IoT technology. What better way to sell your products than by showing how well they work for you? Internet of Things is the next big thing in technology development and Intel wants to ride the wave as one of the biggest players.

IoT is basically the next level of automatization, but the effects of implementing it are more complex than that. While so far, IoT has been described as a key element of user interaction with home appliances, now Intel hits a soft spot for industrial producers.

Philip Cronin, Intel Asia-Pacific sales director described how IoT can be used to increase production efficiency during an interview on Tuesday.

Intel runs a plant in Penang, Malaysia. With the help of IoT technology, they managed to save $9 million in running costs. By equipping CPU tester modules with sensors, different machines started 'talking' to each other. The database containing the information sent by various components was ran through Revolution Analytics software. In the end, the plant managed to reduce the number of faulty products and increased its productivity.

A plant will increase production if various components can be made to interact and adapt to the changes in the production environment. Cronin calls the new philosophy 'productive maintenance'. By analyzing the data sent by each machine, running costs can be reduced as repairs and adjustments are predictable.

'We think predictive maintenance will be one of the bigger plays because it lends itself to IoT easily,' Cronin said. 'If I have a thousand machines at a motor car plant and I can figure out which ones are running too far, too high, too soon then I start to get into predictive maintenance and the resultant savings.'

The biggest tech manufacturers in the world decided that a fast adoption of IoT technology requires them to agree upon industry standards, as devices have to talk the same language. At the moment there are two groups trying to gain supremacy in the IoT market. The Open Interconnect Consortium includes Samsung, Dell and Intel, among others. AllSeen Alliance is made out of Qualcomm, Microsoft, Cisco, Sony and other important consumer brands.

What ties them all together is the interest to gain the largest chunk possible of a market that will go up to $1.9 billion by 2019 from just around $400 million in 2014.