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Advantech and Signal Transmission Join Forces to Deliver an OEE SRP Solution for Promoting Industry 4.0

10/27/2021

Advantech and Signal Transmission have joined forces to propose an Advantech’s iFactory Service Ready Package (SRP) Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) solution for a government-owned industrial research and technology organization in Malaysia. The solution has helped them with monitoring and collecting data in real time while offering an immersive Industry 4.0 experience for businesses seeking consultancy on smart manufacturing solutions.

During 2020, manufacturers all over the world struggled to survive severe disruptions brought about by the COVID pandemic. Many industry experts and research reports have suggested that Industry 4.0 can provide manufacturers with not only right digitalization tools, but also business insight analysis to help them fight and overcome the post-COVID recovery and subsequent crises caused by new spikes in the pandemic. However, an August 2020 survey by the SME Association of Malaysia revealed that only 26% of local SMEs prefer digital transformation as their strategy for surviving the pandemic.

According to Mr. Beng Kee Tan, Managing Director of Signal Transmission, despite Malaysians using high-tech products on a daily basis and embracing the latest mobile apps, their adoption of digital technologies is very low, because over 90% of businesses in Malaysia are SMEs.“They simply do not understand the myriads of technologies used in Industry 4.0 solutions and need a lot of education on the topic,”—said Mr.Tan. With lockdown restrictions and associated uncertainties, Signal Transmission’s customers are holding back on new projects due to a lack of confidence in future returns. However, imposed lockdowns are the perfect time to prepare proposals and promote awareness of Industry 4.0.

Realizing Industry 4.0 with iFactory SRPs

To help businesses in Malaysia understand the concept of Industry 4.0, a government-owned industrial research and technology organization sought out suitable solutions from Advantech for two CNC machines. The organization has always been known for supporting the country’s industrial ecosystem through research and development and new technology innovations. Therefore,regardless of the concerns and difficulties of application assessment and deployment during the lockdown, the project does was allowed to go ahead.

Advantech and Signal Transmission have joined forces and proposed an Advantech iFactory SRP OEE solution that combines an SRP-IFS250 on-premises OEE server, EKI-2528 unmanaged ethernet switches, machine monitoring solution, edge gateway solution,and some monitoring sensors for vibration and environment. To cover the entire installation site,three wireless telecommunication technologies were adopted: WiFi, LoRaWAN® and LPWAN.

Mr. Tan commented, “The success of this project lay in Advantech’s proven full range of hardware and software solutions that work really well together.” After deploying the OEE solution,the organization was able to remotely monitor and collect data in real time, offering an immersive Industry 4.0 experience for businesses seeking consultancy on smart manufacturing solutions. Due to the promising results, the organization is now planning to implement Advantech’s WISE-PaaS Cloud Platform so that management dashboards can be viewed from any browser-enabled device.

Dedication to Continuous Development Helps Local Partners Grow Their Market Share

Although manufacturers in Malaysia are still at the stage of connecting islands of information for overall monitoring and data acquisition, Mr. Tan believes that going forward, advanced technologies such AI, big data, and visual recognition will gradually be adopted in Malaysia’s manufacturing sector. Also, Advantech is dedicated to the development of new solutions that utilize the latest technologies and they encourage knowledge sharing with all their partners, which will help Signal Transmission raise awareness of Industry 4.0 solutions for their customers.

Signal Transmission has partnered with Advantech since the company started using WebAccess SCADA in 2014. Today, they area WISE-PaaS VIP. Since then, Advantech has offered one-stop-shop solutions and services that have served several projects across different sectors, such as in water treatment, manufacturing,bio gas, and many more. Mr. Tan pointed out that Advantech is a renowned brand in Malaysia. “Having Advantech’s reputable brand behind every project is the best warranty for customers.We can leverage Advantech’s advanced technology to provide custom solutions to our customers, in areas such as Industry 4.0, cloud services, remote monitoring, and conventional SCADA solutions.” Looking to the future, Signal Transmission and Advantech will grow steadily in the Malaysian market and expanding their market share together.


“Having Advantech’s reputable brand behind every project is the best warranty for customers.”-- Beng Kee Tan, Managing Director of Signal Transmission.

MyWISE-PaaS Magazine - The New Wave of the Industry 4.0

The Industry 4.0 revolution is predicted to bring about four critical changes in the field of industrial automation. Likewise, the Solution-as-a-Service model will become one of the three main business service models. Advantech focuses on co-creation in an effort to help expand the Industry 4.0 ecosystem in response to these trends.