Intel ready to guide partners into a technology minefield

Intel has teamed up with local partners in a bid to scale up its Internet of Things (IoT) endeavours. 

Larry Cheng, global sales director of Intel’s Transportation Direct and Channel Sales Group, said the challenge was to adopt the Internet of Things so that its social and environmental impact can be maximised to enhance productivity. 

To accelerate IoT adoption, Cheng said, Intel must achieve three things: re-imagine the platform, partner up with a broad ecosystem and accelerate deployment.

Cheng said that to re-imagine the platform is to focus on value creation, which encompasses such areas as vertical specific analytics, applications and services, as well as improving sensors, protocols and actuators. 

The horizontal level comprises common elements such as device-to-cloud security, manageability, data management and analytics, API management, distributed compute platforms, as well as developer environment and tools. 

“The value of the Internet of Things is universal,” Cheng said. “Every industry can benefit from IoT as the technology for the global challenges, but transportation is a good example for IoT. Intel wants to move across industries such as retail, home building and industrial. I think every industry is ready to adopt IoT but they are at different stages.” 

Great opportunities can be seen in emerging markets, including Thailand, and IoT can address problems in a lot of areas. Emerging markets have major problems such as food supply, quality of life, education and transportation, Cheng said.

At the macro level, IoT can also be beneficial to emerging markets, Cheng said. Emerging markets are sometimes called “green field” markets because they can leapfrog through the learning process to become mature markets. In emerging markets, agriculture and transportation are the priority areas for IoT, he said.

“For example, cab company All Thai Taxi utilises the IoT to help commuters get through traffic congestion,” said Cheng.

 

IoT cases in Thailand

In Thailand, local businesses such as All Thai Taxi and Uni-Aire have teamed up with Intel to deploy IoT. 

All Thai Taxi is a taxi service provided by Nakhonchai Air, a large bus company.

The concept of All Thai Taxi is to deploy 500 hybrid cars that come with control units, GPS, Wi-Fi, closed-circuit TV both inside and outside the vehicle, tablets and printers. The control units act as a black box collecting all driving information such as speed, location and route, while the GPS allows the vehicle to be tracked. The system will give passengers more choices of payment besides cash, such as debit card, cash card or credit card. It will also print a receipt for the passenger.

Agachai Sumalee, vice president for Traffic Management and Mass Transit and director of Smart City Research Center at King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Ladkrabang, said Intel helped him to develop and operate All Thai Taxi’s IoT technology.

“Intel came in to help us in terms of a hardware platform. We worked with Intel for over a year to deploy IoT in All Thai Taxi cars,” said Agachai.

The concept of deploying IoT in All Thai Taxi was to serve the company’s fleet management, with 500 taxis and over 1,000 drivers.

Each taxi was equipped with two sets of computers: one was a computer gateway linked to each vehicle’s engine control unit (ECU), camera, meter system, and Internet; and the other was a tablet allowing the command centre to communicate with drivers. More than 250 taxis are available on the street and each taxi does an average of 10 trips a day.

“Some data was stored in the vehicles’ hard disks. We have lists of data sent back in real time to the company’s command centre through the 3G network,” Agachai said 

King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Ladkrabang’s Smart City Research Center works with ITS Consultancy on such things as system design, software development, artificial intelligence development and business analytics.

Since its launch in late April, the centre currently has 60,000 members. 

With the IoT technology embedded in the taxis, each taxi collects data such as location, route, speed, drive format, energy consumption, Co2 emissions and traffic. 

The beauty of the system is that it benefits both consumers and the company. Consumers get an easy, convenient and secure taxi service that they can access on the road or via a mobile app. The company benefits as it can monitor its entire fleet in real time and communicate with drivers. The company can also utilise data collected from IoT in the taxis to conduct business analysis. 

Meanwhile, Uni-Aire Corporation, which has manufactured air-conditioners for 43 years, is another firm that will benefit from IoT.

Naran Sirisantana, assistant managing director of Uni-Aire, said the company implemented IoT in its products to facilitate buildings and manufacturing plants that operate 24-hours.

The move was also intended to help Uni-Aire differentiate its products from other air-conditioners, he said. The idea was to help customers reduce investment costs by implementing building automation while improving efficiency. 

Building automation usually kicks in to monitor and control cooling systems for the 24-hour operations.

“Sensors collect data sent to the [Internet] gateway and transfers it to the cloud server, which customers can access to get information,” Naran said.

Technology feasibility was established when the system was launched two months ago. Now the pilot system is up and running at Uni-Aire’s head office. Naran said they were working on the user-interface and the whole process would be completed in 3-4 months. 

Early next year, Uni-Aire’s IoT air-conditioners will be officially launched and installed for the company’s existing customers in the industrial sector.

Uni-Aire produces 70 per cent of its air-conditioners for the domestic market and the rest for export. Its annual revenue is Bt500 million on average.

“We will focus on the domestic market first with our IoT air-conditioners before tackling the export market due to the amount of servicing required,” Naran said.

Cheng said Intel was facing many challenges that were slowing the growth of IoT adoption, including security, privacy, compliance, fragmentation of vertical markets, IT/OT and legacy infrastructure integration, connectivity, under-utilised data, interoperability and standards.

However, more than 15 billion IoT devices are currently connected to the Internet and that figure is forecasted to reach 50 billion “things”. 

He said Intel’s IoT solutions have benefited several international companies: Saia LTL Freight Inc manages its fleet of smart vehicles using IoT to save itself 7 per cent per annum and reduce Co2 emissions; Rudin Management Company’s IoT for smart buildings have identified utility and maintenance savings of US$1 million (Bt36.17 million) per building per year; and Mitsubishi Electric’s smart factories realise $9 million in cost savings, efficiencies and higher product yields.