Startups serve manufacturing

The Federation of Thai Industries (FTI) is joining hands with local startups, CloudCommerce and Energy Response, to boost small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) competitiveness and overseas market through the use of AI, sharing economy and automation.

Thanarak Pongphatar, vice-chairman of FTI said the collaboration with Thai startups enables the industries, especially SME to access technology at a lower cost. It also creates marketing opportunity to startups to serve some 12,000 FTI members in 45 vertical sectors.

At present, more than half of FT members have embraced technology, while the rest continue to do their traditional ways. “We found that the use of Internet of Thing, machine learning, automation and sharing economy can help entrepreneurs,” he said, adding that last year FTI has worked with System Stone which provided preventive maintenance system that help users reduce risk of operation and save cost of using import technology from millions a year to 90,000-250,000 baht a year.

FTI recently joins force with Cloud Commerce and Energy Response to encourage and develop startups working for industries. The agreement with Cloud Commerce is meant to boost SME exports to global markets, while the collaboration with Energy Response aims to optimise energy-saving. FTI will work with Fixzy, a platform of technicians to sharing the technicians of the industrial estate and will expand to the manufacturing equipment. The sharing economy concept will be beneficial to factories from the resource management with better efficiency.

To survive fierce competition in a tough economy, industries need to use Internet of Things, machine learning and shared-economy platforms, including automation, said Mr Thanarak.

In 2019, FTI will work with other startups such as Washbox, Event Banana, My Cloudfulfillment, Traveligo and Fastwork

Wootinun Sung-Ong, CEO of Cloud Commerce, said through the collaboration with FTI, it can attract local manufacturers who are interested in entering overseas markets via online platforms, particularly automotive parts, herbs and spa products, among others, by using CloudMall.asia for online marketing.

Cloudmall will automatically integrate with Alibaba, Taobao, Etsy, Amazon, and Ebay, which together account for 80% of global e-commerce markets, according to the World Economic Forum. Local online merchants can also explore overseas markets.

Chai Choovichian, CEO of Energy Response Co, said it provides energy management for building, hospital, and hospitality businesses by using data analytics and machine learning. Through the collaboration with the FTI, the company can access more factories who spend over 1 million baht per month for energy.

“We use Internet of Things to monitor the use of energy and machine learning working together with energy experts to enable companies to save energy costs by at least 12-30%,” said Mr Chai.