MDT Innovations: Connecting The World With IoT

“When great minds speak, people listen.” This deems true for Liew Choon Lian, MDT Innovations’ Founder, Chairman, and CEO whose zeal to revolutionize the IoT (Internet of Things) space reinforced by his sheer knowledge and experience in technology becomes evident in every word that he speaks. Even though Liew constantly asked to pardon him for his elaborate answers during the interview; his awe-inspiring words clearly reflected the wisdom that propelled MDTi to become one of the fastest growing technology companies in Asia Pacific. Covering the entire gamut of IoT value chains ranging from intelligent wireless communications, IoT as a service, turnkey, to analytics solutions, MDTi has created a niche in this fast changing technology segment. Recently, Asia IoT Business Platform, an independent IoT marketing firm ranked MDTi as one of the top five IoT companies in the region along with the giants like Microsoft, IBM, Google, MDT, and Cisco owing to their consistent efforts in the space.

Transforming Security Systems

Since its inception in 2004, MDTi has gradually shifted its focus from offering partial deliverables within the IoT value chain to full-fledged IoT solutions and services. With time, the company has also witnessed tremendous growth in export sales with year over year growth of 40 percent. Liew views this success as an outcome of its diligent approach to enable connectivity at the fundamental level because that’s where legacy systems and objects get connected. “Our continuous attempts to enable our customers to reach out to ‘things’ that they have always wanted, acts as the catalyst of our success,” says Liew.

The company adopts this approach in the security space where it focuses on connecting systems to provide data-driven aspect of surveillance and enforcement, minimizing the total cost of ownership and operation of security systems. For instance, surveillance equipment such as walkie-talkie has always been bugged with limited range, lack of location tracking, and absence of reporting functionality. MDTi has developed IoT equipped IP-based walkie-talkie with security cloud based guards’ positioning system. While the conventional use of walkie-talkie systems helped field workers to be in touch with one another and the office, MDTi has developed RFID embedded walkie-talkie for real-time positioning of guards and has enhanced it further with VoLTE (Voice over LTE). Since VoLTE eliminates the dependency on the legacy circuit-switched voice network to be maintained, it enables communication within thousand users in single group instantly and simultaneously in a secure network. The company’s security solution allows multi-platform communication which is secured and encrypted and has no restriction on distance. Equipped with photo and video capabilities, guards can report emergencies with the click of a button.

In addition to security, MDTi’s astounding engineering achievements in telecommunications and e-payment such as the NFC (Near Field Communication) in SIM are grabbing the spotlight as well. MDTi’s development of world’s smallest NFC module, MD770R, and NFC in SIM card— which shrunk RF front end and antenna into the size of SIM card—empowered all mobile phones to become NFC-enabled. With this new NFC SIM, mobile network operators now have the option to roll out proprietary micro payment services, and also co-brand with banks using EMV platform to tap into the existing payment debit and credit card infrastructure and ecosystem worldwide.

Enhancing Visibility and Productivity

MDTi’s solutions in crowd movement and smart retail along with its work in progress automation have earned the company great acceptance and recognition among Fortune 500 semiconductor firms and retail chains in China, Malaysia, and Australia. MDTi has also recently added one of the largest semiconductor companies in Germany to its clientele.

Describing one of its proudest moments, Liew talks about how Freescale, one of the largest semiconductor manufacturers in Asia, employed MDTi’s WIP Automation to convert legacy machines into smart and connectible machines, thus streamlining identification, authentication, and tracking procedures. It is a platform where Work in Progress (WIP) levels are recorded and monitored in real time, which also helps in reducing just-in-time delivery risks by proactive supply chain management.

MDTi has been making a mark in education industry too with its solution in crowd movement. Many schools, especially across China, today use MDTi’s SchoolTrac that employs next generation RFID tracking to accurately detect the children’s movement in and out of school area. The solution notifies teachers and parents with messages and alerts in real-time to assure the safety and security of their children. It’s unique as it allows parents to opt for additional services such as obtaining information on the child’s behaviour in school which includes activities and people the child spends most of his time with, and his meal preferences. SchoolTrac provides data to help parents develop a better understanding of the activities, behaviour, and academic results of children. Delving into the market opportunity this technology has to offer, Liew says, “China has millions of schools out of which only a handful have implemented SchoolTrac leaving a huge market yet to be tapped.”

While the ability to track and manage people is helping revolutionize industries like security and education, MDTi’s highly customizable RFID configurations are also conquering the healthcare industry by monitoring assets.

RAPITAby MDTi comes as a rescuer for the healthcare industry which has always been tormented by theft of hospital assets and fixtures. RAPITA helps staff to search and locate assets instantly and alerts them when any equipment is taken out of facility. It further monitors equipment usage and increases cost efficiency. From mobile equipment such as IV pump, blood pressure monitor; drugs and medical supplies to wheelchairs (one of the most common objects of theft), hospitals can now have a detailed report on every asset and its condition.

It would be fair to say that in terms of innovation, MDTi has outdone itself with LINOTAG Connected Apparel, an IoT and Big Data application suite that utilizes patented linen-based RFID tag. “LINOTAG is the most cutting-edge RFID design, which uses yarn as wireless antenna that goes undetected by needle detector machines,” states Liew. Leveraging RAPITA Smarthook technology which combines hooks with NFC Antenna, LINOTAG equip racks with RFID scanners that increase store’s visibility on all apparels and identify if the apparels are on or off racks. The application suite analyzes trends, demography, and enhances customer engagements in store.

Miles to Go

Today, IoT is considered one of the most important and revolutionary technologies which is only going to get bigger. Gartner predicts that by 2020, 20.4 bn connected things will be in use worldwide compared to 8.4 bn in 2017, and MDTi is all set to grasp and gain from the opportunity with its years of dedicated research and development of IoT products that are creative, futuristic, and systematic.

"MDTi has earned great recognition in the IoT space, which includes being Asia Pacific fastest growing company with 3130 percent revenue growth from 2008 to 2010"

Over the years, MDTi has earned great recognition in the IoT space, which includes being Malaysia’s fastest growing company with 3130 percent revenue growth from 2008 to 2010. But for Liew, the company still has a long way to go and a huge market to tap. To explore the myriad possibilities IoT has to offer, MDTi spends about 12 to 15 percent of its revenue in research and development to keep itself abreast competitors. “Our foremost priority is to ensure the quality and reliability of our solutions and at the same time leverage new technology to solve issues that were once a roadblock to many possibilities,” conclude Liew.

About Liew Choon Lian:

Founder, chairman, and CEO of MDT Innovations, Liew Choon Lian has been recognized as EY Technology Entrepreneur of the Year 2015 for his immense contribution in the field of IoT technology, and building and leading a successful and dynamic business. Having held reputed positions in Multimedia Display Technologies S/B, Fuji-Keizai USA, and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd., Lian is a man with a mission—to make MDTi the market leader in the IoT industry and an internationally established player. Liew’s corporate goal is to provide the most optimal solution in the shortest time to meet the requirements of customers.