Company Digitizes Japanese Plant
Mazak Corp. has transformed its Oguchi, Japan facility into an iSMART Factory with completely digitized manufacturing operations.
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Mazak’s Oguchi, Japan, facility has completely digitized and now uses advanced manufacturing cells and systems together with full digital integration to achieve free-flow data sharing in terms of process control and operation monitoring.
Along with its factory in Florence, Kentucky, Mazak Corp.’s Oguchi, Japan, facility has completely digitized all manufacturing operations. These Mazak iSMART Factories use advanced manufacturing cells and systems together with full digital integration to achieve free-flow data sharing in terms of process control and operation monitoring. The company plans to eventually digitize all 10 of its manufacturing operations.
In these next-generation factories, the MTConnect open communications protocol works with process support software and provides connectivity and the capability to monitor and harvest data from all the different production floor machines, cells, devices and processes. Immediately after the implementation of this digital process monitoring through the MTConnect and as well as SmartBox technology, double-digit increases in productivity and machine utilization have been experienced in each facility.
For the Oguchi factory, the MTConnect open protocol allows the plant to use its own in-house cyber monitoring software. This software works in conjunction with Mazak’s Smooth Monitoring software so the plant can monitor operations and productivity.
The company will make further announcements concerning its factory digization at this year’s EMO Hanover 2017 show Sept. 18-23 in Hanover, Germany.
