The benefits of a reducing the number of suppliers are widely recognized across manufacturing and industry, with savings including lower development costs and faster time-to-market for new products. Mitsubishi Electric argues the same benefits can be realised by machine builders of all sizes. Typically, the overall cost of design, programming, development, assembly and testing […]
Inverter drives (VSDs) with an integrated PLC enable system designers to design out a standalone PLC in a wide range of machine application. This simplifies panel design and wiring, reduces size, and saves cost. In addition to providing local control, the PLC function can also be used for condition monitoring and provide machine data […]
OMRON Automation has announced a machine automation controller (PLC) equipped with a machine learning artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm. The first of its kind in the industry, the AI-equipped controller achieves real-time integration with the factory floor. The new controllers integrate knowhow of skilled workers into the controls of equipment. This enable it to […]
Mitsubishi Electric has addressed the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) need for business to harvest production data from shop floor to cloud computing with its Edge Computing solution. The solutions are built on local control platforms to provide filtering and pre-processing of production data from intelligent devices, and at the same time facilitate communications to […]
In a recent project to improve productivity at Omron’s Kusatsu plant, engineers wanted to support anecdotal reports from plant-floor operators with real-time information. Their goal was to identify and assess continuous improvement projects with real-time data. To realise this, the factory traced products through the manufacturing processes to analyse where improvements can be made. […]