To assist our domestic industries in overseas development and establish strategy for long-term communication and partnership for smart manufacturing industries between Taiwan and Japan, the smart manufacturing delegation’s visit to Japan was led by Deputy Minister, Shen Jong-Chin. The delegation visited Seiren, Mitsubishi Electric, Hitachi High-Tech, and Yamato Transport, in order to understand how the Japanese enterprises introduce smart industrial processes in their operations as well as their differences. In addition, arrangements were also made for members to co-host the Taiwan-Japan smart machinery forum together with the Smart Machinery Office and Mitsubishi Electric, and sign the memorandum of understanding (MOU) on the Japan visit’s itinerary. More than 80 participants from the industry, government, and academia attended this forum. Not only have long-term communication and cooperation platform been established between Taiwanese and Japanese smart machinery industries; the technological exchanges between both industries have also deepened. For the communication and exchange situations among Seiren, Mitsubishi Electric, Hitachi High-Tech, and Yamato Transport and the delegation during the Japan visit, please refer to the following:
1. Seiren: The Viscotecs visual communication technology developed by Seiren combines digital printing for textile with information communication technology and applies the Internet of Things (IoT) and big data in order to provide consumers with “visual fitting.” There are up to 470,000 types of dresses available viascreen operations in the stores, achieving both goals of customization and characterization via smart manufacturing. This example allowed the Japanese government to discuss smart manufacturing. In addition, by using its printing and curing technologies, this company reduces the water demand in conventional dyeing and finishing processes. It is also a model for the textile industry combined with fashion in order to fulfill the requirements for “variable volumes with variable styles.”
2. Mitsubishi Electric: Since 2003, this company has started to push serial connections of equipment at its Nagoya factory and upload the data acquired from machinery equipment to the Cloud for management. Having developed the Mitsubishi’s e-F@ctory structure, it can achieve the development, manufacturing, and optimization for its high-quality service via “edge computing.” By using the e-F@ctory structure, the factory can quickly and smartly switch the production lines in one minute, yielding a total of up to 1.6 million of various types of servo-motors in a year. In addition, this company does not only focus on skills training, but also on production efficiency data collection, which will be turned into the educational basis for personal production improvement.
3. Hitachi High-Tech: Hitachi has aggressively developed the “Smart Factory as a Service (SFaaS)” solution, which integrates business administrations such as factory’s hardware construction, accounting, human resources and manufacturing, as well as raw materials and logistics. SFaaS collects the information from the on-site production equipment via the IoT and integrates image monitoring and analysis systems, giving the capability of remotely managingproduction quality for small and medium enterprises. With SFaaS, small and medium enterprises can go to Southeast Asia with minimum resources. With this remote management system, they can maintain very high quality production. This company also expressed its intention to collaboratively develop the Southeast Asian market with our domestic manufacturers in the future.
4. Yamato Transport:
Yamato is now working with the local Uni-President Enterprises to operate Takkyubin in Taiwan. The logistic technology behind Yamato’s Logistic Demonstration Center at Haneda, Tokyo can handle up to 48,000 pieces of articles per hour. Umezu Katsuhiko, the senior executive director, stated that his company had been working with the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism as well as Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry in order to introduce AI to the unmanned transportation field. To accomplish this, he also hopes to cooperate with Taiwan.
This journey also included a visit to the JPCA SHOW. After the Taiwan Printed Circuit Association (TPCA) examined the equipment shortage in our PCB industry, this visit then covered 7 participating suppliers – ORC, OHT, OFUNA, SCREEN, FUJI MACHINE, IBIDEN, and NIPPON MEKTRON. The super-high speed of the spindle of the PCB drilling machine developed by OFUNA can reach up to 300,000 rpm. It can process the micropore with minimum diameter of 0.075mm, making it an industry leader. In addition, this company also set up a factory at Dajia, Taichung for developing high-speed motors and motors’ high-speed spindles technologies. NIPPON MEKTRON has the largest professional FPCB factory in the world with a production value of 32% worldwide. Its products are used in mobile communication devices, consumer electronic products, etc. and have fairly high potential in applications, particularly in the automotive industry, such as sensors, battery power systems, lighting fixtures, information entertainment systems, and various switches, etc. For this Show, our locally printed circuit players presented very diversified applications (e.g. PCB for automotive electronics, smart golf club sensing elements, and medical care industry, etc.). In the future, they will also move forward to the high-end application fields (e.g. aerospace) to acquire leading application technology.
With in-depth communication and exchanges of smart manufacturing technology and industrial experiences between Taiwan and Japan, this visit has created a smart manufacturing solution for our PCB, smart automation, and robotic industries to upgrade our international competiveness. The international connections of our local smart machinery industry were also sped up through this forum, opening up more cooperative opportunities in the future.