Digitization Transforms Mazak Plant in Japan

Mazak Corporation (Florence, KY) continues their steadfast advancement toward the complete digitization of all their manufacturing operations with the recent transformation of their Oguchi, Japan, facility into yet another iSMART Factory™ that now joins the one in Florence as the first two in their overall plan to eventually designate all ten of their manufacturing operations as iSMART Factories.

As a dynamic, ongoing and limitless concept, these next-generation factories represent the company’s all-encompassing manufacturing vision and global branding initiative, using advanced manufacturing cells and systems together with full digital integration to achieve free-flow data sharing in terms of process control and operation monitoring.

In the iSMART Factory, the MTConnect® open communications protocol works with process support software and provides connectivity and the capability to monitor then harvest data from all the different production floor machines, cells, devices and processes. “There is little doubt in the industry that MTConnect will soon be the standard worldwide and the foundation of tomorrow’s digitized manufacturing operations,” said Brian Papke, the chairman of Mazak. “We’ve experienced double-digit increases in productivity and machine utilization in each facility immediately after the implementation of digital process monitoring through MTConnect and our SmartBox technology.”

For the Oguchi plant, the MTConnect open protocol allows the plant to use its own in-house cyber monitoring software. This software then works in conjunction with Smooth Monitoring software so the plant can monitor operations and optimize production efficiency. With these factories, the company continues to position itself at the forefront of factory digitization. Relative to that, they will make further announcements concerning this ongoing initiative at this year’s EMO Hanover 2017 show on September 18-23 in Hanover, Germany.

www.mazakusa.com