To achieve sustainable benefits by continuously offering customers new value, manufacturing industries are accelerating efforts to create business value utilizing various data collected from in-house departments as well as suppliers and customers. In line with the move to implement regulations related to disclosing information on carbon footprint of products (CFP), circular material use rates, and compliance with target levels mainly in Europe, establishing data collaboration platforms across supply and value chains is being promoted by manufacturing industries in Japan and overseas. With this in mind, attention is becoming more focused on smart manufacturing applying digital technologies to all product development processes.

The Toshiba Group is continuing efforts to deliver a broad range of solutions to enhance both interdivisional and intercorporate collaboration in the operational technology (OT) and information technology (IT) systems to achieve smart manufacturing in each phase of the product life cycle, from design and development, to manufacturing, use, reuse, and disposal, and to enhance product value.

ISHIKAWA Tadashi

To achieve more efficient production systems, the Toshiba Group is promoting transformation of work sites into smart factories using Internet of Things (IoT) technologies both by systematizing smart factory construction methods, and by applying Meister Factory series manufacturing IoT solutions developed by Toshiba Digital Solutions Corporation.

The Meister Factory series plays an important role in smart factories by integrating utilizing various data collected from IoT devices while achieving a balance between short-term improvement effects required by site staff and medium- and long-term investment effects required by the management. Based on favorable results gained at the Toshiba Group, we are broadening our approach to provide solutions to customer issues.

INATA Minoru / KAMO Takayasu / OISHI Yoshiyuki

Due to changes that have taken place in the manufacturing industry in recent years, the need has arisen for greater competitiveness through business streamlining by promoting digital transformation (DX) as well as transitioning to servitization by providing users with services related to their products. With this in mind, demand for platforms capable of offering optimal services to individual users continues to grow.

Toshiba Digital Solutions Corporation offers a platform that allows equipment manufacturers to provide optimal services to end users by applying Meister RemoteX, an asset Internet of Things (IoT) cloud service for equipment manufacturers to collect asset data in their factories. So far, it has contributed to transforming equipment manufacturing into service businesses in the water treatment field, and enhancing comfort, usability, and management support for elevators.

FUKAI Eigo / MOMOTAKE Hiroyuki / HAYASHIDA Akihiro

The Toshiba Group has been focusing on promoting digital transformation (DX) in manufacturing by providing a variety of operational technology (OT) components that enable introduction of information technology (IT) solutions at manufacturing sites.

Part of these efforts entails developing the following OT components: (1) a rackmount industrial computer capable of operating under severe conditions and being installed in a control cabinet, (2) a software-defined industrial controller capable of flexibly responding to addition and/or rearrangement of manufacturing lines, and (3) an instrument component virtualization platform capable of remotely providing engineering as well as manufacturing control via cloud systems, resulting in an asset-light defect inspection system with enhanced functionality.

ISHII Ken / KUSAKABE Takashi / SAKATA Shinichiro / KADOKURA Yuma

In the industrial domain, improving operating efficiency and providing safe work site conditions have become increasingly important issues due to recent labor shortages driven by a declining birthrate and aging society.

With this in mind, Toshiba Infrastructure Systems & Solutions Corporation offers the MULiSiTEN wristband sensor, which can quantify worker heat stress levels using biological data such as the pulse rate. We have developed new technology that estimates a worker’s psychological stress level from collected data and a function to recommend ways to improve their health, confirming their effectiveness through verification tests with the goal of practical application. Utilizing data measured and analyzed by the new technology and functions from the Meister Apps field work visualization package, which is provided by Toshiba Digital Solutions Corporation, will contribute to safer, more efficient work environments.

HARADA Hiroshi / NAKAMURA Mashu

Lately, the manufacturing industry faces various issues including the ongoing transition from gasoline to electric vehicles, a drop in younger staff, and a lack of technical knowledge passed down from skilled engineers. These circumstances make it difficult to survive using conventional approaches since the COVID-19 pandemic. Extended reality (XR), a general term for cutting-edge image processing technologies including augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR), and virtual reality (VR), is garnering attention as a way of achieving higher quality with a smaller workforce. Because inspection and visual confirmation techniques are required for improved manufacturing site quality and productivity, superimposing digital information on the real world with XR technologies to facilitate with operating instructions has spread to various fields including inspection, training, and education.

Toshiba Digital Solutions Corporation has developed the Meister AR Suite and Meister MR Link solutions which anyone can use immediately anywhere to efficiently carry out manufacturing work.

KITAHARA Hirotaka / SUDA Natsumi / MANEESAENG Nutnicha

Model-based development (MBD) using numerical models and simulators have become prevalent in efforts to efficiently develop products in a variety of fields. Also, the trend of model exchange for MBD, which are available among multiple companies, has begun to pick up speed recently.

Toshiba Digital Solutions Corporation provides a distributed co-simulation platform called VenetDCP, which interconnects a variety of models distributed at multiple companies and different sites and simulates all models working together as a whole. We are also endeavoring to promote expanded model exchange via VenetDCP. Part of these efforts include further enhancements to remote operation of simulation tools, which can automatically estimate the parameters of models distributed at different sites.

NAKAMA Masahiko / IKEDA Kazushi

In line with the worldwide trend of helping achieve a sustainable society, it has become necessary for Japanese manufacturing industries to immediately engage in energy conservation and carbon neutrality efforts. To achieve a balance between environmental friendliness and maintaining and strengthening productivity, however, various issues must be overcome including the development of implementation plans, establishment of promotion frameworks, acquisition of funds, integration into existing operations, and collaboration with related companies.

Toshiba Digital Solutions Corporation is committed to developing and delivering assessment programs as well as a broad range of digital technologies, products, and services proven inside and outside the Toshiba Group by utilizing our Meister series manufacturing solutions, thereby supporting sustainability initiatives in the manufacturing industry.

HIROKAWA Chikako / ASANO Yutaka

From the perspective of corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities, including mitigating procurement risks due to global supply chain disruptions and the working toward carbon neutrality, manufacturing industries have recently been implementing various measures to enhance overall supply chain robustness and sophistication.

Toshiba Digital Solutions Corporation is developing MeisterSRM Portal, a supply chain platform that delivers new value by offering data services to send and share information to support business activities among various manufacturing-related companies including suppliers. Thanks to collaboration between MeisterSRM Portal and MeisterSRM, a strategic procurement solution that has been introduced to the market, we have now established a communication platform capable of high-level communications among suppliers and buyers and visualizing information obtained by communications across the entire supply chain with the aim of creating new types of businesses and reforming business models.

Feature Articles

MISHIMA Nao

Camera image analysis is utilized for various applications including risk detection, customer behavior analysis, and operational efficiency improvement. Issues, however, include the need for manual analysis or the development of dedicated artificial intelligence (AI) models in accordance with each application. In line with the progress of research on a vision-language foundation model based on pre-training of large volumes of images and text data collected via networks, this model is expected to enable precise understanding of images.

Toshiba Corporation has developed a proprietary image analysis technology, called object-centric visual question answering (VQA), that provides clear answers to questions about objects in images by means of an AI developed using a visual-language foundation model. The object-centric VQA can be easily expanded to various business applications including offices, manufacturing and logistics sites, and service businesses thanks to the following features: (1) capability to appropriately answer various questions based on the understanding of content in each image, (2) applicability to complicated tasks by simply changing the questions without the need for additional manual development, and (3) minimal calculation due to only answering questions about the target object.

TARUI Masaya / MOCHIZUKI Shohei

Toshiba Corporation is developing HABANEROTS, a platform for Internet of Things (IoT) data collection and asset management services to allow tenants, such as users and customers, not only to directly concentrate on business development, but also to provide varied functions to operate their applications. Having HABANEROTS be used by multiple tenants is an important part of reducing operational costs so that services can be offered continuously to more tenants.
To address this issue, we have constructed a multitenant environment on HABANEROTS to share its resources while taking into consideration the characteristics of each resource, as well as providing a self-hosting service by introducing appropriate settings and policy controls to hosting environments, thereby reducing operational costs and providing flexible service settings.

WATABE Kazuo / TAKAMINE Hidefumi / OKUMURA kyoichi

Because aging social infrastructure in Japan including bridges, etc. is deteriorating, it is necessary to streamline maintenance to save on labor as well as costs.

The Toshiba Group has developed a deterioration diagnosis system for concrete structures which detects acoustic emissions generated from internal cracks. Using this technology, we have developed a new deterioration assessment technique capable of analyzing and visualizing the internal soundness of bridge decks based on digitized data from weak elastic waves generated on the road surface as vehicles cross bridges. Demonstration experiments on an actual expressway confirm that this method can assess bridge deck internal deterioration with a high degree of accuracy. This technique will enable formulation and implementation of repair and maintenance plans at the optimal times, reducing manual labor and costs.

YAMADA Yuta / OKABE Motohiko

Progress in digital transformation (DX) in recent years has led to advances in plant process control systems, facilitating efficient, optimal operations through close collaboration of control systems based on the results of analyzing large volumes of data collected on-site.

Toshiba Infrastructure Systems & Solutions Corporation has launched the Unified Controller Vm series typeL industrial controller (hereafter abbreviated as typeL) acting as a distributed control system (DCS), and the OI-VS10/OI-VS20 web-based human-machine interface (HMI) equipment for DX. The results of demonstration tests applying the CIEMAC VS next-generation integrated control system for process control comprising those new products to the online process control of a reaction vessel confirm space saving and reduced maintenance costs, and eliminate the need for cable connections thanks to the all-in-one typeL capable of handling various tasks from collecting sensing data to analysis and control using collected information. The CIEMAC VS is expected to play a critical role in remote monitoring on the cloud 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

Frontiers of Research & Development

Constructing Software Defined Cyber-Physical Systems by Applying WebAssembly

*Company, product, and service names appearing in each paper include those that are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.

Vol. 79, No. 4, July 2024

Index