Taiwan Instrument Research Institute (TIRI) of National Applied Research Laboratories (NARLabs) signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Japan Edgecross Consortium (ECC) on August 23, 2019 to elevate Taiwan’s “Integrating industrial Internet of Things (IIoT)” research and development capabilities. The MoU will primarily focus on joint development cooperation in the field of “edge computing”, promoting standardized smart manufacturing field machines and cloud data collection interfaces, with an aim to enhance domestic “IIoT” research and development capabilities, and expand cloud computing capabilities. Through these efforts, Taiwan can expect to standardize smart manufacturing for global needs and get a head start on smart manufacturing.
The signing ceremony was held at Taiwan Automation Intelligence and Robot Show on August 23. The MoU was signed by Dr. Yao-Joe Yang, Director General of TIRI and Masaki Tokunaga, the Chief Secretary of Edgecross. In the future, ECC will assist TIRI and academic institutes to adopt Edgecross software platform through TIRI’s “IIoT” platform to quickly collect, analyze and utilize all data from production sites and complete system construction.
In recent years, Industry 4.0 has been a hot topic in the industry. Smart manufacturing plays a key role in Industry 4.0 and “IIoT” has made smart manufacturing possible. With the goal of mastering the key technology of smart manufacturing, TIRI launched an optical component production platform as a test field to pROVide a technical demonstration scene for academic institutes, combining resources from cross-school teams and National Center for High-performance Computing (NCHC) of NARLabs to implement technical solutions in the pre-industry verification. TIRI plays the role of a third-party verification platform bridging academia and industry. In addition to adopting ECC’s software package, TIRI and academic institutes also tried to harmonize various networks to create new added value for smart manufacturing. Through cloud computing and analysis to enhance smart manufacturing R&D capabilities, TIRI integrates individual and small-scale facilities and resources in various academic institutes to achieve technology and resource sharing and resolve all kind of problems.
ECC is formed by Japan NEC Corporation, Oracle Corporation Japan, IBM Japan, Ltd., Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, Omron Japan, Advantech Co., Ltd., Hitachi, and other global leading industrial companies. The consortium established a technology platform based on “edge computing” from consortium members to accelerate IIoT application in smart manufacturing. Integrating IIoT and data analysis, ECC is pushing smart manufacturing technology to a new milestone.
Dr. Yao-Joe Yang, Director General of TIRI, stated that in line with Taiwan government’s effort to drive smart machinery industry, TIRI has been working with other NARLabs units to jointly invest in research and development capabilities to support academic institutes in developing innovative solutions for industries. Cooperating with ECC, through technology exchange and sharing, accelerating “IIoT” research and development for smart manufacturing, and filling the technical insufficiency of domestic industries with academic and research teams’ R&D capability, we not only upgraded domestic industries but also propagated Taiwan’s smart manufacturing technology to the world and met global standards.
