Industrial Value Chain Initiative (IVI) (IVI President, Yasuyuki Nishioka, Professor, Hosei University) signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Robot Revolution & Industrial IoT Initiative (RRI Chairman, Hideaki Omiya) to collaborate in promoting activities aimed at realizing the transformation of manufacturing businesses through IoT. Based on this agreement, IVI and RRI, as Japan’s core centers for IoT in the manufacturing industry, will deepen mutual collaboration and actively promote initiatives to realize the ideal state of smart manufacturing beyond the digitalization of the manufacturing industry.
IVI and RRI have agreed to collaborate on the following activities.
- Promotion of creation, sharing, and use of use cases
- Social implementation of manufacturing business transformation through IoT
- Promotion of mutual cooperation in the other activities that are mutually recognized as necessary, including
Research and human resource exchange
Promotion of exchange among members
Mutual support for human resource development
Signing of MOU
From left to right: IVI President, Yasuyuki Nishioka and RRI Director of Secretariat, Tatsuya Ohira.
Message from Tatsuya Ohira, RRI Director of Secretariat:
RRI’s Working Group (WG1), Manufacturing Business Transformation by IoT, has been cooperating with IVI since its establishment, complementing each other’s areas of strengths. The signing of the MoU is expected to enable more effective activities, such as promotion of more specific projects and exchange of human resources. IVI and RRI are two of the largest organizations in Japan promoting IoT in the manufacturing industry, and we expect that their collaboration will have a significant impact not only in Japan but also in the world. We expect that the collaboration between the two organizations will have a great impact.
Message from Yasuyuki Nishioka , IVI President
In addition to improving productivity through automation, Japan’s manufacturing industry needs to expand its market by being “connected with each other”. In order to realize the “connected” beyond the boundaries of companies and even beyond industries, it is necessary to discuss not only standardization but also the system from the viewpoint of protecting small and medium-sized manufacturers. I hope that the alliance with RRI, a leading organization in Japan, will accelerate the all-Japan efforts for smart manufacturing. I also expect that there will be new developments in “smart thinking,” a method for digitizing and connecting the manufacturing industry, and in the promotion of Connected Industries Open Framework (CIOF) for the manufacturing industry, through collaboration with RRI.
■What is Robot Revolution & Industrial IoT Initiative (RRI)?
Robot Revolution & Industrial IoT Initiative (RRI) is an organizational platform established based on the “New Robot Strategy” (decided by the Headquarters for Japan’s Economic Revitalization on February 10, 2015) and led by the private sector to promote the “Robot Revolution” set forth in the strategy. In addition, one of the three WGs, that is a WG named as “Manufacturing Business Transformation through IoT”, is promoting an industrial revolution in the manufacturing sector to increase productivity through the use of digitalization and automation, including upstream, and to make the world and Japan more prosperous with Society 5.0 through accelerated innovation. In order to achieve this, we are systematically, and scientifically discussing essential issues and concrete measures for Connected Industries, while taking a high-level, cross-sectional, overall view. Through this process, we are creating a place to generate autonomous solution activities. (https://www.jmfrri.gr.jp/)
■What is Industrial Value Chain Initiative (IVI)?
Industrial Value Chain Initiative (IVI) is a forum mainly for the manufacturing industry established on June 18, 2015, with the aim of realizing “connected” manufacturing based on the concept of “loose standards”, which is made possible by integration of manufacturing and IT in the IoT era. More than 250 companies, including IHI, OMRON, Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Kobe Steel, KONNO Corporation, CKD, JTEKT, Daifuku, Toshiba, Toyota, Brother Industries, Nikon, NEC, Panasonic, Hitachi, Ltd., Fujitsu, Mazda, Mitsubishi Electric, Yaskawa Electric, have joined the forum to promote digital transformation (DX) in the manufacturing industry. IVRA-Next, a standardization model that incorporates the strengths of the Japanese manufacturing industry, such as kaizen and the PDCA cycle, and Smart Thinking, a method for organizational transformation, are introduced at Hannover Messe and other venues, and specific software environments for the realization of connected manufacturing are proposed through demonstration experiments of more than 15 use cases every year. (https://iv-i.org/)
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4-3-28-302 Kudan-kita, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 102-0073, Japan
TEL: +81-3-6272-6021
FAX: +81-3-6272-6023
E-mail: office@iv-i.org
Industrial Value Chain Initiative
IVI Secretariat: Masao Kamada
Web page: http://iv-i.org/
<Inquiries from the media>
IVI Secretariat: Masao Kamada
E-mail: office@iv-i.org
