Industrial Automation Magazine India

NEC and Siemens partner to provide AI monitoring and analysis solution

Published on : Wednesday 11-03-2020

The solution will accelerate digitisation in manufacturing, enhance the operations of factory systems, plant equipment and product quality.

Tokyo, Japan, March 9, 2020 – NEC Corporation has announced a collaboration with Siemens in the IoT field to provide a monitoring and analysis solution for manufacturing that connects MindSphere®, the cloud-based, open Internet of Things (IoT) operating system from Siemens, and NEC's System Invariant Analysis Technology (SIAT). As part of the agreement, NEC is joining the MindSphere Partner Program, which can provide NEC with access to specialized technical training and support from Siemens as well as a number of joint go-to-market capabilities.

In recent years, with the acceleration of digitisation and the spread of IoT, the safety, efficiency, maintenance and product quality of systems are being visualized and analysed based on data collected from a large number of sensors installed in various locations, such as plant systems, manufacturing lines and factories. However, it is necessary to systemise data collection, storage, monitoring, analysis and other processes in order to utilise sensor data. Moreover, unique know-how, such as knowledge about IoT systems and data analysis, is required to construct such a system, making it difficult for customers to construct by themselves.

In addition, especially in the manufacturing industry, work processes are often based on the expertise of each plant or individual. Therefore, the loss of know-how due to the retirement of skilled personnel and lack of staff poses a serious challenge.

In order to solve these issues, NEC and Siemens have enhanced their products to enable greater visualisation and analysis of sensor data.

System Invariant Analysis Technology, part of NEC's cutting-edge portfolio of AI technologies, "NEC the WISE", is being used to automatically learn and model the behaviour of systems based on data gathered from a large number of sensors installed in large-scale, complex systems. This provides visualization of systems and how they operate, in addition to enabling systems to operate safely and efficiently by proactively detecting errors using analytical models. NEC has already installed approximately 100 such systems internationally.

MindSphere is the cloud-based, open IoT operating system from Siemens that connects products, plants, systems, and machines, enabling companies to harness the wealth of data generated by the IoT with advanced analytics. The MindSphere Partner Program is Siemens' partner program for industrial IoT solution and technology providers.

The companies plan to target customers in manufacturing industries internationally, then expand to customers in other industries.