Zeon IoT platform to deliver efficiencies across smart factory sites

Tokyo – Zeon Corp. has developed and started operating a new IoT platform to support group-wide smart factory initiatives.

The platform enables Zeon to “visualise and leverage” data generated at its manufacturing sites and R&D centre, explained the materials major.

The focus is on helping to improve workplace efficiency and accelerating the adoption of digital technologies, according to a 15 Oct press statement

Over recent years, Zeon has stepped up efforts to build smart factories that use digital technologies to optimise production and improve efficiency.

To maintain stable operations and IT security, however, the company has kept production systems — including plant control, monitoring, and measurement networks — separate from other internal systems.

While this approach has ensured a high level of safety, it has also made it difficult to share and utilise operational data across the organisation, slowing Zeon’s digital transformation.

Developed with IoT platform provider Soracom, the new system addresses this issue by connecting ‘peripheral operational systems’ and enabling “the secure company-wide use of operational data accumulated at each site.”

A feature of the platform is its ability to connect standalone devices, such as measuring instruments, to the common system and the plant and R&D centre systems in the cloud via a closed network using cellular communication.

This design, according to Zeon, provides “a high level of security while also allowing for quick, flexible IoT system deployment.”

As cellular connections generally eliminate the need for wired LAN installation, sensors and analysers can be connected easily, enabling “site-led installation and rapid deployment.”

The communication environment, said Zeon, is internally accessible yet isolated from external networks, simply by installing gateways at locations as required.

Ahead of the group-wide rollout of the platform, Zeon introduced an equipment monitoring system at the Takaoka plant in May, following a proof of concept (PoC) exercise.

According to Zeon, the system has significantly reduced the need for on-site patrol inspections, while real-time data collection has enabled early detection of equipment anomalies and predictive monitoring.

Zeon said several of its sites are currently conducting PoCs using the platform for IoT projects as part of a phased rollout across Zeon’s manufacturing sites in Japan.

This, according to Zeon, will enable data that was previously held at each site to be “centralised and securely managed,” accelerating productivity and operational efficiency.