Companies looking to connect factory floor operational technology (OT) with their IT systems now have a new option from Mitsubishi Electric. The MELIPC edge computing solution offers optimizations such as predictive maintenance or quality control with real-time data analysis and direct feedback to the operator.
The MELIPC solution enables production quality and productivity gains in industries such as automotive, food and beverage, and life science. The real-time process software provides local diagnostics, predictive feedback, and visualization for analysis of the production environment.
Predictive maintenance and quality control analytics algorithms are already on board the MELIPC series. In continuous production applications, it can improve processes and adapt to variables. Efficiency is improved by generating a live predictive model, which can be updated and refined based on new demands from the process. For example, a packaging machine in a food and beverage application can predict problems and thus prevent errors, improving quality.
The MELIPC solution can recognize deviations in machine status in real time by using artificial intelligence (AI). In a car paint shop, for example, it can be used to prevent downtime. Detailed status information is reported back to the automation level, so that operators can make proactive active adjustments or maintenance interventions to maintain efficiency and increase availability.
Bringing data processing to the physical location of operations can also improve data security and process integrity. In a life science application, the MELIPC solution can be used to store and analyze sensitive information at the OT level, instead of sending it to the cloud. This also provides much faster real-time diagnostics while reducing costs and IT infrastructure requirements. The new MELIPC solution complements Mitsubishi Electric’s existing edge computing portfolio, such as the MAPS SCADA, data logging and controller modules.
