Solutions
e-F@ctory Alliance
Monitoring and Control Solutions over the 5G Network
Production lines across many industries tend to be full of complex operations, purpose-specific processes and differing management requirements. That creates problems and obstacles in getting equipment to work together — robots, machinery, energy control devices. When devices operate together over a long period, they encounter different problems and obstacles because of differing environments, usage and equipment service life, which leads to difficulty in predicting maintenance. That in turn can cause parts of the equipment to stop, up to and including a large-scale system shutdown.
Another major obstacle for many industries is operational connectivity. Given a highly volatile global situation in which unexpected events can occur at any time, the connection between operators and the plant network matters enormously if a business is to control operations, see problems on the production line, and check what is happening on its own line at all times.
Solution collaboration at e-F@ctory Alliance level
To address these obstacles and problems, Mitsubishi Electric has collaborated with partners from the e-F@ctory Alliance programme — Mugendai Technology, specialists in automated control system solutions for industrial plants, and True 5G, a service provider on a Private 5G network delivering speed, stability and high security to industrial-grade customers. The result is the 'Monitoring and Control over the 5G network' solution, with each partner company jointly designing and developing the solution so that production can run on a smooth, seamless system across industries with differing needs.
■ Mitsubishi Electric – Operation Technology Components (GENESIS64 and MELSEC iQ-R series PLCs) ■ TRUE 5G – Private 5G network service provider ■ Mugendai Technology – SCADA Programing, Visualizing and System Configuration
The 'Monitoring and Control over the 5G network' solution
The collaboration between Mitsubishi Electric's e-F@ctory Alliance, Mugendai Technology and True 5G has produced a solution that connects robots, machinery, energy-level management and maintenance prediction across the whole production line, links them together, and sends all the data through for display on the SCADA system (Mitsubishi Electric's GENESIS64). Mugendai Technology's solution is responsible for extracting the data and handling system configuration across the entire production line; the data is then carried over the True 5G network and presented in real time.
Beyond making operation and the connection between the production line and its operators easier, the 'Monitoring and Control over the 5G network' solution also cuts the cost of running cable in the plant, which brings far more flexibility. Consider the case of a plant that wants to scale production up and add sites that may be some distance apart, but still wants cabling between production lines — the cost may well be higher. Or the case where an industrial operation sometimes needs to relocate a production line, and has to spend time re-running cable every time. Bringing in 5G for connectivity means an industrial plant no longer has to re-cable on each occasion, and makes expanding its own production line straightforward.
'Monitoring and Control over the 5G network' — the capability that elevates production
Inspect and manage data across the production line comprehensively — from the operation of robots, machinery and energy measurement devices to maintenance prediction — and present it on GENESIS64
■ Display and record alarm data from robots and machinery ■ Real-time display, with access to a robot's historical records ■ Build Smart Reports from collected and summarized data, and export reports in Excel format ■ Remote work and maintenance ■ Less connecting cable, making operations far more flexible and cutting cost by adopting 5G
The security solution for 'Monitoring and Control' on the 5G network
True 5G, in collaboration with Mitsubishi Electric, offers a security solution connected over a Private 5G network with industrial-grade security, accessed through a Private SIM Card. This is a closed arrangement in which only operators holding a Private SIM Card can reach the data in the system; holders of Private SIM Cards on other networks, and users of ordinary SIM cards, cannot reach that data at all.
Figure 1: Diagram showing how data is linked from inside the plant to outside it over the 5G network
Real-time inspection on SCADA
Monitoring the various operations in the 'Monitoring and Control' solution on the 5G network runs through Mitsubishi Electric's SCADA system, using the future-facing GENESIS64 software to control and manage everything. This SCADA operates in real time, so business owners and operators can view data inside the system from anywhere — with only an internet connection and a Private SIM Card, they can enter the system immediately.
On top of that, using the 'Monitoring and Control' solution on the 5G network allows machinery or robots to be controlled and maintained remotely without travelling to the production line, and makes reporting on system use and operation quick and convenient — reports can be exported against templates defined in GENESIS64, and those reports can be designed by the user, so no time is lost separating or gathering data specific to a production line.
The 'Monitoring and Control over the 5G network' solution is a way of working that makes an industrial plant's inspection and management capability still more unbounded. Through the e-F@ctory Alliance collaboration between Mitsubishi Electric, Mugendai Technology and True 5G, the partners have jointly developed a solution that connects robots, machinery, energy-level management and maintenance prediction across the whole production line, links them together, sends all the data over the 5G network, and presents it on the SCADA system (Mitsubishi Electric's GENESIS64). It raises an industrial operation to work smoothly, quickly and seamlessly — becoming a genuine automation plant in line with the e-F@ctory concept.
