HIROTEC eliminates factory downtime and increases productivity with HPE IoT system

SINGAPORE, October 23,
2017 – Hewlett Packard Enterprise (NYSE: HPE) today announced that HIROTEC
Corporation, one of the world’s largest private automotive parts manufacturers,
has deployed an IoT solution from HPE that delivers real-time visibility into business
operations to successfully eliminate process bottlenecks and the manual
inspection of production systems.

The solution, which
features HPE Edgeline servers, helped HIROTEC address issues that impacted its
efficiency and throughput. By predicting and preventing failures in critical
systems at its facilities, HIROTEC achieved a better understanding of
performance at its production facilities, and was able to make improvements
based on real-time data analytics at the edge.

As a globally
recognized premier automotive equipment manufacturer and parts supplier with
over 85 years of mass production experience and engineering discipline, HIROTEC
owns 27 facilities in nine countries around the world. The company designs and
builds approximately 8 million doors and 1.8 million exhaust systems yearly,
making it one of the largest private production companies in the global
automotive market.

In an industry where
auto manufacturers could pit suppliers against each other to keep prices low
and quality high, unplanned downtime in manufacturing facilities could cost
companies like HIROTEC $1.3 million an hour1, and put the company at
risk of falling behind on delivery timetables.

With the objective of
eliminating unplanned downtime and increasing productivity, HIROTEC understood
the importance of increasing productivity with IoT solutions while gaining
insights from valuable information across its facilities.

HIROTEC selected HPE
Edgeline IoT systems and PTC’s ThingWorx Technology Platform to enable data
collection and analysis, and provide insights into factory machinery control.
The solution was optimized for factory production facilities and capable of production
systems monitoring and real-time data collection and analysis on the edge. The
system integration in Japan was implemented by Nippon Systemware Co., Ltd.

Instead of sending IoT
data on the edge to the data center or cloud for processing and analysis, the
solution delivered sophisticated data processing and real-time analytics on the
edge, providing a remote visualization of automated exhaust system inspection
lines. Data sources for this platform included inspection robots, force
sensors, laser measurement devices, and cameras.

“Historically,
manufacturing groups have struggled to collaborate with IT, but we understood
that with the advent of Industry 4.0 manufacturing models, we needed a solution
that could withstand the hard knocks of an automotive parts manufacturing
facility while delivering real-time insights from our factory floor,” said
Justin Hester, Senior Researcher – IoT Laboratory, HIROTEC Corporation. “When
PTC told us about their demo robot taking a lot of damage after falling off a loading
dock, and then saying that the HPE Edgeline server that was integrated into the
robot powered right back on, it was a no-brainer. We knew that the HPE Edgeline
IoT solution was a perfect match for our production facilities.”

Since the implementation
of the solution, HIROTEC improved its factory monitoring processes and
production efficiency. It was able to perform real-time visualization and
automatic, paperless report generation for automatic robotic inspection system.
It also reduced time to manually inspect production systems, enabling
technicians to re-invest time in tasks that drive value to production workflows
while eliminating process bottle necks. In the coming months, HIROTEC plans to
build on the solution to scale to an entire door production line and to enable
augmented reality applications to further advance its manufacturing
capabilities and efficiencies – taking steps on its journey of transformation
from a smart factory to a smart enterprise.

1 Cost of unplanned downtime for North American
auto OEMs.

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Hewlett Packard
Enterprise is an industry leading technology company that enables customers to
go further, faster. With the industry’s most comprehensive portfolio, spanning
the cloud to the data center to workplace applications, our technology and
services help customers around the world make IT more efficient, more
productive and more secure.

HIROTEC Group is a
$1.6B Japanese corporation that is globally recognized as a premier automotive
manufacturing equipment and parts supplier. With over 85 years of mass
production experience and engineering discipline and 27 facilities in nine
countries around the world, HIROTEC Group designs and builds roughly

8 million doors and
1.8 million exhaust systems a year, making it one of the largest private
production companies in today’s global automotive market. Spreading out
advanced technology generated in Hiroshima, Japan, HIROTEC aims at developing
itself as a global engineering company.

For further
information about HPE Edgeline IoT Systems please visit https://www.hpe.com/sg/en/servers/edgeline-iot-systems.html