KDDI, Hitachi collaborate on global IoT business

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KDDI Corp and Hitachi Ltd are joining forces with the KDDI IoT Worldwide Architecture, which provides corporate clients that do business globally with services ranging across IoT connectivity, servicing and data analysis.

In recent years, advances in IoT technology, which connects just about anything to the Internet, has made it possible to gather and analyze a vast array of richly varied data from products, facilities and equipment. This, in turn, makes it possible to develop new services and transform business models, which has accelerated the efforts of all companies to create new value.

KDDI is promoting an IoT Worldwide Architecture that will provide services ranging from IoT connectivity to data analysis, enabling worldwide connectivity that links vehicles, industrial machinery and a range of other “things” despite country-by-country differences in telecommunication connectivity standards.

Furthermore, to build the Global Communication Platform, which is the core of this Architecture, KDDI has employed Hitachi’s technology for an important element that enables centralized IoT connection management across the telecommunication carriers plugged into that Platform from each country.

In May 2016, Hitachi began offering Lumada, an IoT platform created through a blending of Hitachi’s accumulated operational technology in the manufacturing industry, along with IT expertise which include AI, Big Data analysis and other state-of-the-art digital technologies. Lumada is characterized by an open and adaptable architecture, which simplifies linking with a wide range of other platforms and applications in various industries.

Up to now, Hitachi has collaborated with diverse partners in Japan and abroad in a wide variety of fields, ranging from social infrastructure such as electric power grids, to transportation, manufacturing and distribution. Hitachi has already a track record of more than 500 customer cases[2] where mechanical fault forecasting has improved operational efficiency and traffic information has been used to optimize logistics efficiency.

Linking KDDI’s Global Communication Platform with Hitachi’s Lumada will enable to support clients in their worldwide IoT business expansion efforts, fully leveraging Hitachi’s broad-ranging industrial capacity and proven performance.

The first business effort to result from the new collaboration begins in July when Hitachi Industrial Equipment Systems Co Ltd will undertake a trial implementation of Global Communication Platform for industrial inkjet printers, which are deployed worldwide.

Industrial inkjet printers are typically used to print manufacturing lot numbers, expiration dates and other information on food packages. Many of the machines made by Hitachi Industrial Equipment Systems are used overseas. Efforts have been made to support remote monitoring aims to print quality management and stable operational performance.

However, issues in connectivity have posed problems for a stable worldwide implementation of such monitoring activities. The ability to make use of Global Communication Platform will ensure a secure, high-quality environment for connectivity, which makes it possible to work with increasingly large volumes of data. As a result, we expect high-quality remote monitoring on a global scale. In the future, Hitachi aims to expand into advanced maintenance services, which include fault forecasting based on specific warning signs and reduction of costs.

KDDI and Hitachi plan to test out the management applications of this architecture to create new value from the vast and diverse data gleaned from plants and equipment in a wide range of fields such as construction machinery, manufacturing plants, energy, transportation and other forms of social infrastructures. This is a part of a broader effort by KDDI to accelerate the promotion of worldwide IoT business deployment.