Mazak to construct new plant in Japan

Florence, Kentucky – Yamazaki Mazak officials have announced the construction of a new production facility in Inabe City, Mie Prefecture, Japan. The new Yamazaki Mazak Inabe plant will combine – as key components of Mazak’s iSMART Factory concept – production automation and Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) technology.

 

The Inabe plant follows suit with Mazak’s Kentucky plant where the iSMART Factory concepts are already established, as well as with the existing Yamazaki Mazak Oguchi Plant in Japan that will be a full iSMART Factory by the end of 2016. As an iSMART Factory and with 56,000m² of planned floor space for manufacturing larger size machine tools, the new Inabe plant will boost productivity by more than 50%.

 

Mazak’s iSMART Factory uses advanced manufacturing cells and systems together with full digital integration to achieve free-flow data sharing of process control and operation monitoring. In the iSMART Factory, the MTConnect open communications protocol works with process support software and provides connectivity and the capability to monitor and then harvest data from production floor machines, cells, devices, and processes.

 

Operation from the current Yamazaki Mazak Seiko in the Mie Prefecture will transfer to the new plant in stages. Completion and full operation of the ¥20 billion ($176 million) Inabe plant is scheduled for 2019.