International. Daikin Industries and Hitachi announced that since October they started a joint demonstration to digitize quality control knowledge in the reaction process of chemical manufacturing, especially in fluorinated chemicals, at the Daikin Yodogawa plant (Settsu, Osaka Prefecture), as the second step in their collaborative creation.
For this joint demonstration, Daikin and Hitachi will present a system that generates alarms for workers to ensure proper quality control instantly. Hitachi's "Lumada" image analysis technology makes it possible to visualize a variety of states in reaction processes such as liquid foaming state and color change, all of which were visually verified by workers at certain designated points. This scanning technology extracts operational status data instantly and consecutively, leading to maintaining quality control and improving efficiency in the future.
In recent years, given the diversification of customer needs, the rapid progress of digitalization and the intensification of global competition, there is a need for a high volume of low-volume production that meets the individual needs of customers. In small-scale chemical production processes are difficult to detect using general instrumentation devices, quality is controlled by monitoring the production status with visual controls performed by workers at designated points.
However, as the quality of finished products can vary even under the same manufacturing conditions, such as the quantity and time of the liquid, quality control requires taking into account the factors that can be seen in the foaming state of the liquid, color change and other reaction states while the liquid is stirred, in order to improve the consistency of quality. Another problem, however, is that the frequency with which manufacturing processes can be monitored is restricted by the need to maintain productivity.
Daikin and Hitachi advance their collaborative creation to achieve a next-generation production model using advanced IoT. The first step of collaborative creation is to develop the "Brazing Skills Training Support System" that digitizes brazing skills by using Hitachi's image analysis technology. Welding skills require advanced skills and experience within the manufacturing process of air conditioners. The system started operating at Daikin's Shiga plant from October 2017 (2). Daikin is expanding the applications to other locations around the world.
As a second step in their collaborative creation, Daikin and Hitachi also applied Hitachi's image analysis technology and examined the digitization of quality control knowledge in the manufacturing process of fluorinated chemicals at Daikin's Yodogawa plant. From the perspective of the "4Ms"; "Man", "Machine", "Material" and "Method", have collected the numerical values of the time series and the image data of the reaction states of the chemicals (for example, liquid color and foaming) and the operating states of the equipment (for example, temperature and rotation speed) by cameras and sensors.
By converting image data into numerical data and correlating it with quality, it has become possible to establish quantitative criteria that affect the quality of finished products. Because of the criteria, the two companies gained the prospect of reducing the defect rate and improving productivity, and will begin a joint demonstration within the manufacturing process of fluorinated chemicals.
In this demonstration, Daikin and Hitachi will present the system on site to verify the effects. In the future, the system will be improved by adding new logic factors through the monitoring and analysis of human decisions. This system will contribute to digitizing the manufacturing knowledge of skilled and skilled workers and to establishing new manufacturing processes in the future.
