To establish IoT standard connectivity in the edge of the factory automation in Japan, six companies (Advantec Co., Ltd., Omron Corporation, NEC Corporation, IBM Japan, Ltd., Oracle Corporation Japan, and Mitsubishi Electric Corporation) reached an agreement to establish the Edgecross Consortium.

The Consortium will go beyond the basic framework of companies and industries aiming to create new added-value based on edge computing. In this way, it will contribute to the promotion of IoT, for which demand is increasing on a global scale, as well as Society 5.0, proposed by the Japanese government, and activities of Connected Industries, which tie in to Society 5.0.

Initial activities of the Consortium will begin with the development of specifications for the Edgecross open software platform and promoting its dissemination for edge computing from Japan to harmonize with FA and IT. This initial work will include providing avenues for supporting companies to cooperate and collaborate beyond the framework of companies and industries. The Consortium will aim to expand applications for various industries in addition to initiating activities in the global arena in the future.

The Consortium already has a long list of supporting companies, which includes: ILC, AWS, ePlan, Interface, Intel, VMware, WingArc1st, Wind River, NSD, Mcor, Canon IT Solutions, KSK Analytics, Contec, CDS, Siemens, JTE, Citizen, CIMX, Schneider Electric, Elmic, Saison Information Systems, Soft Service, Disec, Dassault Systemes, Tsuzuki, DMG Mori, ISID, Toshiba Electronic Engineering, Trend Micro, NSW, Tibco, HP, Microsoft, Net One Systems, Bynas, Panasonic Industrial Devices SUNX, PFU, Fujisoft, Fujitsu, Beckhoff, Portwell, McAfee, Mazak, Lattice Technlogy, and Renesas.

The date of founding is scheduled for November 29, 2017, and an exhibition is planned at the System Control Fair 2017, to be held on the same day at Tokyo Big Sight, Tokyo, Japan.

Overview of Edgecross Consortium

Edgecross is an open software platform of edge computing area from Japan built by consortium members beyond the boundaries of companies and industries to realize collaboration with FA and IT.

It features include:

1. Real-time diagnosis and feedback

   Realizing real-time feedback to the production site by analyzing and diagnosing the data at location close to the production sites.

2. Creating models from production sites

   Data can be easily utilized by people or by applications by layering and abstracting the big data of the production sites.

3. Utilization of various applications in the edge computing area

   IT applications can be easily applied to FA application. Applications may be selected from an extensive lineup depending on the situation. System construction completed in the edge computing area are available.

4. Collecting all types of data at the production site

   Enable data collection from all equipment and devices regardless of vendor or network.

5. Smooth coordination with IT systems

   Realizing supply chain and engineering chain optimization by seamless data coordination with IT systems including the cloud.

6. Operates on industrial PCs

   Mountable on various manufacturer’s industrial PCs (IPCs).