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Mitsubishi links up with IBM and ILS for car plants

01 February, 2008

Mitsubishi Electric has joined forces with IBM and ILS Technology to offer automotive manufacturers a combination of technologies that will allow them to link their plant floors to their corporate IT systems more effectively.

For the past year, the three companies have been developing a "reference architecture" based on Mitsubishi’s MES interface technology, IBM’s service-oriented architecture (SOA) and ILS’ deviceWise embedded software.

"The combination of these technologies provides our customers with advanced solutions that simplify integration and reduce total ownership costs," says Satoshi Takeda, controller section marketing manager at Mitsubishi’s Nagoya Works. "This agreement also further leverages Mitsubishi Electric’s presence and e-Factory offerings in the global market."

ILS’ embedded software will be integrated into Mitsubishi’s e-Factory products and will link IBM and plant floor technologies for automation and industrial applications.

Under their agreement, the three companies will jointly market and sell products and services that will allow live information to be exchanged between the factory floor and the rest of the enterprise. They say that they are already talking to major global automation and industrial customers who could benefit from their combined technologies.