MITSUBISHI ELECTRIC
INDUSTRY 4.0
Manufacturing plants face production maintenance challenges daily, as a fact of life.
Chris Evans, Strategic Development Manager at Mitsubishi Electric Automation Systems, believes adopting a life cycle management strategy can mitigate these issues and deliver increased production quality and sustainable plant performance.
He argues a shift in perspective is needed across the supply chain, where manufacturing plant stakeholders and suppliers work together across equipment and plant lifecycles.
Q. WHAT ROLE DO PEOPLE PLAY IN THIS APPROACH?
» It would be easy to simply deploy intelligent digitalisation techniques, such as predictive maintenance, to solve these problems. While this should undoubtedly be the long-term goal, let’ s not lose sight of the fundamentals of maintenance – the day-to-day task of maintaining critical plant assets and minimising production downtime.
This will always continue to involve people – highly skilled, multi-disciplined maintenance staff with a deep knowledge of the production plant, who are usually seen as the cavalry who‘ get us going again’. The challenge facing many manufacturing plants stems from economic pressure over recent years, where maintenance teams have tended to be downsized.
As such, retaining key personnel has been a challenge. Even more difficult has been replacing people with an equal skill set and the experience to hit the ground running. This lack of retained skilled maintenance people increases the likelihood of unwanted downtime and puts continuous production at risk.
Q. HOW DO YOU ADDRESS THE ISSUE OF OBSOLESCENCE WITH LEGACY AUTOMATION EQUIPMENT?
» It is critical to understand the plant automation landscape because obsolescence poses a significant risk to production. It is often the case that there is a lack of awareness that the problem exists at all.
MITSUBISHI ELECTRIC
HEADQUARTERS: TOKYO, JAPAN NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES: 149,134 MARKET CAP: US $ 39.2BN NUMBER OF COUNTRIES: 120 +
Mitsubishi Electric is a global leader in innovative technologies, providing advanced solutions in automation, energy, aerospace and electronics. Committed to sustainability, the company enhances industries worldwide with cutting-edge products and services.
130 May 2025