Seiko, packing its machines with new added value!

Located in the prefecture of Shizuoka (Japan), Seiko Corporation has been manufacturing packaging and bottling machines for more than 70 years. Their machines benefit from these long years of experience and technological innovation and are recognized for their excellent quality. Seiko has gained the trust of numerous customers in a wide range of industrial applications such as food, drinks, cosmetics, toiletry, chemical and pharmaceutical. One of their best-selling products is the “BTW-602”, a compact liquid filling and bottle capping machine highly reputed on the market for being very easy to use. They are also renowned for the design of their order-made packaging lines.

An early adopter of remote connectivity 

But even the very best machines can occasionally require an unplanned maintenance operation! When this happens, Seiko’s automation engineers would have to stop their daily tasks and rush to the rescue of their customers, even when the factory is located abroad. Early on, these open-minded engineers realized how powerful it would be to have the possibility to remotely troubleshoot their machines. A huge amount of time, effort and money could be saved, while providing a better and faster support to their customers! 

A few years ago, we tried using a famous remote desktop solution, but our IT department required that we switch to a more secure solution. That is when we discovered Ewon, which fulfilled all our needs in terms of convenience, performance and security.

Mr. Iga Hisato, Head of the Technology, Development Division

About twenty years ago, there was no broadband telecommunication, so they started by using landline phone technologies such as PSTN and ISDN modems. Those proved useful when they worked, but only allowed a slow, unreliable and costly communication. More recently, they experimented with a famous IT remote desktop solution, which offered a better performance thanks to broadband Internet, but had important drawbacks in terms of usability and cost.

Experimentation with this remote desktop solution came to an abrupt stop when Seiko’s IT department discouraged its usage, due to the security risks it posed. Fortunately, around that time, Seiko discovered Ewon at a tradeshow and immediately understood how it could be a game changer for them.

Mr. Iga Hisato, Head of the Technology Development Division, remembers: “A few years ago, we tried using a famous remote desktop solution, but our IT department required that we switch to a more secure solution.

That is when we discovered Ewon. It was exactly what we had been looking for during all these years, and fulfilled all our needs in terms of convenience, performance and security!”

(left) Easy remote monitoring from a tablet. (middle) Mr. Kamiya Takashi, automation engineer at Seiko’s Mishima plant. (right) An Ewon Flexy gateway, installed inside the control panel of Seiko’s packaging machine.

Operational efficiency boost with Ewon

With Ewon, Seiko can now equip its machines with a secure remote connectivity solution, approved by their colleagues from IT. It is also well-accepted by their customers, who are reassured by the fact that the security of Ewon’s solution is regularly audited and certified by several specialized 3rd party organizations.

Seiko was particularly impressed by how easy and fast it was to get up and running with the solution. The complete installation of an Ewon gateway and its registration to Ewon’s Talk2m global VPN service can be done in a matter of minutes. It became even easier since the introduction of the “Easy Setup” feature, which allows to automatically configure a gateway through a USB drive or SD card.

All Ewon gateways can connect to the Internet via an Ethernet LAN, if available, but Seiko usually selects an Ewon gateway with a backup WiFi connectivity. By doing this, they are sure that even if using a LAN is not possible, a successful wireless connection will be possible by asking someone on site to turn on the hotspot feature of a smartphone or mobile router.

Using Ewon’s solution, Seiko remotely connects to the Mitsubishi Electric PLCs and HMIs controlling their machines, for troubleshooting. “Thanks to Ewon, we can easily carry out remote diagnostics and maintenance of our machines, avoiding every month several service trips. It is extremely convenient and allows us to be more efficient and reduce costs.” explains Mr. Iga.

New services for happy customers

End-customers can also greatly benefit from this remote support, since it translates to an important reduction of downtime in their factory. Recently, Seiko has built a powerful remote monitoring service based on Ewon’s Talk2m service, allowing to easily visualize the performance of the machines at any time, from anywhere and from any device, even a smartphone. This is a perfect match with Mitsubishi Electric’s “GOT Mobile” service, if the machine is equipped with a compatible HMI. Seiko is also exploring the advanced features of the Ewon Flexy gateway, which can collect data from PLCs or sensors and display it on a local web-dashboard, or make it available to an IT system.

With this remote monitoring service, Seiko’s customers can check the performance of their equipment, analyze the cause of failures and optimize their production and processes, as well as the quality of their products. And for Mr. Iga, this is just the start: “thanks to Ewon, it is really easy to make our machines IIoT-ready. In the short-term, it immediately provides an excellent return on investment for us and our customers. On the longer run, our machines equipped with an Ewon Flexy are ready to support any future IIoT projects we might decide to build”.