Toshiba
OEM : Diversified
Toshiba Corporation, commonly known as Toshiba and stylized as TOSHIBA, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Its diversified products and services include power, industrial and social infrastructure systems, elevators and escalators, electronic components, semiconductors, hard disk drives, printers, batteries, lighting, as well as IT solutions such as quantum cryptography which has been in development at Cambridge Research Laboratory, Toshiba Europe, located in the United Kingdom, now being commercialised. It was one of the biggest manufacturers of personal computers, consumer electronics, home appliances, and medical equipment.
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Historic Industrial Companies Split Up
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General Electric, Johnson & Johnson, and Toshiba announced they are restructuring. Supply shortages create new opportunities for equipment vendors and 3D printing to fill demand. Robots crawl sewers and outer space.
Assembly Line
🧠📹 What Sets Toshiba’s Ceramic Balls Apart? The AI Quality Inspection System
Bearings cannot be easily replaced once a vehicle is assembled. In the U.S., bearings used in EVs are expected to be of high enough quality to withstand long distances. One issue that can occur with EVs, however, is the “electric corrosion” of the bearings that mount the various vital parts of the vehicle onto the motor—a serious issue, as it can lead to the breakdown of the vehicle. High-performance bearings would drive the widespread use of EVs, and contribute to the push towards carbon neutrality. The electrical corrosion phenomenon had hampered these efforts, but not anymore—therein lies the beauty of Toshiba’s ceramic balls.
“Our ceramic balls go through slight changes about every year and a half due to changes in material and other factors. To keep up the accuracy of the quality inspections, we have to continually update the AI system itself. The MLOps system automates that process,” says Kobatake.
“We’ve been able to dramatically reduce the time spent on these inspections. Ceramic balls are expensive compared to their metal counterparts. They have so many different strengths, and yet they haven’t been able to replace the metal ones precisely because of this particular issue. If we’re able to reduce the cost through AI quality inspection, we’ll be able to lower the price of the products themselves,” says Yamada.
Precision Manufacturing of Large and Complex Parts
Digitally Connecting Hardware and Software – Toshiba's Efforts to Solve Sustainability Issues
Toshiba’s strategy rests on using sensing to collect data in the real world, analyzing it in cyberspace, using the results to make predictions, formulating optimal plans, and returning valuable information to the real world. The reason why Toshiba can pursue this initiative is that almost 150 years in manufacturing has brought with it a deep wealth of experience, technology, and expertise in hardware, while over 50 years of AI research and development have allowed the company to thoroughly refine its software technology.
Within Toshiba’s Virtual Power Plant, IoT is used to control all the equipment in real time, in response to the constantly shifting situation in electricity supply and demand, and it functions as if it were a single power plant. Additionally, its EtaPRO™ plant monitoring software monitors the thermal efficiency and operating conditions of power plants to detect signs of deterioration and abnormality. This makes possible timely maintenance and equipment replace, and realizes stable and highly efficient operation. It also minimizes energy losses due to equipment failures and power plant outages.
Toshiba Announces Strategic Reorganization to Separate Into Three Standalone Companies to Enhance Shareholder Value
Toshiba Corporation (TOKYO: 6502) (“Toshiba” or the “Company”) today announced its intention to separate into three standalone companies:
- Infrastructure Service C o. 1, consisting of Toshiba’s Energy Systems & Solutions, Infrastructure Systems & Solutions, Building Solutions, Digital Solutions and Battery businesses;
- Device Co. 2, comprising Toshiba’s Electronic Devices & Storage Solutions business; and
- Toshiba, holding its shares in Kioxia Holdings Corporation (KHC) and Toshiba Tec Corporation (TOKYO: 6588).