NEWS2022
Roundtable
Discussion
Special Issue

Photo: July 2022影

2022 Roundtable Discussion
We invited the professors who advise us on our day-to-day operations to view our products at the New Products Open House
Show on May 20. Afterwards, we held a roundtable discussion.

● Attendees■ General review of the New Products Open House ------ Page 3

FANUC CORPORATION

Toshiro Higuchi, Professor Emeritus, the University of Tokyo■ Representative Directors■ FA

Kenji Yamaguchi, Representative Director, President and CEO (Moderator)------ Page 4

Tojiro Aoyama, Professor Emeritus, Keio University

Yoshiharu Inaba, Representative Director, Chairman

Keiichi Shirase, Professor, Kobe University■ FA

Shigetaka Takagi, Professor, Tokyo Institute of Technology
Hiroyuki Sasahara, Professor, Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology
Atsushi Matsubara, Professor, Kyoto University

Yoshiki Hashimoto, General Manager, Hardware Research & Development Division
Yasusuke Iwashita, General Manager, Software Research & Development Division

Hideki Aoyama, Professor, Keio University

Hiroshi Fujimoto, Professor, the University of Tokyo■ ROBOT
Shigeki Sugano, Professor, Waseda University------ Page 11

Hajime Asama, Professor, the University of Tokyo

Eiji Shamoto, Professor, Nagoya University

Masamoto Fukuda, General Manager, Servo Research & Development Division
Yuji Nishikawa, General Manager, Laser Research & Development Division■ ROBOT
Kiyonori Inaba, General Manager, Robot Business Division

Kenichiro Abe, General Manager, Robot Mechanical Research & Development Division

Takayuki Okatani, Professor, Tohoku University■ ROBOMACHINE

Hiroshi Noda, General Manager, FA Business Division

Seigo Kato, General Manager, Robot Software Research & Development Division------ Page 15

Takashi Matsumura, Professor, Tokyo Denki University
Masanori Kunieda, Professor, the University of Tokyo■ ROBOMACHINE

Satoshi Takatsugi, General Manager, Robomachine Business Division

Zheng Tong, General Manager, Robodrill Research & Development Division

Tatsuhiro Uchiyama, General Manager, Roboshot Research & Development Division

Yusuke Kajihara, Associate Professor, the University of Tokyo

Akihiko Fujimoto, General Manager, Robocut Research & Development Division■ Summary■ Administrative Staff

Hidenori Shinno, President, Polytechnic University------ Page 21

Shunsuke Matsubara, General Manager, Research & Development Promotion/Support Division
Masako Sudo, Assistant General Manager, Research & Development/Support Division(Listed in speaking order)(Positions are as of May 20)
2

FANUC NEWS
President Yamaguchi: Thank you formuch progress. As the global economy recovers from the COVID-19

We have held roundtable discussions

and purchasing departments, we have been devoting considerable

taking time out of your busy schedules
to join us today.

crisis, our R&D divisions have been implementing countermeasuresfor parts shortages as their top priority. Together with the factories

every April to coincide with our New
Products Open House Show. Amid thetime to addressing this issue. Nevertheless, we have continued
to exert our utmost efforts in R&D, so we hope to hear your frank

COVID-19 pandemic, however, we canceled

opinions and advice. We would appreciate your cooperation.

the Open House Show and the roundtablediscussion scheduled for April 2020, andin 2021, both events were held online

instead in June. This means that the Open■ General Review of the New Products Open House Show
President Yamaguchi

House Show and today’s roundtablediscussion are the first to be held face-to-face in about three years.
For this Open House Show, to prevent COVID-19 infection, we
limited the number of visitors to one-third of the normal capacity,
divided them into groups setting a maximum visiting time of twohours per group. Since some people had busy schedules in April,which is the first month of the fiscal year in many companies inJapan, we decided to postpone these events for a month, untilMay.

We regret that we could not welcome many more visitors, but

those who did attend generally gave us positive feedback, sayingthat this year they were able to take more time than usual to viewthe exhibits and listen to the explanations of the booth staff. About

three years have passed since we last held a roundtable discussion
following your visits to the Open House Show, and I am notcompletely confident as to whether you think we have madeMay 17–19, 2022

President Yamaguchi: First, Professor Emeritus Higuchi, would

you start by giving us your general feedback about the OpenHouse Show?

Professor Emeritus Higuchi: Three years

have passed since the last face-to-face
Show, so I was glad to see and experience
your products in person. I was also very

happy to hear the details about specificchallenges and to speak directly withthe developers. It has been a long timesince I have had such a satisfying
experience.

One of this year’s noteworthy achievementfor FANUC, which was announced in thenewspapers and other media, is that

Professor Emeritus
Higuchiyour cumulative CNC production reached

FANUC New Products Open House3

five million units in March. As described in detail in the company

your robots there and continue to expand their applications."

In addition, cumulative shipments of Robodrill have reacheddelta robot will play an active role in the food industry, which

history (History of FANUC) published last June, the company
started development activities in 1955 and production in 1958.
300,000 units. It has been 50 years since the company first released
a Robodrill under the name of “FANUC-DRILL” in 1972. Both ofTogether with the "washable robot" that was featured at theprevious New Products Open House Show, I believe that yourplaces great emphasis on hygiene management.

these are excellent achievements. I would also like to touch on

President Yamaguchi: Thank you very much, Professor Emeritus

in the Nikkei Newspaper in January. I had a wonderful time reading

sessions on FA, Robot, and Robomachine.

Chairman Inaba's "My Resume," which is a series of articles featured
these articles, which included a summary of the company’s history
and many pieces of information I had never heard before.

Higuchi. This year's roundtable discussion will consist of three

As for robots, last year you won the "Main Prize" at the Best 10■ FA"Nikkei Business Daily Award" at the Nikkei Superior Products andServices Awards, and the "METI Minister Award" at the 9th Robot

President Yamaguchi: Let’s begin by focusing our discussion on
FA. Professor Emeritus Tojiro Aoyama, could you please share your10th Techno-Economics Innovation Award. Congratulations.
Overall, you have been continuously making steady efforts. You

Professor Emeritus (Tojiro) Aoyama:

New Products Awards of the 63rd Nikkan Kougyo Shimbun, theAwards. This year, you won the "JATES Chairman’s Award" at the

make sure to carefully assess and address users’ needs, and yourefforts materialize as actual products. I can see that the rapid
improvement in computing performance has supported yourhard work. In particular, simulation technologies are making
remarkable progress, and I cannot wait to see how FANUC will
apply them to products in the future.

Though not relevant to the Open House Show, allow me to express

my opinion on education in control engineering. The foundationof control engineering was established by the efforts of wise men
and women who sought to develop practical methods for control

system design at a time when computers did not exist. In control

engineering classes, students learn how to use Bode plots to assess
whether control systems are stable and to adjust gains. This makesfor excellent exam questions, but I have never implemented thistechnique in actual use. That is because it is easy to identify stability
through numerical simulations. Many students struggle tounderstand the Laplace transform and begin to dislike control

engineering. Given that there is a concerning trend that students’competence in mathematics, particularly their analytical skills, aredeclining, I think it is necessary to first teach the essence andinteresting aspects of automatic control in a straightforward way
by utilizing numerical simulations without making use of the
Laplace transform.

Among the various exhibits this year, I was attracted by thecollaborative robots. Their performance has been steadily improving,and I found the white CRX robot to be particularly interesting. In
this year's demonstration, the robot used its own sensing technology
to dexterously grip objects with its chuck. Since there are many
similar tasks that can be automated, the CRX can be expected tocontribute to future developments.

I would also like to talk about the all-stainless-steel delta robot.
The shining body seemed sterile, and I can see that the roundshape allows the robot to be cleaned easily. I think those whowork for food-related companies will highly appreciate it. I
remember saying at a roundtable discussion over 10 years ago,

"There are a food machinery exhibitions, so you should exhibitcomments?

To begin, thank you for inviting me here
today. I was looking forward to seeing

the face-to-face product exhibition andparticipating in the roundtable discussionthat hadn’t been held for a long time.

Before speaking about FA, I wanted to

ask about the measures you are taking
to address the major issues of theshortages in semiconductors and parts,
as well as rising energy costs due tosocial instability around the world.

Professor Emeritus
Tojiro Aoyama

Regarding energy costs, such increases

have always driven companies to reduce energy use from thepast. However the renewed focus on energy saving is increasingly
becoming a priority. The energy cost issue is not easy to solve.

FANUC is taking various initiatives in product development, suchas the FA Divisions’ initiatives to reduce energy use as well as

initiatives to reduce the impact on the environment by utilizing

underlying and digital twin technologies. Such efforts, along withthe exhibited new green logo, are testaments to FANUC’s motivation
and active engagement. I think these initiatives will become evenmore important. Digital twin technology is improving in terms ofaccuracy and performance, making telecommuting much more

possible than before. Although there may be security issues toaddress, infrastructure is rapidly developing that will enable us
to telecommute from the office and home rather than working

at production sites. Such progress will indirectly contribute to
reducing environmental burdens significantly.

In addition, the various devices that make up FA systems havebeen fitted with very user-friendly new features. FANUC’s CNC

used to be associated with extremely complicated features that

required expertise, proficiency in G-code, and a wide range offirst-hand knowhow, In response, the latest achievements show
the various approaches you have taken for improvement.

I found the collaborative robots area to be extremely interesting.
Collaborative robots are becoming more diverse and their
4

FANUC NEWSCNC exhibit
movements are becoming more sophisticated. Looking at thewhich further conserved energy. In

production sites in a wider variety of ways than before, such as

mentioned earlier in reference to digital

robots on display, I expect that such robots will be introduced tobeing used in combination with machine tool functions. In addition,by establishing a production system in which robots collaborate
with machine tools, a variety of benefits can be attained such as
the reduction of environmental impact when changing the

production line configuration, lower energy consumption, andso on. It would be appreciated if you could elaborate on this topic.
President Yamaguchi: Thank you very much, Professor Emeritus

Aoyama. General Manager Noda of the FA Business Division, would
you like to respond?

Noda: Thank you very much, Professor Emeritus Aoyama. For thisyear’s Open House Show, the FA divisions focused on five key
areas: "real," "digital," "automation," "energy conservation," and"IoT."

Energy costs were mentioned in your comments. The FA Division

will place strong emphasis on this area going forward. In fact wehave continued to do so from the past. In a direct manner, thepower consumption of motors, especially amplifiers, has been
reduced. The shortening of the cycle time and machining time

led to the decrease in the time the machine was operating, which
reduced energy usage. Furthermore, IoT improved efficiency,

relation to digital technologies, as
twin technology, analyses of various

data in the digital world has led to drastic
improvements in the real world in recent
years. In the exhibits, there was ademonstration of machining in digitalspace which used a simulator to createa dynamic model of a real machine. For
example, compared to the long timerequired for trial and error in the real

Noda
(General Manager)

world to achieve the desired machining

level, simulations enable virtual tests for machining, which canbe performed in a much shorter time. By combining such digitaltechnologies, total energy costs will be reduced significantly. This
trend toward digitalization is exactly what will bring about energy
conservation and energy cost reduction.

Last with regard to collaborative robots, I would like to speak a
bit from the perspective of FA. Demands to connect machine tools
with robots is increasingly considerably. In the past, there wasmuch talk about whether people or robots were better in termsof cost, but now automation is inevitable because it is hard tosecure human resources. We strongly feel that the situation ischanging, as the focus is becoming more and more on where5automation can be most efficiently and successfully implemented.

In this context, the development of collaborative robots with ahigh level of sensitivity to their external surroundings, has had avery positive impact. Since older machine tools were designed

long ago, they lack robot interfaces. However, by utilizing collaborative
robots and vision systems, the robots can detect and learn wheremachine tools are positioned, and approach them. For example,

robots are being applied for an increasing variety of purposes bycombining their human-like abilities, such as the ability to open
automatic doors by pressing a control panel button. This trend isand merely changing the name is not enough. What is importantis still how information on reality is fed back to the simulation
technology. Models are used for simulations, but I think the key

is how to express the so-called “factor X,” that is, those whichcannot be expressed by models. In other words, when the resultof simulation and that of reality are checked for inconsistencies,
any difference that cannot be explained is due to factor X. With
regard to this, there should be a mechanism to make adjustments

per machine. If this can be achieved, individual differences andleading to a wider range of applications for collaborative robots.

differences in each machine’s usage environment will be expressed
as factor X. In addition to improved simulation accuracy, visualizing

Thank you for your feedback. We intend to develop a variety ofmachine’s usage environment would be interesting.

Major trends such as these were kept in mind in this year’s exhibits.
technologies, including those for energy cost reduction as well
as real, digital and, of course, IoT.
President Yamaguchi: Now, Professor Shirase, please share yourviews.
Professor Shirase: First, thank you very

Specifically, being able to compare simulation results with real

results at all times to check if they are any differences, and if there
is a sudden large difference, being able to make judgments, suchas there must be trouble, or that something is wrong with theassumptions may be made, such as the tool is wearing down orShow and roundtable discussion today.

the machine has started to age, though the interpretation of such

It is very enjoyable to meet face-to-facestates presents a challenge. Anyway, such developments can befor the first time in three years. Last year,

expected. I look forward to future progress in simulation of machineduring the online meeting, we weremotion, as in the development of CNC GUIDE 2 and others, as wellshown many videos and materials, but

as in machined surface estimation.

they presented only your achievements.

In recent years, for energy-saving to achieve carbon neutrality,

Today, however, in this face-to-faceabout your efforts to achieve thoseI have also thought that improved simulation accuracy may makeit possible to diagnose the degradation of machining performance.

fixture of the workpiece. If the difference increases slowly,

much for inviting me to the Open House

meeting, we are able to directly hear

the individual differences of machines and differences in each

you have engaged in various initiatives, including reducing theProfessor Shirase

results and what issues you encountered,number of operating hours and reducing power consumption of

peripheral devices. As another approach, I suggest you think about

which is sparking a lively conversation.

energy saving when creating an NC program. For example, if youchange the workpiece’s mounting orientation or position, thethat the CNC processing capabilities had improved dramatically,

five-axis machining. When CNC GUIDE 2, which I just mentioned,

I will mainly speak about FA. Last year, when you shared with us

I had the impression that you had energetically proceeded withthe development of digital twin for CNCs and made definite

progress.
To me, the most impressive was CNC GUIDE 2. This is a technologythat faithfully imitates reality by modeling the servo and machine,
as well as simulating mechanical movements. Using this technology,
the machine’s dynamic behavior can be reflected in a mannerthat also takes into consideration acceleration and decelerationin simulations for machined surface estimation. Last year, you
explained the process of machined surface estimation. You had

to idle the machine to obtain servo information from the CNC,

and used this information to simulate machined surface estimation.
But now all this can be performed by simulation alone. This not

only elimates test cutting, but also idling. Furthermore, trial-anderror to obtain the optimal machining conditions can be conducted

through just simulations. Therefore, there is a much greater impact
than the year before.
I myself have some own thoughts about future developments.
What we used to call “simulation” has recently come to be called“digital twin.” However, these two terms refer to the same thingmachine’s energy consumption will change greatly, especially inacquires the ability to measure energy consumption, you will beable to compare changes in energy consumption according to
the workpiece’s mounting orientation or position.

In addition,

though I cannot come up with a specific method, I suggest making

it possible to automatically generate an NC program that exhaustively
searches for the way to move the machine that minimizes energy
consumption based on the CAD data of the machined shape andthe motion characteristics of the servo and machine. I believe it
will be possible to create a totally different concept from theconventional CAM. This will be a dream come true.

I think digital twin will further evolve. Today’s exhibits encourage
me to dream of new horizons. I heard that FANUC will be celebratingits 50th anniversary this year. I hope you will continue to explore
innovative technologies for world-leading manufacturing toward
the next 50 years, namely your 100th anniversary.

President Yamaguchi: Thank you very much, Professor Shirase.
Next, Professor Hideki Aoyoma, please share your thoughts withus.

6

FANUC NEWS
Professor (Hideki) Aoyama: Hello, I am

simulates a machined surface based on the modeling of the servo

for inviting me to the Open House Showmodel for tool deflection, tool wear, and tool vibration is implemented

Hideki Aoyama. Thank you very muchmachine, including the characteristics of each axis. If a mechanicaland roundtable discussion today. I highly

to the simulation in addition to the servo machine model that I

appreciate and am thrilled by thissaw at the Open House Show today, I believe that ultra-highopportunity to see actual exhibits onsite

precision can be achieved in the simulation of an actual machined

and to meet all of you face-to-face. Last

surface. In a joint experiment with the die mold division of anyear, your exhibits, despite being viewed

automobile manufacturer, I investigated the aspects of machined

online, exceeded my expectations, andI was able to see the exhibits in detail.
However, being able to view in the realworld had a much more powerful impact,

surfaces the die mold division pays attention to. It goes without
saying that the shapes must be formed accurately. However, rather
than decreasing deviations at a 50- or 100-micron level on free

Professor
Hideki Aoyama

curved surfaces, die mold polishers are trying to identify the causes

and questions could be asked dynamically,

which I think has led to a higher degree of understanding.
In addition, although I felt that the entire industry had stagnated
due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I was quite reassured when

Chairman Inaba made his presentation during the party of theJapan Machine Tool Builders’ Association held the other day, andannounced that he was expecting great sales.

In my position, I am interested in digital twin technology. This
technology allows a real model to be converted into a digitalmodel with a higher degree of accuracy by using servo information,
which is one of FANUC’s areas of expertise. This is a tremendous
advantage for FANUC. I noticed at the Open House Show that you

intend to aggressively promote this technology, and see it as

being extremely promising. I think that die mold users in particularhave high expectations for SERVO VIEWER, which accuratelyof scratches and fog lines on machined surfaces that are unrecognizable
to the human eye, and to eliminate such defects. Using SERVO
VIEWER to find the cause would be very much appreciated bythose engaged in die molds. I hope that you will continue toenhance the functionality of SERVO VIEWER and add a mechanicalsimulation function with a tool deflection model in particular, asI have just mentioned, since this would be quite effective.

Another functional enhancement that impressed me was theincrease in the operating speed of CNC GUIDE 2. By using CNC
GUIDE 2, and modeling a servo machine to make a digital twin

simulation, machining can be optimized and CNC parameters canbe adjusted automatically, enabling even workers with low

machining skills to perform advanced machining. In this respect,
I realized that processing can be performed at a very high speed

due to the introduction of a CPU with high functionality. Compared

Digital Twin
7

to the machine tool that I currently use at my university, CNC

technologies, which we consider to beconsiderably reduces the block length, while making machining

realize that simulation technology, namely

GUIDE 2 reduces the block processing time to one-tenth, which
both fast and highly precise. Up to now, machining data for CAM

had been created based on the concept of extending the block

length as much as possible. However, because it is now understoodthat so long as block processing can be done in time, minimizing

the block length will increase machining speed and precision. I
felt that such an enhancement in CPU functionality would bequite effective.
Furthermore, with regard to machining of the die mold design

surface, I am focusing on fine surface technology. Here, the tool

path optimizer and machined surface estimation functions wereintroduced as the latest features. Presently, the tool path optimizer
corrects the machining point using CAD data and the machining
data for a single line. However, as CAD data has already beenentered, it may be possible to correct machining points for multiplelines instead for a single line by perceiving the machining data
as surface data.

Moreover, as energy-saving efforts, FANUC is committed to various

initiatives to reduce power consumption. In today’s environment,
it seems it is no longer possible to do business in Europe without

taking energy-saving measures. ISO as well as JIS have clearly
defined processes to measure the environmental impacts ofmachine tools. As such, adding a function that enables a machinetool’s environmental impact to be measured automatically simply
by pressing a button on the controller would be a welcome feature

for machine tool users. This would encourage them to select thatvery important. At the same time, we

digital twin technology, is necessary to
make the most of real-world technologies,
and that is why we launched relevant
initiatives last year.

Last year, we received a number ofcomments emphasizing the use of actualmachines, and that such technologies
were not helping to reduce actualmachining times and so on. In our efforts

Iwashita​(General Manager)

to respond to such comments, we

introduced the servo machine model, and we plan to develop
this model focusing on high-speed simulation.

The servo model will of course, simulate the characteristics of theservo machine, including, for example, torques and errors. The
data of the simulation will be compared with real-world data to

support machine diagnosis, as Professor Shirase mentioned, or
calculating energy consumption, and other such improvements.
This year, we have gotten a lot of homework as usual. We would

like to not only simulate movements but also improve performanceby using AI to optimize parameters, to estimate and compensate

for deflection and deformation with our knowledge of tools, andso on. As we are still mid-way in approaching these goals, weappreciate your continued support and guidance. Thank you verymuch for your time today.

machine tool, though implementation may be burdensome for

President Yamaguchi: Next, Professor Takagi, could you shareexperiments were conducted. In some cases, the power consumed
by the machine tool and the cutting process merely amounted

Professor Takagi: Thank you so muchthe machine tool builder. To conform to ISO and JIS processes,

to about 15%. Most of the energy was used by coolant pumps.

What was surprising was that much power was consumed merely
to prevent compressed air from leaking in factories.

I would like to finish my comments by speaking about robots.

FANUC has been developing yellow, green, and then white robots,

which gives me a very strong impression that you are focusing

on collaboration between robots and humans. I believe that further

developing such collaboration will lead to robots autonomously
going to processes that are experiencing problems to help deal

with such problems. This will require dynamic combination witha scheduling system, and if that becomes possible, I can imagine
a robot mounted on an AGV automatically moving to the problematicarea to help solve the problem.

President Yamaguchi: Thank you, Professor Aoyama. Now, General
Manager Iwashita, may we hear your comments?
Iwashita: I am Iwashita from the Software Research & Development

Division. Thank you for your many valuable comments today,
mainly concerning digital twin technology. We are implementing

initiatives to improve performance, especially that of high-speed
CPUs, with the aim of refining the conventional real-world

your views with us?

for inviting me here today. There issomething special about attending

presentations in person, and I have reallyenjoyed meeting the FANUC staff.

I would like to briefly speak about two

points. My field is analog integrated

circuits, so allow me to briefly introduce

the situation globally as well as in Japan.
The semiconductor industry’s growthrate worldwide was estimated as being

Professor Takagi

slightly more than 26% in 2021. Though

the growth rate has been fluctuating, 26% is a large percentage.
The industry is growing nearly every year. Last year, the market

size amounted to nearly 600 billion dollars. Of that amount, analog

semiconductors are said to account for approximately 100 billion
dollars, which is about 20%. Although analog semiconductors
recorded a record-high growth rate of 33.1% in 2021, Japan’s

semiconductor industry unfortunately is stagnant. As Professor
Aoyama just mentioned, semiconductors are in short supply
around the world, and this has presented a somewhat contradictory

situation in Japan. Being involved in the semiconductor industry,
it is a matter of concern, and I am wondering what can be done
8

FANUC NEWSto remedy this situation.

satisfied with today’s visit.

Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) has proposed minimalon FA. First, I got the impression that

Given these circumstances, the National Institute of Advanced
fabs. As some of you may know, a minimal fab does not requirea cleanroom, and the manufacturing cost for a single line is about

1/1000th that of a conventional facility. A prototype was completed
in 2009. With minimal fabs, The previous trend of monolithic

integrated circuits was mass production in small varieties, but weare trying to change this to small volume production in wide

varieties. The idea is very Japanese, in being rather adaptable. The
delivery time is short as well, and takes only a few weeks, insteadof a month. At the current level, wafers of 0.5 inches up to a little
larger than 1 cm with a minimum line width of 6 μm can be

manufactured. From this information, I thought it may be possible
to machine semiconductors with FANUC’s machining technology.
As someone involved in the semiconductor industry, it would bedelightful if FANUC’s machining technology could be introduced
to a minimal fab, to start a semiconductor revolution originatingfrom Japan. There is a small part of me that has expectations forthis to happen.

I have been working with you on collaborative robots, and this is

another topic I’d like to bring up. This year, the lineup was enhancedwith additional models. The weight of the green robot was reducedby 62% and a collaborative robot with a payload of 35 kg was

released as well. Though I am an outsider in this field, even I foundthis to be an amazing technology.

Another impression I had when looking at a white robot was thatthe movement of screwing is close to human movement, and thewhite robot is becoming similar to humans. This is probably
because sensing is applied to the movement of screwing. The

important point about collaborative robots is that they can move
without colliding with people and can stop immediately when
they come into contact with a person. I have heard that sensing

vibration is critical. We have been working with you on this, though
unfortunately during prototyping, a problem was found in the
proposal we presented last year. However, this problem was nottheoretical but rather was in a section not shown in the circuit
diagram. We proposed a solution, and I have heard that the matterhas already been resolved, and development has proceeded to

the next step. Regarding this point, analog circuits implicitly
require empirical knowledge, and I think that is one of the difficulties
of analog circuits. Still, as an academic, I must establish a theory
that doesn’t require tacit knowledge, so I am thinking about how
to handle this better next time.

I hope we can continue to support your company in such areas
where experience is needed.

President Yamaguchi: Thank you, Professor Takagi. Next, Professor
Sasahara, please share your views with us.

Professor Sasahara: Thank you for inviting me to this roundtablediscussion. Today, I came here early and viewed the entire OpenHouse Show. I was finally able to see actual exhibits and communicate
with FANUC staff face-to-face, so I enjoyed my time and am very

Let me outline some topics with a focus
major technical advancements havebeen made with regard to digital twin

and hardware sophistication. I took alook at the faster minute line segment

program, tool posture turning, machined

surface estimation that takes into accountservo characteristics, AI-based servo
tuning, and other exhibits with great

Professor Sasaharainterest.

Regarding the faster minute line segment program, the demonstration

showed a program for a line segment with a length of 5 microns,
which resulted in accurate machining without reducing the speed.
That is amazing, but from the standpoint of actual machining, an

NC program for a line segment with a length of 5 microns cannot
normally be developed for general machining. It is necessary to

set a very small tolerance in tasks for CAM, so I think a tolerance
at a submicron level will be needed to achieve a line segmentwith a length of 5 microns. Generally speaking, this is difficult to

do. This is because the operation time in CAM will be too longand the volume of NC data itself will also be quite large. In addition,
the speed may not increase due to the CNC block processing time

becoming a bottleneck. Still, for dies having free curved surfaces
and similar dies, I strongly support an NC program for a short line
segment length in an allowable range for the block processing
time. I have the same view as Professor Hideki Aoyama, who justspoke, and there is no doubt that both higher speed and higher

accuracy can be achieved by shortening the line segment length
within a range that fits the new CNC, which features a markedly
short block processing time.
I think it would be best for FANUC to not only promote the fasterprogram and shorter block processing time but also to communicate
to users how to create an NC program that actually makes themachine run more accurately and faster. I say this because there

are still many users who believe that a large tolerance and smaller
program size will lead to faster operation. I hope that FANUC will
provide information such as: "These are tips to create programs
that make full use of FANUC’s high-performance NCs."

As CNC GUIDE 2 now enables simulations to also consider the

servo characteristics of each axis of a machine tool, this development
is advantageous to machine tool builders, and in some cases, tousers as well. For machine tool builders, this can also be beneficial

to set and adjust servo-related parameters. As exhibited, for users,
machined surface estimation that takes into consideration theimpacts of taking shortcuts at the corners and more realistic
machining time prediction are possible. This is greatly advantageousin that more detailed information can be obtained compared toa machining simulator for general NC programs.

Another thing I wish to discuss is the change to the NC I/O unit,
which may seem unexceptional but is very significant. When along-used unit is replaced by a new I/O unit, the new unit should
be used continuously for many years. Based on the concept, I
9Servo device exhibit
think you have given deep consideration to compactness,

technology, specifically the technology for sensing minute signals,

could imagine that you have taken great pains to develop it

guidance, we were able to solve some problems, and we achieved

maintainability, and workability. As I examined the new unit, I
because it is likely to be used for several decades, and I felt that
this is a very beneficial change for users as well as machine toolbuilders.

President Yamaguchi: Professor Sasahara, Thank you for yourcomments. Next, General Manager Hashimoto, please respond.
Hashimoto: I am Hashimoto from theas well as stabilizing the circuit and detection, since minute signals
are handled. We look forward to receiving further guidance from
Professor Takagi on various matters, including such points.

Professor Sasahara mentioned improved processing speed. In
connection, when I was explaining that CPU performance had
been enhanced to such an extent, I was asked a question from amachining results?"

Division. Professors Takagi and Sasahara,In the end, I realized that we must carefully consider what machining

thank you so much for your comments.

results can be achieved by our improved performance from theAs some of the professors have pointed

user’s viewpoint, and promote this as a function not only of theout, there have been numerous

hardware but also of the software.

improvements in software functions as
a result of improved hardware

In addition, thank you for mentioning that the FANUC Slice I/O
has been made smaller. We think we have created a compact I/O

performance and fast CPUs, among otherhardware development, I feel that wemust always work to enhance hardware

the desired accuracy. However, even higher accuracy is required

visitor. The question was, "How does that enhancement affect

Hardware Research & Development

factors. As the person in charge ofwill become extremely important. Thanks to Professor Takagi’s

unit with good maintainability as a result of careful examination,
Hashimoto(General Manager)

performance.

In addition, during this Open House Show, some applications thatmake use of the sensing functions of the collaborative robots,

especially the white ones (CRX series), have attracted attention.
As Professor Takagi mentioned, we also believe that analog sensing

so we will now focus our efforts on increasing sales. We willcontinue to strive to improve the hardware’s performance level,
and we very much appreciate your continued cooperation.
President Yamaguchi: Thank you. Next, Professor Matsubara,please let us hear your comments.

Professor Matsubara: Thank you. I would like to truly thank the10

FANUC NEWSFANUC staff who kindly presented

direction. However, what I saw at the Open House Show today

today.

door using its own hand. I thought that perhaps this kind of

explanations at the Open House Show

was analog-like operation, in which a robot opened the Robodrill

The key point of interest among theanalog-like interface is rather important. The servo amplifiers of

exhibits that I saw is digital twin. In the

old CNC servo systems received analog commands, which enabled

old days, when the field of die machining

us to do many things. If we continue to keep analog interfaces in

was growing, Professor Yoshiaki Kakino,

the environment on purpose and consider robots as being a

who was my superior, launched a study

generic term for various distributed devices instead of a single

meeting to solve an issue in which CAM,
CNC, and the machine were notconnecting smoothly. The meeting wasunit, it may be possible to think more flexibly about the relationships
Professor Matsubara

called the CCM Study Meeting, from theinitial letters of CAM, CNC, and Machine. According to the Openbetween other devices, robots, and humans in the environment.
I think it is quite interesting to consider this as coexistence rather
than automation.

House Show that I saw today, CAD, CAM, CNC, Machine, Machining(process), and Measurement have all been connected, the first

President Yamaguchi: Thank you, Professor Matsubara. Next,
Professor Fujimoto, could you please share your comments?

I think the shortened “(CM)3” is better. Because production
technology will advance little by little, conceptual things rarely

Professor Fujimoto: I am Fujimoto fromthe University of Tokyo. This is my firstwhich expanded my imagination.

Thank you for inviting me.

letters which form “CCCMMM.” Since it is a bit difficult to pronounce,take shape. However, I could clearly see the connection this time,
I often used to design new machines and tune the servos. However,at that time, we could not predict the resulting path and themachined surface. Today, we can simulate a machined surface

digitally, and I think our own design and tuning results can beobtained very easily. Recently (or rather, still now), friction has
been a problem to me. With regard to sliding friction, the step

accuracy changes even with a slight change in the oil additive.
Although I apply Teflon to the surfaces of sliding guideways, I

have no idea which element affects what. For that reason, it isdifficult to create a model. On the other hand, once a model has

been created as a servo model, you can see what the machined
surface will look like. I do hope that you will make progress inresearch and development of digital twin. I did take a look at adigitally machined surface, but I am the type who would rather

measure it. A French associate professor at our university often
finds interesting sensors in Europe. One such sensor was adisplacement sensor with considerably high precision, and you
can perform on-machine measurements at high speeds and ultrahigh precision by mounting it onto the machine. However, even

if it can perform measurements, it cannot be used for post processes

without the position data of CNC with address information.

Therefore, if you can connection this part, a process chain can beformed.

Another point is robots. First, let me speak about a recent experienceof mine related to robots. Robots are working in our Katsura

Campus library. Their job is to deliver the books carried in fromother libraries by a vendor to a gate. I watched how these robots
do their task, and because they do not have hands, when they
had to go down in an elevator, a staff member had to accompany

them and press the button. This means that a human has to takes

care of the robots.
According to the concept of IoT, if the elevator control and therobots could communicate, the staff will not be required to takecare of the robots, and I think the world is advancing in thattime to join the roundtable discussion.
From the academic year from 2010 to2020, I belonged to the Hori/Fujimoto

Laboratory. Following the retirement ofProfessor Yoichi Hori, I became head ofthe laboratory last year. I work both in

the Faculty of Electrical and Electronic
Engineering and the Graduate School

Professor Fujimotoof Frontier Sciences at the Kashiwa

Campus, where the laboratory is located.

My research includes control engineering and power electronics,

including motion control, vibration suppression, and wirelessin-transit power supply for electric vehicles, as well as servos formachine tools, lithography equipment, and robots. I also study

servo technologies for collaborative robots at the academic level.
In the automotive field, I am a member of the Society of Automotive
Engineers of Japan, which has about 45,000 members. It has atechnical council that oversees around 50 technical committees,
and I will be chairing it soon. If any of you are involved in automotiveengineering, I welcome any criticism as it will be my job as thechair to address complaints.

In the servo field, I have been working for the Institute of ElectricalEngineers of Japan and IEEE for a long time. I took a former memberof the Fujimoto Lab, who joined your company in April, to theinternational conference on power electronics that was held until
yesterday in Himeji. His research at the university focused on

suppressing torque ripple by utilizing harmonic current control
which has current wavebands above kilohertz, suppressing soundand vibration, and reducing copper and iron losses at highfrequencies. Today, at the Open House Show, I was reassured tolearn from the displayed panel and explanation from the staff thatsuch technologies are available, thinking that the new employee
I just mentioned may be able to play an active role.
Now, allow me to share with you my feedback on today's exhibits.

I have been studying servos for machine tools for many years. I
11have always hoped that your servo amplifiers will become easier

manufacturer's perspective or a user’s perspective?" is asked

possible to change the feed forward gain of the P and PI controllers,made in our development process.

to use and tinker with for academic research. I think that it isbut more than that, for some time I have wanted to change thecontroller starting from the structure, and introduce a new theory.
As mentioned by Professor Emeritus Higuchi, control theory has
been promoted at recent academic conferences, and servo theory

has been developed with the aim of achieving greater utilizationof linear encoders, load-side encoders, and load-side acceleration,
while the vibration suppression theory has also changed considerably.
Technologies are advancing rapidly, but I believe that the conventional
P and PI structure and feed forward have their limits when it
comes to incorporating these technologies.

In particular, since industry-academia collaboration is very activein Europe, I am concerned that we may fall behind in suchcollaboration with regard to applying the latest servo academic

research.
Given such circumstances, I have high expectations for the digital
servo adapter that we saw today, because it will allow machine

manufacturers who are familiar with mechanical characteristics
to participate in motion control to some extent.

I was also interested in the chatter suppression and vibration

frequently. I was made aware again that this distinction must be

As for digital twin technology, as you stated, we have introduced
the servo model and measurements into our concept. We would

like to continue to research how to digitally feedback measured

values. It is very intriguing to think about how to model machines

including friction. It will likely take a long time to find a solution,
but I want to start thinking about it soon.

Professor Fujimoto, thank you for joining our discussions fromthis year. We are very excited to have such talented employees
join our team through you. Energy efficiency is definitely an

important topic for servos, but we must continue to make steady

improvements in order to achieve energy efficiency that is higher
than that of existing electric machines with servo motors.

In addition, Professor Hori advised us to enhance our approachto academia in his remarks last year. Your research is very informative,
so we would appreciate your guidance in our efforts to promoteenergy conservation for control systems. I look forward to ourcontinued collaboration.

control, which was exhibited as a new feature, because a former■ Robot

Research & Development Division, studied this subject as a student.

President Yamaguchi: At this time, let’s shift our focus to robots.

feature was actually different, so I was a little disappointed. I am

comments.

member of the Fujimoto Lab, who now works in FANUC’s Servo

For a second, I thought his work had finally come to light, but thisreally looking forward to the future of this project, as I am sureWe will start with Professor Sugano. Professor, please share yourthat it will continue to make progress.

Professor Sugano: Thank you for inviting

been discussing, now allows the input of all mechanical frequencies
and servo characteristics of each axis, and calculation is reduced

I had an opportunity to see many things
at the International Robot Exhibition in

Finally, it was wonderful to see that CNC GUIDE 2, which we had

to about one-tenth of the machining time. The new system

identification theory has been developing rapidly recently, andthe full-closed control theory has emerged. I hope a frameworkfor open innovation will be developed among universities, servo
manufacturers, such as your company, and machine tool builders.
President Yamaguchi: Thank you, Professor Fujimoto. General
Manager Fukuda, would you like to respond?
Fukuda: I am Fukuda, General Manager

the other professors have already spoken
about robots, I think we are running outof things to say as a team on robotics,
but I would like to talk a bit aboutsomething very specific to robots.

Professor Sugano

I have always been an advocate forcontrolling robots with force/torque sensors mounted on eachjoint was moving much more smoothly than before. Six-axis force

Fujimoto, thank you for your comments.

sensors on the wrist cannot respond to force applied to the forearm

Today, I took a tour of the Open Houseor upper arm, and I think it is important for future collaborative

Show with Professor Matsubara. As weviewed the main exhibits, he gave me

robots to be able to sense with their entire bodies.
At the last roundtable discussion, I said that although the current

positive feedback on our achievements

focus may be on the capability of robots to stop, I wanted to see

and shared some insights, reassuring

The question, "Is that a machine

details from the exhibition staff. Since

wrist. The white robot controlled by sensors mounted on each

Division. Professors Matsubara andstill have a long way to go in some areas.

March, and today, I learned more new

joint, rather than with the conventional six-axis sensor on theof the Servo Research & Development

me that we are providing what themarket needs. However, I felt that weme here today.

R&D efforts toward developing products that can follow and mimic
Fukuda(General Manager)

human movements as much as possible. Mounting force/torquesensors on each joint is essential for achieving such capabilities,
and the fact that the new robot is controlled in this manner meansthat it will have no problem moving alongside people. In other12

FANUC NEWSwords, the robot can move in closer proximity to people, and even

if the robot comes into contact with a person, it can follow, avoid,or stop without problem. Going forward, I hope to see R&D efforts

toward creating industrial robots that can work close to people.
Just two years ago, the Cabinet Office launched the Moonshot

real robots that move alongside people, color matters because
color may connote racism.
Naturally, different cultures have different views on what isperceived to be appropriate in movements and manners. Industrial

Project, and I was appointed as the project manager for Goal 3:

robots focus on efficiency and energy conservation, but it has
been pointed out that efficiency may not always be prioritizedin R&D to create a robot that can work together with people. In

be interpreted as being rude. Therefore, even if a robot is created“AI-driven Robot for Embrace and Care ," so I have been engaged
this project, we engage in R&D to adapt robot motions to human

movements by utilizing AI to predict human movements, and weare working to create a robot with joints that move flexibly. I
believe that this feature is common to your white robot, and I
hope that you will actively advance R&D of your white robot inorder to demonstrate its superiority to the world.
In fact, I am launching a new research theme for the Moonshot

Project. For robots to work in close proximity to people in thehome or in medical care, nursing, in factories, and so on, the key
is not just to adjust the robot’s motions in consideration of people,
but also to change how people feel about robots. This means that

because when robots move near people, their movements may

in Japan, it must be acceptable to the entire world — to that end,social acceptability is a very important factor to consider.

At present, our research focuses not only on the design and colorsof robots but also on how humans should adjust their movements

to be in tune with robots. Eventually, if not today, robots may beintroduced to production sites, where they may learn human skills
and work with humans. Therefore, we must consider social

acceptance in our research on programming, controlling, and AI.
Since your company has also released a white robot, I hope tocontinue our discussion on this topic.

we must examine social acceptability, so I have teamed up with

President Yamaguchi: Thank you, Professor Sugano. Next, General

Issues) for robots.

day-to-day work, can you comment?

sociologists in order to start studying ELSI (Ethics, Legal, Social
When we discussed how robots may be accepted, particularly inEurope and in the US, I was asked why my robot was white (therobot I made was also white). Unlike robots in science fiction, forManager Abe, who works closely with Professor Sugano in his

Abe: I am Abe, General Manager of the Robot Mechanical Research& Development Division. Professor Sugano, as always, I appreciate

Lineup of collaborative
13

your valuable advice.

and more common. Nowadays, when you visit a DIY store, yougreen robot is similar to the yellow

to work on their own gardens. In this context, I hope that one day,First, I will talk about the white robot
with sensors mounted on each axis. The

can find a range of tools. People make a variety of things using
DIY tools, and skilled people make use of construction equipment

industrial robot, except for having a
six-axis sensor. Although the green robot

the general public will be able to use FANUC’s robots to makethings at home. It would be great to see FANUC’s robots become

stops when touched, it does not haveavailable at DIY stores someday.

the flexibility that you repeatedly referred

The second thing I want to speak about is digital transformation.

to. In contrast, the white robot has asensor on each axis, which enables it tomimic movements and flexibly move its

joints as you described earlier today.

It is extremely important that with the increase in the use of robots,
Abe(General Manager)

This has expanded the robot’s range ofapplication, and we will continue to develop this feature sinceboth FANUC and our customers have positively evaluated its
scalability.

Also, regarding social acceptability, at present, robots look likerobots in appearance and are seen as automatically moving, nonhuman beings. However, when robots work with humans, humanemotions will become important. You presented insight into thenear future, so I would like to explore options, including colors. I
appreciate your continued support.

President Yamaguchi: Thank you. Now, I would like to hear a few
words from Professor Asama.

I think the industry is heading in a direction in which new businesspotential can be developed by utilizing the value created by suchdata, and this trend is accelerating.
I have been very interested in the FIELD system for quite a while,
thinking it would be the core of a major new business. To me, one

highlight is that the FIELD BOX, which was on display today, cancentrally collect data from a variety of IoT devices, as well as enablevarious types of control and operations in real time.

As a third topic, I would like to touch on social initiatives. Likeother industries, the manufacturing industry is expected tocontribute to achieving SDGs and carbon neutrality, so companies
must demonstrate that they are contributing. As usual, I was

impressed by the various initiatives toward energy efficiency you
have dedicated yourselves to.

this year to be a milestone for robots.

you for inviting me here today. When I

One reason is related to the Japan Robot Association. This year

joined online last year, I was remindedmarks the Association’s 50th anniversary. I am currently creatingof the limitations of online participation.

a vision for the robotics industry as the chairman of the committee

As many of the professors alreadyin which Mr. Morioka represents FANUC. We are now having

mentioned, through face-to-faceintensive discussions to create a vision for 2050.

communication, we can interactively

Another reason is the Robotics Society of Japan, which celebrates

talk about a variety of things. I am glad

its 40th anniversary this year. The Society is scheduled to give anthat we could discuss a wide range ofquite different than online. I as well havelearned many things.

development of digital twin technology and cyber-physical systems.

I will also briefly mention trends in the robotics industry. I consider

Professor Asama: I am Asama. Thanktopics, making this physical experiencea wide variety of data can be acquired. This will lead to theacademic lecture in early September at the University of Tokyo.
Professor Asama

Many of the professors have already addressed many topics, so
there may be a great deal of overlap in what I have to say, butplease allow me to speak briefly about what particularly impressedme.

First is the improvement in usability. In addition to vision sensors,force sensors are employed as a standard feature in collaborative

robots, and I think this greatly helps to improve usability. Of course,
this leads to improved reliability, but I think the main achievement
is the feature that enables the robot to act autonomously andappropriately with only quick and easy system configuration.

FANUC’s traditional robots are made exclusively for experts, but
your recent models have gradually come to be equipped withfeatures for small- and medium-sized companies as well as thegeneral public, including non-experts. I think this shift candramatically expand and diversify your user base.

This indicates that industrial robots are on track to become more

As a chair of the steering committee, I would like to ask FANUC

to participate.
The third subject is the Japan Robot Awards. Recently, this contest
has been held once every two years, and this year marks the 10thtime the event has been held. FANUC has won various awards inthis contest, and this year a special commemorative award will
be presented. I believe this is another major event of the year.

In terms of academic and technical trends, probabilistic andstatistical methodologies are dominating the field and being

incorporated into various papers. AI, machine learning, and deeplearning are also being actively adopted and applied in academia.
In terms of hardware and other aspects, soft robotics is becoming
a trend, and the use of drones have advanced tremendously.

However, it is very regrettable that this technology is being applied
for military purposes.

Also, as Professor Sugano mentioned, the Cabinet Office haslaunched the Moonshot Project. This is a major academic project
which is more a basic research project. The concept is to use

robotic technologies to transform society by 2050, and there are
14

FANUC NEWScurrently four ongoing projects in the Goal 3 category.

I think the general key word is "connect." As mentioned earlier
regarding FIELD system, the connection initiated in Industry 4.0
has enabled robots to collaborate with each other as well as withpeople, thereby realizing a variety of functions and services. I
believe that is why we are seeing developments and social
implementations accelerating in various areas.

In this context, decentralization and protocols are considered
important, and I think that FANUC’s current initiatives align withthis trend.

In addition, there are three challenges to overcome. The first
concerns "coexistence with humans." I am the head of the new

Research into Artifacts, Center for Engineering, and I think thatthe trend is more toward coexistence with humans than towardautomation.

In this light, when discussing how people and systems can coexist,

human-related issues surface. Among such issues as labor shortages,
aging societies with declining birthrates, diversity, work stylereforms, and other matters, we must consider what is required ofrobots and what functions they should perform.

The next challenge concerns social aspects. To be specific, social

acceptability, ELSI, and Safety 2.0, which Professor Sugano
mentioned earlier. The focus is on functional safety, and I believe
this will become extremely important and is being discussed at
the EAJ and the Science Council of Japan. At the Science Councilof Japan, Ms. Sudo and I have been continuing discussions, andwe are attempting to put together a vision of what should bedone for robots to join human society and coexist with humans
from the viewpoint of social acceptability.

Lastly, I would like to mention resilience. As another professor
stated earlier, as can be seen in the effects of semiconductor

shortages in the manufacturing industry, supply and engineering
chains are globally connected. If a problem occurs somewhere,
it affects everywhere else.

In this context, how can we achieve resiliency in manufacturing

to survive social changes? I believe this is an extremely important
challenge. I am sure that FANUC is struggling with this challenge
as well, and I would like to discuss this with you in the future.
President Yamaguchi: Professor Asama, thank you for yourcomments. General Manager Inaba, do you have any comments?
Inaba: Thank you, Professor Asama.

I think that the position of automation changed significantly
during the COVID-19 pandemic. As General Manager Noda of theBusiness Division, mentioned, previously the main purposes ofautomation were to improve quality, reduce costs, and so on, but

we now receive more requests for consultation on the introduction

from last year, we have been promoting

reliability in automation as well as easeof use, while working to increase themodel lineup to support a wider range

of applications.
As the professors have commented, theCRX payload lineup has been expanded
to include 5 kg, 20 kg, and 25 kg. We

exhibited applications for high-torquetightening, polishing coated surfaces,
palletizing cardboard boxes, and batterytransport using the M-1000iA with a

Inaba(General Manager)

1-ton payload. We also exhibited the

SCARA series, which are used for 3C-related applications, computers,
mobile phones, and home appliances, and the DR-3iB STAINLESS
for handling primary food in the food industry, which wascomplimented by Professor Emeritus Higuchi. It seems the range
of applications is unlimited, due to the expanding range of purposesin the background.

While increasing models in this way, we are further pursuing easeof use with respect to software, sensors, and usability, as theprofessors have described. We exhibited an interactive UI for
launching the Vision Sensor, teaching and matching in a CAD

model for bin picking, an AI error proofing function, and a cardboard

box detecting function. The areas for applying force sensors havealso been expanding and they are used for high-torque tightening,

polishing of coated surfaces, and lathe centering in the exhibits.
Digitalization and the use of digital data are important OpenHouse Show themes. In the area of digital twin, teach-less technologythat makes use of simulation and cyberspace is being implemented.
Moreover, more flexible operation has been enabled by using

sensor information to further absorb differences between physicalspace and cyberspace.

At the Open House Show, spot welding operations generated byoffline simulation in cyberspace are replayed in physical space

without checking with actual operations. The Vision Sensor isused to recognize misalignments between cyberspace and physicalspace in order to correct the generated operation. In addition,using a mechanism similar to that of bin picking, in which thesituation is different every time, a welding operation is performed
without teaching. By extracting the position and orientation
information from physical space and reflecting this informationin cyberspace via the Vision Sensor, the optimal operation is
generated.

The autonomous generation of such optimal operation is realized
not only by the optimal path creation technology in cyberspaceand sensor data processing technology, but also by FANUC’s
technology for industrial personal computers called “3PC” andof automation as an essential element of business continuity. The

related technologies that support arithmetic processing. Thoughmaking up for the lack of skilled workers and preventing people
from clustering as an infection prevention measure.

which is one of the differentiating advantages of our company.
Going forward, we will proceed to carry out product development

purposes of introducing automation are expanding to include

As such, the industries in which automation is being introduced

and automation applications have also been expanding. Continuing

3PC is a PC product, FANUC’s lifetime maintenance is offered,with reliability as the base axis and ease of use as another axis.

Although developing "a robot that can understand the situation"
15

Palletizing with 25 kg payload CRX

DR-33B STAINLESS

as mentioned by Professor Asama may not be easy, we will enhancethat produces vision technologies in-house. I hope you will continue

the perspective of considering how we can contribute to issues

Considering the future of vision and AI prediction, AI has progressedautonomous functionality. In addition, we would like to maintainof sustainability, including carbon neutrality.

We very much appreciate your continued guidance. Thank you.
President Yamaguchi: Next, Professor Okatani, would you shareyour comments with us?

with this effort.

tremendously over the past decade, following the invention ofdeep learning. Some people have the pessimistic view that wemay be heading toward another cold winter season for AI. In

reality, however, from a researcher’s perspective, we see exciting
developments every day, and progress that exceeds our expectations.
One example of the most advanced technology is AI that uses

language. As far as the area of language is concerned, the latest

Professor Okatani: Thank you for thisOpen House Show centered on robots.

AI models can talk at a fully human level and have extensive
knowledge, so we can speak to them as if we are talking to someone

caught my attention.

purpose artificial intelligence is close to completion. However,opportunity. As usual, my tour of the

who is very intelligent. Some researchers even say that general-

Your collaborative robots especiallythis only applies to the area of language, and does not necessarily

Three years ago, I recall that there wereapply to the real world.

only a few green robots, but this time

Therefore, in terms of vision technologies, it is difficult to academicallythere were many white robots. I believethat collaborative robots will be very
useful in expanding the range of robot
applications. I have no doubt that the

study only images because these technologies are already capable
Professor Okatani

combination of vision and AI technologies

will make robots easier to use than ever before as they come toof performing what can easily be done in general. Our lab is also

studying AI combined with language capabilities, and after seeing
the exhibits today, I realized that there are actually many things

that we would like to try for on-site operations by utilizing vision

Although I heard that the robots are not the most advanced intechnologies. While this may be inherently difficult, there may
still be areas that we can develop by taking creative approaches.

move properly as products, and that the actual products are close

help to you, and we ourselves would like to address importantbe applied for new purposes.

terms of technology, I was very impressed by the fact that they

In conclusion, we hope that our joint research will be of someThis direction will probably continue in the future, but since vision

issues experienced in actual operations on-site that may not bereadily noticed in the academic world.

neighboring countries are now number one in both quality andPresident Yamaguchi: Thank you, Professor Okatani. General

to what we see in laboratories.

and AI technologies are the realm of computer science, ourquantity. At international conferences, these countries attract
overwhelming numbers of participants, presenters, and corporate
sponsors.

It was mentioned that FANUC is probably the only robot manufacturer

Manager Kato, please comment on that.

Kato: Hello, I am Kato from the Robot Software Research &Development Division. I would like to thank you for always providing
16

FANUC NEWSus with advice. Leveraging the professors’

close to my field. First, I heard that the cumulative total is 300,000

welding teaching, bin picking in which

units of a single model is a tremendous figure that is beyond

remarks and advice, we have exhibited
many new functions; automation ofunits which is an amazing figure. Previously, I thought of machine
tools as mother machines that are not mass produced, but 300,000

a path is automatically generated byfinding items based on CAD data, box

belief. Excellence in cost performance that I just mentioned, islikely to be the reason.

detection using AI, and a new function

This time as well, I realized the high basic performance of Robodrill.

for the collaborative robot CRX in which

I had seen it demonstrated several times before, but seeing ita workpiece is placed while following
the chuck.

As Professor Okatani noted, AI is advancing

rapidly. A controller with the mechanicalagain reconfirmed my impression of how great it is. From the
Kato(General Manager)

ability to implement the results of such

advancements for industrial applications, and new sensors thatfacilitate ease of use are now available. By incorporating AI, control,
and the latest sensor technologies, we will begin by developinga robot that can be used by anyone. Then we will engage indevelopment that expands the scope of robot applications tomake it possible to achieve things that cannot be done byconventional robots or vision systems. We look forward to continue
receiving your advice.

President Yamaguchi: Thank you for your comment. We will now
conclude the part of the discussion on robots.

focusing on Robomachine and machining technology in general.
First, Professor Shamoto, could you share your ideas with us?
Professor Shamoto: I am Shamoto. ThankI also found the tapping spindle that you have newly developed

to be a very good improvement. I originally thought that theadvantages of Robodrill are its compact size and brisk movementswith quick acceleration/deceleration. The performance has been

improved further not only with quicker acceleration/deceleration,
but also with low heat emission, which I think is excellent progress.
I would like to comment further on the brisk movement. Generally,
the shortcomings of compact machines are low rigidity and thetendency to chatter, which are said to be an eternal challenge formachine tools. Chatter vibrations of machine tools is one of my
specialties, and as a method to suppress chatter, there is SSV(Spindle Speed Variation), which is a function that changes thespindle speed.

in the spindle rotation position and spindle speed of one rotationcompared to that of the next rotation. This contributes to stabilizing

chattering. As such, high acceleration/deceleration is highly
advantageous for SSV, and leads to chatter vibration stability. Thismay compensate for the weaknesses of compact machines, which
are considered to have low rigidity.

you for inviting me to this roundtable

As for SSV, despite the fact that many research activities havediscussion today. As expected, it was

been conducted at conferences, some of its mechanisms havebetter to look at the exhibits in person

long been unknown. Recently, however, these have become clear.

as I could get the actual feeling. Also, it
was good to be able to discuss things

Previously, conditions such as the amplitude and frequency were
adjusted by trial and error, but today we know the optimal

directly with FANUC engineers.

conditions. I hope you can apply such information and facilitate

Let me speak about my general impression

its use under good conditions. I made this comment at the Openof Robomachine. FANUC has always

House Show to those in charge as well as an FA staff member.
Professor Shamoto

time I found that performance has
gradually improved.

Performance has improved step by step, such as high speed, highefficiency, high precision, high rigidity, and high throughput, andcost performance is outstanding as you place high importanceon cost. Although I had noticed this from before, I felt there wasfurther improvement.

In addition to basic performance, Robomachine has steadily madeprogress in various directions, including energy saving, network
support, ease of use, and automation.

that the basic performance is extremely high.

magnification; that is by how many times the scope has changed

President Yamaguchi: Next, we will continue the discussion byhigh level of basic performance, and thissuch as processing steel at high torque, it can be acknowledged

SSV allows for quick acceleration/deceleration, and identifies the■ ROBOMACHINE

been making machines with an extremely

demonstration of machining that runs briskly, and heavy cutting

Next, I would like to talk in more detail about Robodrill, which is

Another topic is higher precision. When I looked at the fine surface

machining samples, I was impressed by the excellent mirror-likesurface created by a machine in this price range. I am also interested
in the direction of making considerable enhancements to surface

quality. Because various underlying technologies have been
improved, we have almost reached a stage in which any machine

tool can create a mirror-like surface. Since I believe Robodrill is amachine that has the potential to do so, I hope you will proceedwith research and development in this direction.

With regard to underlying technologies in which FANUC excels,for example, the company has created smooth surfaces with its

fine surface technology, has reduced the vibration level of elements

such as linear guides, and has developed a technology for instantly
17

sharpening sharp cutting edges using a laser, which is close toProfessor Matsumura: Thank you very

As for energy-saving technologies, which have recently increased

by attending the face-to-face Openconventional scaife polishing, so I have high expectations for
FANUC with regard to such peripheral technologies as well.
in importance, you have been promoting visualization, which I
think is a good thing. It would be even better if you can separate
the amount of energy used for machining. For example, in thecase of a spindle, I believe the torque used for machining can beisolated based on the difference in torque between when thespindle is merely rotating and when the machining is started witha G1 or G2 command. If you could isolate the net energy used formachining from the energy for other usages, visualization will
advance further, leading to the improvement of energy-saving. I
hope you will engage in research and development in that direction
as well. That's all from me.
Thank you.

President Yamaguchi: Thank you, Professor Shamoto. General
Manager Takatsugi, could you respond to that?
Takatsugi: Thank you for your valuableand progress of Robodrill are "social
environment" and "responding tocustomers."

Professor Matsumura

Regarding social environment, I noticed

that you have enhanced the feature for visualizing energy

consumption in order to promote achieving the SDGs toward asustainable society. In other words, I strongly felt the necessity toremind users of the need to conserve energy and reduce energy

consumption through visualization. I think this is a wonderfulapplication because the feature provides clear operational guidelines
for users as well as design guidelines for equipment designers. In
particular, in cases in which an entire factory must be managed,

In terms of customer service, Robodrill was developed to be highly

CNC and servo system, to propose

user-oriented, and I realize that you have made many efforts. Last

concrete solutions for customers'

year or the year before, I mentioned the shift from “usability” toproduction sites, and to feed back the“effective use.” I believe that the proprietary G-code that you

knowledge gained from customers'

introduced this year shows precisely that you have realized an

production sites into the development

approach to “effective use.” Specifically, it is a wonderful achievement
Takatsugi(General Manager)

introduced our initiatives on carbon

neutrality, energy conservation, and IoT, which are in high demandin society. In addition, we unveiled new models of Robodrill,
Roboshot, and Robocut, which were released last year, for the firsttime at the face-to-face Show, and visitors were able to see ourdedication to enhancing basic performance.

For example, Robodrill is commonly used in machining of automotive

parts and IT-related parts such as those of smartphones. The

automotive sector is seeing a shift in machining parts in tandemwith the transition to EVs. In the IT field, the trend toward larger,
thinner smartphones is leading to an increase in machining of
wearable devices, and we must respond quickly to these changes.
As you mentioned, we need to make steady efforts to improvethe machines’ basic performance. The new technology will enable

us to machine previously unmachinable objects, to finish machined
surfaces with higher precision and quality, and to reduce machining
time. We appreciate your continued guidance as we strive toachieve smart development practices so that we can accelerate
improvements of such basic performance.

President Yamaguchi: Next, Professor Matsumura, would you
share your comments with us?

The latest key words for the development

will bring about significant impacts.

is to build actual machines using ourAt this year's Open House Show, we

actual machines.

some ideas about how to streamline operations, which I believe

On the Robomachine team, our mission

Robomachines.

House Show and hearing various
information while standing beside thethe function can be integrated into the production lines to obtaincomments, Professor Shamoto.

of FA products and robots as well as

much for inviting me here today. I wasable to further deepen my knowledge

that this feature enables the stable drilling of many very small
holes without breaking the tool, and I felt that the developmentof this G-code itself is significant. In the future, I hope to see further
advancements through, for example, efforts to encode cutter

paths to prevent damage to tools, as in the case of roll-in machining.

I think this will involve digitalizing or packaging machining
knowhow, and I am hopeful that this feature will lead to thedigitalization of craftsmanship. This proprietary G-code is a packageof movements and programs, but it would be more interesting if
you could also apply your knowhow on movements, such as where

to decelerate, and develop this into a tool to differentiate fromothers. Converting craftsmanship into code, however, requires

thinking about how to correlate with craftsmanship. I believe thatby bringing together your various existing peripheral technologies,
you can digitalize such correlation and incorporate this into
Robodrill’s control system.

As for automatic adjustment of control parameters, as Professor
Shirase already said, these parameters may change due to theaging of the machine. If this is the case, it may be possible to apply
this in the opposite direction. What I mean is that changes inparameters could be used to quantify age-related deterioration.
If aging deterioration can be estimated based on past parameters
for machine movements, this would become useful information
for maintenance and new installations.

With regard to machine tool hardware, as Professor Shamoto
18

FANUC NEWSmentioned, the tapping spindle is a revolutionary technology. He

would enable non-skilled users to achieve

is another technology that helps to address environmental issues.

together.

emphasized how this spindle is light and fast, which helps toincrease the hardware’s energy efficiency. As I noted earlier, thisThough not related to the introduction of Robodrill, the FA team
introduced machined surface estimation utilizing Servo Viewer,machine simulation, and cutting load simulation. I believe further
development is possible if these achievements can be utilized for
Robodrill. I heard that some issues remain to be solved in termsof machining, but given that your company has come so far indevelopment, I am sure that this can be more than just a dream.
President Yamaguchi: Professor Matsumura, thank you very muchfor your valuable comments. General Manager Tong, could you
respond to that?
Tong: I am Zheng Tong, General Manager of the Robodrill Research& Development Division. Thank you for your time today. At theprevious roundtable discussion, you mentioned that we should

focus on promoting "effective use" rather than "usability." This isexactly what we have achieved by the functionalization of Robodrill’smachining technology.

craftsperson-standard performance bybringing our existing machining knowhow

We did this because people were having
difficulty in effectively utilizing andmaximizing the performance of Robodrill,
making it difficult for them to assess the

Robodrill fairly. We aimed to solve thisproblem by making Robodrill easier touse.

As for your last comment regarding the

Tong(General Manager)

latest FA features, such as machined

surface estimation, Robodrill has an aspect of being a showcase
for FA products, so we will continue to actively implement suchfeatures and introduce them in application examples not only to

Robodrill users but also to other machine tool builders. We willcontinue to do our best. Thank you.
President Yamaguchi: Thank you. Next, Professor Kunieda, pleaseshare your thoughts with us.

For example, drilling small diameter holes is especially difficult,

Professor Kunieda: I am Kunieda from the University of Tokyo.

using conventional G-code. In developing our latest functions,wire electrical discharge machining. Thank you for showing them.

and cutting tools often break after drilling only a few holes when
we aimed to provide customers with a consolidated G-code that

Today, I took a look at many of your technologies that focused on

Speaking of things other than wire EDMs, I was astounded by your

Robodrill on display
19

services’ range of development. I wasdischarge machining for each workpiece

repair services, preventive maintenanceparameters for electrical discharge

also deeply impressed by your effortsaligned with users’ requests, such as

thickness and material type of wire
electrode, and then adjusting theto help users, and integrating a robot
to a machine without changing themachining to obtain the target machining
precision. As such, because it is very

control unit of the machine.

important to theoretically identify theRegarding wire electrical discharge

behavior of wire electrodes and tomachining, it is a great feat to haveachieved a precision of one micron withsuch a soft tool as soft as a wire electrode.

enhance the simulation accuracy to theProfessor Kunieda

I presume that this is the result oftremendous efforts to make technological improvements one

after another. Today, I heard explanations from the engineers
about some of the improvements and concepts which wereconvincing and gave me insight.

As many machining parameters need to be set, I wonder how you
can achieve a precision of one micron with a wire electrode thateasily vibrates for several microns just by emitting machining fluid
even when machining is not being performed. I presume you

have achieved that level of machining precision through trial anderror in experiments, and using the database obtained from such
experiments. But, to what extent do you acquire machining

conditions theoretically? I suppose it is still quite difficult to obtain
the discharge reaction force of the electrical discharge generated
in a narrow machined groove and the resistance that the wire

electrode receives from the fluid in a narrow groove just from

calculations. I am very interested in knowing to what extent you
can gather such information theoretically.

Next, as for machining speed, companies used to compete intenselywith one another regarding machining speed. While I have notheard much about such competition in recent years, are today’s
machining speeds good enough? Though I comment on this every

extent that it can be used to obtain dataon machining conditions, we consider
this to be a challenge that we should
continue to work on.

In addition, Professor Kunieda also commented on increasing themachining speed. Enhancing machining speed has been a challenge
for us for many years. The other day, Professor Kunieda kindlypresented us with a valuable observation result that most partsof a workpiece melted by a single discharge were resolidified

without being removed. This was precisely an appropriate hint,
and with it, we have just begun to consider means to make thewater flow ideal and to optimize the discharge control. We will

also continue to actively conduct verification, including whether
our present approach of performing electrical discharge in water
is the optimal solution.

In any case, it is an established view that wire electrical dischargemachining takes an extremely long time, so we will strive to make
improvements and search for ways to help the users of our wire
electrical discharge machines.

We appreciate your continued guidance. Thank you.
President Yamaguchi: Thank you. Next, Associate Professor
Kajihara, please share your remarks with us.

year, only 1 to 2% of the area melted by discharge marks become

Associate Professor Kajihara: I am Kajihara

still sufficient room for improving machining speed, but in reality

first time to participate in this roundtabledebris in electrical discharge machining. This means that there is
this cannot be achieved as expected. I viewed the exhibits
wondering how you are attempting to approach machining speed
enhancement.

President Yamaguchi: Thank you, Professor Kunieda. General
Manager Fujimoto, do you have any comments?

Fujimoto: I am Fujimoto from the Robocut Research & Development

Division. I would like to thank Professor Kunieda for his frequentguidance on clarifying the discharge phenomenon.

Professor Kunieda just asked how we ultimately achieve a machining

precision of the order of one micron with a wire electrode thatvibrates significantly just by emitting machining fluid.

Currently, we have been working on identifying wire electrodebehavior through simulation, but this is extremely difficult and
we are not making much progress. At present, to achieve such
precision, we gather a tremendous amount of data on machining

conditions by actually cutting the test shape by wire electricalFujimoto(General Manager)

from the University of Tokyo. This is my

discussion, and it is nice to meet all ofyou, though I am somewhat nervous as
I am surrounded by your company’s top
executives and prominent professors.

The research that I am involved in pertains
to direct bonding between metal andresin using injection molding. Put simply,

it is research into creating textures on
metal surfaces, pouring resin into the

Associate Professor
Kajihara

texture in insert molding, and creatinga strong bond with an anchor effect, and others. Another of myresearch activities involves microscopes. I use your Roboshot for
the research on bonding I just mentioned. Roboshot operates

very vigorously and is helping us progress our research. Thankyou.
Therefore, I will comment mainly on matters related to Roboshot.
First, as for my overall impression of the Open House Show, I wasvery impressed with your high sensitivity to users’ needs as well
20

FANUC NEWS

Robocut on display
as your swift implementation of improvement measures andNormally, a temperature controller and a molding machine are

Regarding products other than Roboshot, I was quite surprised

adjust the temperature. With the display panel, you can do it all

performance enhancements in response to such needs.

to hear that, for instance, CNC GUIDE 2 and digital twin, both ofwhich have frequently been spoken about, have improved interms of precision, and that Robocut can now create a tapered
shape very quickly in a little over twenty minutes.

As for Roboshot, I was impressed by the many varied improvementsthat you have made, which have led to faster performance andfinding new applications over the last couple of years.
In considering the performance of Roboshot itself, the first pointis the 21.5 inch display panel, which received the Japan Societyof Industrial Machinery Manufacturers’ Award at the 51st Innovation& Inventive

Design Excellence Award, “IDEA.” From the start,

FANUC’s display panel has been large and easy to use, and for

those of us who conduct experiments in particular, it is a welcome
technology that enables us to carry out experiments in which wemonitor sensor signals while experimenting such signals. You

have also developed display panels that enables the use of browsers.
With this, everything, including all LINK3 conditions, can actually

be monitored and I thought this technology will prove to be
extremely important for the progress of IoT as well.

Although not part of the display panel itself, the temperature
controller is properly linked according to EUROMAP standards,
and it can also be operated from the main body of a Roboshot.

separated, so we need to go to the temperature controller tofrom the main body.

As Professor Asama has already commented, the improved usability

is superb, so users like us are thankful that such individual efforts
have accumulated for our benefit.

With regard to performance, I witnessed automatic adjustmentof clamping force by using a clamping force sensor. I thought it

was wonderful that your high sensitivity to all kinds of things led
you to focus on the clamping force sensor as an importantparameter, which has led to improved performance.

Although this may be a minor point, you succeeded in savingenergy with the well-designed barrel cover, which reduces energy
consumption by 9% through heat control. Though it may be trivial,

I think it is quite good that power is saved in such a simple manner.

I truly hope that you will actively apply your technology enabled
by your high sensitivity to such areas.

I recently realized that you are not only working on improving

performance but also expanding applications through your focus
on recycled materials. When I visited the K Show in Dusseldorf
three years ago, what surprised me the most was seeing so manybooths featuring recycling, and drawing much attention. They
could hardly be seen at previous shows.

In Europe and the United States, great attention was already being
21

paid to recycling at that time, and circular economy trends haveabout your strategy for such initiatives with regard to Roboshot

will no longer be used in 2050. If fossil fuels are not used, naphtha

molding machines and diagnoses of their operating statuses,

also gradually appeared in Japan. According to some green
transformation (GX) scenarios for carbon neutrality, fossil fuels
cannot be obtained, so this will prevent plastics from being
produced.
In such a case, as one path, the trend of using recycled materials

should emerge as a matter of course. I believe technologies to
use recycled materials will become very important in Japan aswell. Since FANUC has already started working on this and has

gradually been producing results, I do hope you will continue toadvance your activities in this direction.

Another thing I found interesting is two-component molding.
General two-component molding, in which two materials arenormally injected by rotating the mold, has been around for sometime. In your case, the mold does not move, and the robot moves

to pick up and inject the materials into the next cavity. I foundsuch technology to be very interesting.
My question is, when the mold is usually rotated in two-component

molding, are you using a robot to pick up and inject the materials

because high precision in positioning and others are required

during rotation? This has a very interesting visual impact, but I
would appreciate it if you could share the reason.

My last topic is about your initiatives on IoT and AI. I am curious

in particular. There are also many other things including FIELD
system and LINKi, but they are applied to the relationships between
which are so-called production technologies. Although AI is also
used for many purposes such as preventive diagnosis, I would liketo know if you are heading in the direction of applying suchtechnologies to molding itself or considering doing so in the
future.

For example, in the case I just mentioned concerning molding

recycled materials, Hitachi issued a press release in March thisyear stating that they had enhanced molding precision by mounting

sensors inside a mold and carefully controlling various information
using machine learning. I would like to hear from you if this is also
a possible direction for your company and under what strategy,
including AI, you intend to improve molding phenomena andmolding precision, or to improve the molding situation itself.
For example, a company in Europe optimized molding by installing
more than 1,000 sensors in a molding machine to obtain andanalyze big data, and then by applying machine learning toimportant data. I would be grateful if you could tell us about yourfuture direction.

President Yamaguchi: Thank you Associate Professor Kajihara for

Exhibit of Roboshot
22

FANUC NEWS
your questions. General Manager Uchiyama, how would you

Professor Shinno: Thank you for inviting

Uchiyama: I am Uchiyama from thetime in three years and had valuable

respond?

me to the Open House Show today. I
met with FANUC’s engineers for the first

Division.

discussions with those involved in thedevelopment of various new products.

for joining us today.

surrounding Japan's manufacturing

Roboshot Research & Development

In recent years, the environment

Associate Professor Kajihara, thank you

industry has changed dramatically withAs Associate Professor Kajihara commented

the emergence of an advancedon usability at the beginning, we haveinformation society, the aging of the

combined a large screen with the PANEL

population, and the declining birthrate.

3H Pro and I believe that screen operability
has considerably improved. We willfurther enhance this by using PANEL 3H

Pro to collect, analyze, and utilize various

Professor Shinno

Uchiyama(General Manager)

information. In the course of such

This Open House Show featured specific R&D results related tovarious new products that enable us to respond to these environmental
changes. As several other professors mentioned in their comments,
FANUC has proposed new products of academic interest, such as

In the case of injection molding machines, there are various

collaborative robots with new color schemes and designs, methods
for utilizing digital technologies to reduce environmental impacts,

screens without good reason is not a proper solution. We must

robots that combine robots with AGVs, and optimization ofprocesses, I think we will make use of AI-based enhancements.

molding conditions, but continuing to increase the number ofconsider how settings can be simplified from the viewpoint ofcustomers, and this is where AI can exert its value.

Regarding the molding method for two-component molding thatyou asked about, as you noted, there is a method for performing
two-component molding in which the mold is rotated on a rotarytable. However, because there are issues with this method suchas the mold becoming very complex, the requirement of precise
positioning, and the mold becoming easier to break, we use arobot.

Next, as for your comment on recycling, we feel that saving energy

and recycling will be major future challenges for plastics. Today,
plastics face headwinds in some sense, so what we need to do isto turn these into tailwinds. Given this situation, our future large
challenges include making good use of recycled materials andensuring that precision is maintained even for recycled materials.
As Associate Professor Kajihara commented, Europe is well aheadof other regions when it comes to recycling. Actually, in Europe’s
injection molding market, the rate of electric molding machinesremains around 40%, which is rather low compared to Japan’s

90%. We believe an approach that addresses recycling materials

and emphasizes being environment-friendly as well as energy
saving is needed to increase the use of Roboshots in Europe.

We will carefully consider the many comments we received from

Associate Professor Kajihara today. We appreciate your continued
support. Thank you for attending today.

President Yamaguchi: This concludes our discussion of topics

with a focus on FA, robots, Robomachine, and machining technology
overall.

real-time simulation of machining processes, autonomous mobile

machining processes utilizing digital twin technology. It is generally
believed to be difficult to escalate R&D issues in the FA field inacademic research, but by attending the New Products OpenHouse Show and having discussions with those involved indevelopment, I recognized that this is not necessarily the case.
For example, AI Servo Tuning, which is one of your new products,
has succeeded in estimating machined surfaces and machining

parameters through modeling and process formulation, and I saw
that many new academic findings have been obtained in theprocess. I think that the entire process and results of R&D could
easily be summarized in an academic research paper. Moreover,with regard to digital twin technology, which was still somewhat

in the conceptual stage at the previous exhibition, we saw concrete,

practical R&D results at this year’s event. Based on these observations,
I strongly feel that the future development of new products related

to digital twin technology should be directed toward realizing
autonomy. As for FIELD system, which has been a focus of attention
at previous exhibitions, although it appeared that the company
was trying to promote its use as a platform, it did not leave muchof an impression. Therefore, I think that more thought needs tobe given to devise ways to present it to customers.

In light of the political, economic, social, and technological factors
surrounding Japan's manufacturing industry, I strongly feel that

the Japanese industry’s competitiveness has declined significantly.
Although the media is not so critical of this trend at this time, I

personally am aware that the industry is in a precarious situation,and I would like to take this unique opportunity to emphasize thenecessity of addressing this issue as soon as possible. We constantly
study and sort specific issues that need to be solved in order tostrengthen Japan's industrial competitiveness. At this point, I have

■ Summaryroughly classified such issues into seven categories, each of which
I will explain in turn.

wrap up this discussion?

human resources." The current government's package policy of

President Yamaguchi: Finally, Professor Shinno, could you please

The first category is about "ensuring the quality and quantity of

23

"investment in people" is obsolete and inadequate, and it willmaterial innovation." This used to be Japan’s strength. In the 1980s

U.S. originated reskilling (redevelopment and retraining oftechnology in the automotive industry, and in the competition

only generate limited ripple effects throughout the industry. Somemanufacturing companies are currently experimenting with theprofessional skills) strategy to strengthen their human resourcesin order to promote digital transformation, and are reporting somesuccess in these initiatives. Japan's manufacturing industry is
actively promoting horizontal division of labor, including theappointment of external personnel to internal positions, but it isquestionable whether such initiatives are helping to strengthen
companies’ core competencies over a long period. Human resource

strategies must be developed based on a long-term perspective.

The second category concerns "addressing product commoditization."
Professor Asama referred to commoditization in his comments,
but I would like to talk about commoditization from anotherperspective. As digital technologies develop, it becomes moredifficult to differentiate products, making it harder to commoditize
products. To avoid this problem, in the product development
process, companies need to incorporate mechanisms that cannot

be easily imitated, in a manner that is not apparent. I do not mean

adjusting product structures so that competitors cannot easily
copy them. For example, for products with a modular design, it

is necessary to consider incorporating modules (components)

into the product structure that only the company itself can easily
recognize. This principle should be thoroughly applied to the new
products featured at this year's Open House Show.

The third category is about "addressing increasingly complex andsophisticated customer needs." Even if you conduct market surveys
in an attempt to identify customers’ needs, you will probably

obtain only conventional results. You cannot elicit new needsfrom customers that the customers themselves do not know ofor are unaware of. The self-righteous belief that good seeds will

naturally bring good needs does not necessarily lead to success.
However, I believe that formulating future customer needs aheadof existing ones, and identifying and quickly capturing and nurturingseeds to address those needs is one of the prescriptions necessary

for the manufacturing industry’s future success.
The fourth category concerns "addressing process innovation andSustainability initiatives

and early 1990s, both Japan and the rest of the world recognizedthat the country was foremost globally in the areas of production
to develop new materials such as ceramics and advanced composite
materials, as exemplified by “Japan as Number One,” a book thatsymbolized the county’s rapid economic growth. Unfortunately,

today it is said that Japan has fallen far behind the global mainstream
economically and technologically, trailing both Europe and theUnited States. I hope that, without fear of failure, Japan’s manufacturingindustry will boldly engage in R&D to apply new technologies andmaterials as well as introduce new products to international
markets, just as the industry used to do in the past.

The fifth category is about "addressing the digitalization of
manufacturing sites." As the number of skilled workers andengineers with expertise working on the factory floor declines, it
is once again becoming apparent that technical knowhow is
attached to people, and is a serious matter. When an employee
leaves a company, the company loses the skills and knowhowthat the employee has accumulated over the years. Therefore,such skills and knowhow that are important to the company are

not inherited by the next generation. Although there may a feelingthat it is too late to take action in many manufacturing sectors,
we are working to address this issue through digitalization of

professional development. In the future, it will be essential toutilize digital technologies to formulate and systematize theaccumulated experiences and intuitions of experienced techniciansand engineers in order to systematically pass down their techniquesand skills.

The sixth category pertains to "addressing carbon neutrality andresource constraints." At today’s Open House Show, the themesof "energy conservation," "lighter weight," and "higher speed"
were on display at the CNC digital twin and Roboshot booths,

where specific initiatives to reduce environmental impacts were

presented. In terms of carbon neutrality, it is necessary to reexamine

the overall lifecycles of current products as to whether the materials
which form their structure are the most appropriate and whether
the products are used optimally.

Services featured in the exhibition
24

FANUC NEWSThe seventh category is about "addressing risk management."

make the most of the valuable advice we received today in our

however, such measures are unsuccessful. The recent Russiancomments. In fact, I completely agree with him. While it may be

Companies must prepare for uncertain events with measures tominimize risks to the maximum extent possible. In many cases,

invasion of Ukraine has exposed deficiencies in risk management
in various areas, highlighting the importance of risk management.
In the manufacturing industry, the business model based onhorizontal division of labor is attracting attention for its effectivenessand becoming more common as companies aim to succeed inopen innovation. On the other hand, some companies are returning

to a vertically integrated business model to secure logistics in
response to risks and to avoid country risk. The importance ofmanaging companies calmly while assigning the right people to

the right places and maintaining a balance within the system isincreasingly being recognized.
These seven categories that need to be taken care of to strengthen

Japan's industrial competitiveness are general issues that weshould naturally be addressing in light of the environment
surrounding Japan's manufacturing industry. FANUC may havealready solved these issues. To strengthen Japan's industrial
competitiveness, it is important for individual companies not tomerely sell products, but rather to further expand fine-tuned

services, which is a strength of Japan's manufacturing industry - inother words, to combine hardware and software as a package

and to promote all functions and roles of such an integrated

system as a business. I hope that FANUC will significantly develop

its business by consolidating and engaging in the three pillars of
product manufacturing, value creation, and personnel training.

Finally, thank you very much for inviting me to the New Products

future product development.
As usual, I would also like to thank Professor Shinno for histrue that Japan's manufacturing industry is currently lagging
behind the rest of the world, I believe there is still a chance for us
to win.

The rhythmic catchphrase "from the tangible to the intangible"

has driven everyone to shift to the intangible while disregarding

the tangible. However, we will never have the intangible without
the tangible. In opposite terms, it is my belief that by making goodtangible products, we can make even better intangible products.
Therefore, we will continue to focus on tangible products while

creating intangible ones. While other countries attempt to shift
to the intangible while disregarding the tangible, I believe thatJapan’s strength and FANUC’s strength lie in steadfast manufacturing

practices. Based on this belief, we will continue to manufacturesolid hardware for FA, robots, and Robomachine, and we will

integrate software to be installed in this hardware, IoT technologies
that connect them, and AI technologies that intelligently utilize
them to contribute to the strength of Japan’s manufacturingindustry. These things are easy to say, but they are not being
achieved today. However, this is the direction we want follow.

Finally, I believe that the members of the R&D Divisions weregreatly encouraged by directly receiving advice from the professors
who participated in this roundtable discussion. Thank you verymuch for today’s contribution.

President Yamaguchi: Many thanks to the professors who joinedOpen House Show, the first to be held in three years. On behalf

us. We apologize for taking up much longer time than expected,

our deepest gratitude to FANUC’s employees for their efforts inmuch.

of all the professors present here today, I would like to express
preparing for this Show and roundtable discussion. We wish FANUC

but it has been a very valuable opportunity for us. Thank you very

continued growth and success in the future. Thank you very muchfor today.

President Yamaguchi: Thank you for concluding the discussion,
Professor Shinno. In ending, Chairman Inaba would like to express
his gratitude.

Chairman Inaba: Thank you very muchfor your valuable comments and advice

today. This was the first face-to-faceOpen House Show in three years, and I

deeply appreciate that many of theprofessors said they were glad to havevisited. As the organizer and operatorof the event, our feelings are exactly thesame. We hope that by touching theexhibits and directly hearing the sounds,
feeling the movements, and interactingwith the exhibition staff, you could

Chairman Inaba

experience the exhibits and understandthem more deeply than through an online exhibition. I hope to253580, Shibokusa, Oshino-mura, Minamitsuru-gun, Yamanashi 401-0597 Japanwww.fanuc.co.jp

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