RRI of Japan and CESMII cooperate to shape the Future of Manufacturing
Oct 13, 2021
Robot Revolution & Industrial IoT Initiative (RRI) of Japan and the Clean Energy Smart
Manufacturing Innovation Institute (CESMII) are collaborating to shape the Future ofManufacturing.
RRI and CESMII are working together to drive the digital transformation of manufacturing. Areasof shared interest include educational benchmarking, technical standards and decarbonization.
In the short term, educational benchmarking will compare a shared set of skills andcompetencies in a rapidly evolving manufacturing domain. This initiative was first revealed atRRI’s International Symposium 2021, highlighting the vision for this collaboration.
Japan and the United States are among the world’s leading manufacturing economies andinnovation ecosystems. The two countries’ manufacturers share an interconnected network offacilities and suppliers, including many small and medium-sized enterprises. RRI and CESMII areannouncing this collaboration to address similar challenges and needs related to Smart
Manufacturing. For both manufacturing economies to compete, they need international
collaboration to drive the harmonization of standards and training initiatives and achieve majortasks like the development of workforce skills and fostering sustainable production.
RRI promotes the development of Smart Manufacturing and Robotics in Japan by developing
pre-competitive concepts, recommendations and use cases for practical applications.
CESMII promotes Smart Manufacturing in the US by supporting pre-competitive research anddevelopment, providing tools and a testbed for new technology as public-private partnerships,
and creating content for educating a next generation of smart manufacturers.
“Japan has established today's leading position in manufacturing by creating effective practices
at manufacturing sites such as KAIZEN. On the other hand, with the development of digitaltechnology, new initiatives are being born, and it is necessary for management and the field torespond to the movement and become a next-generation engine that creates further newmovements. I am very excited to aim for a global scale initiative in collaboration with CESMII.”,says Tatsuya Ohira, Secretary General of RRI.
At the Robot Revolution and Industrial IoT International Symposium 2021, RRI is particularly
honored that CESMII accepted the invitation to Day2 session for Innovation, Education andWorkforce Development on Wednesday October 13th, which will be live-streamed via YouTube.
The Robot Revolution and Industrial IoT International Symposium 2021 provides an excellent
opportunity to present the current implementation of each country as well as the discussion for
the future collaboration opportunities.

Developing education and workforce competencies

and skills for smart manufacturing is essential to continue the path of innovation and to drive
adoption. Technologies are evolving faster and manufacturing systems are increasinglyconnected to support data driven business transformation.
Learning and understanding methodologies and skills at various level of the organization areneeded from the management level to the shopfloor level. This collaboration is a highly
complementary effort that will help the US and Japan to ensure these systems work well, basedon harmonized approaches which are mutually beneficial.
John Dyck, CEO of CESMII, appreciates the joint progress since autumn of 2020: “Both sides haveinvested significant time to understand each other’s approaches and national context. We have
now reached a point where we can start defining concrete activities. It is important to us that
our efforts also respond to the needs of small and medium-sized companies, especially torecover from Covid-19 and to create new jobs in the future. RRI and CESMII also see great
potential in the digital transformation of manufacturing to enhance decarbonization andecological sustainability.”
About RRI
RRI (The Robot Revolution & Industrial IoT Initiative) is a private-led organizational platform topromote the "Robot Revolution" stated in the "New Robot Strategy" (2015/2/10, The
Headquarters for Japan’s Economic Revitalization). In "New Robot Strategy", robot is widely
defined as a system that executes tasks by utilizing digital and network technology, advanced
sensors, and artificial intelligence, and the strategy aims the following targets. RRI is acting as anopen innovation platform for wide range of stakeholders to collaborate and make concrete
actions to realize these targets. At the “Connected Industries” Initiative in Japan, RRI isrecognized as a main promoter of Manufacturing and Robotics fields.
https://www.jmfrri.gr.jp/

https://www.jmfrri.gr.jp/english/

About CESMIICESMII is the United States’ national institute on Smart Manufacturing, driving cultural andtechnological transformation and secure industrial technologies as national imperatives. By
enabling frictionless movement of information – raw and contextualized data – between realtime Operations and the people and systems that create value in and across Manufacturingorganizations, CESMII is ensuring the power of information and innovation is at the fingertips ofeveryone who touches manufacturing.
Founded in 2016, in partnership with Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency andRenewable Energy (EERE), CESMII is the third institute funded by EERE’s Advanced
Manufacturing Office. The Institute is accelerating Smart Manufacturing (SM) adoption throughthe integration of advanced sensors, data (ingestion – contextualization – modeling – analytics),
platforms and controls to radically impact manufacturing performance, through measurable
improvements in areas such as: quality, throughput, costs/profitability, safety, asset reliability
and energy productivity. CESMII’s program and administrative home is with the University ofCalifornia Los Angeles (UCLA).
www.CESMII.org