Continuous rise in the number of COVID 19 patients in India has led to rapid increase in demand for ventilator. Mitsubishi Electric - a global leader in electrical and electronic equipment - is supporting this industry by providing Graphic Operation Controller (GOC) products to ventilator makers to meet the optimal automation needs of the Indian market.

“To support the fight against the global pandemic and provide efficient care to critical patients, ventilator manufacturing is need of the hour. With features like easy monitoring with built-in graphical display, recipe handling function, customized mylar with built in i-Keys, annunciator with three different conditions, Graphic Operation Controller (GOC) can be effectively used to automate a manual ventilator, and control various parameters like air pumped to the lungs along with option for selecting 10% to 100% pressure operation in the health care industry,” said Atul Patil, Assistant General Manager, Marketing Department, Factory Automation & Industrial Division (FAID) of Mitsubishi Electric India.

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The integrated controller and display help in maintaining the compactness of the ventilator. Display of Graphic Operation Controller has proven very helpful to indicate the Inspiration/Expiration ratio, volume of oxygen pumped etc, among other parameters. The i-Keys allow for easy selection of operation. “Automated ventilator operations, enabled by GOC has been tested successfully at Government facilities, thus contributing in India’s fight against the virus,” Patil added. 

As a global leader in factory automation products, Mitsubishi Electric offers wide a range of automation & processing technologies which includes controllers, drives, industrial robots, visualization products like HMIs and SCADA, low voltage switchgears and computerised numerical controllers (CNCs) etc. It has solutions to build smart machines and smart factories. Atul Patil elaborated, “Our Solutions enable faster production, higher quality control with higher degree of traceability and lower cost of production. We also have pre-engineered software development packages called iQ-Monozukuri which are specifically developed for processes like and-on, packaging, handling, converting etc. These solutions help reduce the development and deployment of industrial automation solutions to the industry and enables faster production, reducing the time to market and increase efficiency.”

Mitsubishi Electric’s Factory Automation (FA) team globally wanted to contribute towards helping society to overcome the current challenges during pandemic conditions. Therefore, its factory staff and several groups have come together to create a library of basic programs, function blocks and servo set-ups as sample programs, that can be used, copied or adapted to help make a functioning control system for a “disposable face mask” production machine. The application package is derived from iQMonozukuri Facemask. It correlates with Mitsubishi Electric’s Smart Manufacturing solution - e-F@ctory and establishes foundation for future IIoT integration.

Automation holds a key role in ensuring that the industries are capable of meeting a certain production level in these times and also support the gradual recovery after the COVID 19 pandemic is controlled to a larger extent. Unfortunately, in the past few months the outbreak has presented a slew of serious challenges for both humans and businesses. From a business perspective, manufacturing industry is one of the most severely impacted. “The spread of virus has resulted in plant closures (full or partial) in many countries, halting production for prolonged periods, resulting in huge losses and loss of jobs. Companies are building their business continuity plans and re-inventing new manufacturing supply chain models and exploring automation possibilities to reduce the impact of this crisis on production lines in the future,” said Atul Patil.

Mitsubishi Electric has also hit some roadblocks due to slowing consumption across various sectors. However, the company has been focussed in taking its products and solutions across varied industrial sectors. The company has after carefully examining the situation and supporting India’s fight against COVID 19 pandemic, along with the promise of uncompromised safety and unmatched convenience, has begun their work operations at Factory Automation’s manufacturing facility in Pune, while closely adhering to the advisory issued by the Central and State Governments and guided by the sole objective of securing health and safety of all its stakeholders.

Going forward, the company will continue to adapt with the changing industrial environment and strive to provide cutting-edge solutions to its customers. “In keeping with this ideology, we think that advances in industrial robotics and smart manufacturing solutions like e-F@ctory will drive the factories of tomorrow, which is why we have concentrated on three key features: “Intelligence, Integration & Safety” for our MELFA-FR series industrial robots. They are capable of handling virtually all the automation needs,” said Atul Patil.

Mitsubishi Electric plans to develop more functions in these three areas. Also, next-generation intelligent functions make it simple to carry out work that has always defied automation. Safe, collaborative work applications allow robots and people to work together with high levels of safety. Mitsubishi Electric’s e-F@ctory concept helps in integrating factory automation (FA) and IT functions, thus supporting the next generation of smart manufacturing. Atul Patil added, “We offer solutions that use FA technology and along with an IT interface, it helps reduce total costs in everything from development, through to production and maintenance, supporting customers to continuously improve their business operations and achieve truly cutting-edge manufacturing.”