Edgecross Consortium aims to accelerate Industry 4.0 growth

Nov. 7, 2017 – Advantech, Mitsubishi Electric, Omron, NEC, IBM Japan and Oracle Japan have established the Edgecross Consortium in an effort to overcome boundaries between companies and industries, help realize collaboration between factory automation and IT, and create new value centred on edge computing.

The establishment of the consortium is planned for November 29, 2017.

The parties say the Edgecross Consortium will allow for “easy realization” of factory automation and IT collaboration through its open software platform — Edgecross Software Platform — which is based on edge computing. By residing on the edge layer, the Edgecross Software Platform facilities connectivity between factory shop floors and value chains, delivering “rapid acquisition, analysis, and utilization of data” which are essential to smart manufacturing. As well, user applications can be created and shared on the edge to realize various IoT utilization purposes.

“Partnering with leading global companies in accelerating our global business in Industry 4.0 is Advantech’s key strategy,” said Allan Yang, CTO of Advantech.  “Joining the Edgecross Consortium is our next big step to expand global collaboration and business in Industry 4.0. We are very proud to be a part of Edgecross Consortium with these leading global companies; we are looking forward to collaborating with consortium members to develop Industry 4.0 products and solutions to enhance our customer experience.”