Smart factories still only 20% in Japan; Agency for Natural Resources and Energy boosts AI support
Only a small percentage of companies in Japan are leveraging digital technology to save energy and improve productivity in their factories and office buildings. According to the survey results of the manufacturing sector, only about 20% of companies have implemented “smart factory” which refers to factories that transform their processes by utilizing IoT and AI (artificial intelligence), which connect various devices to the Internet. The government has established support measures to encourage companies’ attempts to save energy through digitalization.
The Agency for Natural Resources and Energy(ANRE) of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) reported on domestic and international corporate trends at the Energy Conservation Subcommittee of the Advisory Committee on Energy and Natural Resources and Energy held on 10 January. In 2023, Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd. surveyed over 11,000 workers in the manufacturing industry, asking whether they are working toward smart factory implementation. The results showed that about 60% of the companies had not yet begun such efforts.
ANRE expands its support in the supplementary budget for FY2024 to encourage efforts to optimize energy-saving operations using AI, as visualization of a company’s energy consumption is the first step toward energy conservation.
Overseas, efforts to develop smart factories are accelerating. At the “Japan-China Comprehensive Forum on Energy Conservation and Environment” held in November 2024, the Energy Research Institute of the National Development and Reform Commission of China made the following statement. Energy conservation in the industrial sector has passed through the “1.0 era” of preventing wasteful spending and the “2.0 era” of introducing equipment and facilities with superior performance, and is now entering the “3.0 era” of “pursuing efficiency through embodiment, systemization, and digitalization.