NEC Facilities Launches Pilot Program for Robot-Assisted Equipment Inspection at New NEC Tamagawa Plant Building

NEC Facilities, Ltd. (hereinafter NEC Facilities) has launched a pilot program for robots that perform patrol inspections of electrical equipment at the 'NEC Innovation New Building (tentative name),' which is scheduled to open in April at the NEC Tamagawa Plant (Kawasaki City, Kanagawa Prefecture). This pilot program utilizes 'ugo mini,' a robot developed by startup ugo, Inc., which specializes in business DX robots.

In this pilot program, the robot autonomously travels through the building where electrical equipment is located, reading various meters installed on the inspection route using a camera. The acquired data is automatically registered in a database and used for recording and managing inspection results. Through this, the company will verify that patrol inspections, which previously required two people, can be performed by 'one person + one robot.' Since the person can engage in other tasks while the robot is patrolling, the company aims to streamline equipment inspection operations through human-robot collaboration.

NEC Facilities provides Integrated Facility Management (IFM) that connects construction, environment, and facility management businesses, primarily for semiconductor/electronic component, pharmaceutical, and automotive factories, as well as data centers. In recent years, there has been a demand for addressing labor shortages, maintaining and improving safety and quality, and advancing operations through the digitization of inspection tasks in facility management. In particular, patrol inspections of electrical equipment have faced challenges in streamlining the tasks of visually checking, recording, and transcribing multiple meters scattered over a wide area.

This pilot program is being conducted jointly with NEC Solution Innovators, which has expertise in the field of autonomous driving software for robots, under the open innovation initiative promoted by NEC. The company plans to conduct similar pilot programs at its training and R&D center, 'FM-Base®,' in the future.

Based on the results of the pilot, NEC Facilities will consider expanding the scope of equipment and areas covered by robot inspections and, after verifying the efficiency gains, will consider introducing them to actual facility management sites.