Tokyo, June 21, 2016 - NEC Corporation (NEC; TSE: 6701) today announced the global launch of its "Visualization Solution for Manufacturing" aiming to enhance the overall productivity, flow of supply chains and quality of factory operations. The solution collects and visualizes production site data based on observations provided by the "NEC Industrial IoT" solution, which capitalizes on the Internet of Things (IoT) to support next generation manufacturing.

The system connects with a wide variety of equipment and IoT devices in order to create a "connected factory." This is accomplished by leveraging NEC's cutting edge image recognition, Artificial Intelligence (AI), big data processing and security technologies to collect valuable data using ExpEther and highly reliable wireless networks and devices.

NEC's Visualization Solution for Manufacturing uses the IoT to increase the speed of responses and improvements in respect to challenges that arise at production sites. Further, the incorporation of NEC's advanced fingerprint recognition technology enables companies to trace the manufacturing history of individual products, thereby strengthening quality control. In addition, the provision of a total package, from initial consultation through to operations and maintenance services, ensures that these systems are constructed and utilized in an efficient, secure, and safe manner.

NEC verified the solution at its own production sites and reduced the data analysis time for improving production processes by as much as 95%, while increasing productivity by approximately 18% when compared with conventional processes.

"The 'NEC Industrial IoT' solution has been in operation at NEC factories since June 2015, where it has verified the use of IoT in a manufacturing environment," said Masao Uchida, General Manager, 1st Manufacturing Industries Solutions Division, NEC Corporation. "In addition to managing and controlling the production site in real time, the visualization of the factory as a whole has allowed us to achieve a secure, highly operable and highly efficient solution."