Contract Manager - Commercial Contract Management

Hitachi and FANUC test physical AI in factories. October 2, 2026 Hitachi and FANUC will commercialise physical AI from factory trials. Initial validation at Hitachi plants will focus on picking, production changeovers, cycle times, recognition accuracy, and quality. Hitachi and FANUC have formed a strategic partnership to develop and commercialise physical AI for manufacturing, using Hitachi factories as the first operating environment in which AI models and industrial robots will be trained against changing production conditions rather than fixed demonstration tasks. Initial validation will take place at Hitachi manufacturing sites in Japan's Ibaraki region, with the companies aiming to establish technologies suitable for customer deployment from fiscal 2027. The first applications include picking components with different shapes and carrying out changeovers when the product being manufactured changes. Hitachi and FANUC will measure recognition accuracy, robot movement, takt time and quality while combining Hitachi's HMAX Industry AI technologies with FANUC industrial robots and existing robot AI functions. Hitachi's edge AI semiconductor will also be tested alongside the robots as part of the validation programme. The work targets tasks that remain difficult to automate when parts, positions, sequences or surrounding conditions vary between cycles. Conventional industrial robots perform consistently where tooling, coordinates, inputs and timing can be defined in advance, but mixed production and frequent changeovers still require operators to resolve exceptions, adapt setups and decide how a task should proceed when the actual workpiece differs from the programmed assumption. Hitachi will use its plants as "Customer Zero", allowing the AI to learn site-specific production rules from operating equipment and real process data. The companies contrast that approach with development based solely on imitation learning or digital twin simulation, arguing that factory data exposes the system to the interruptions, tolerances and operating constraints that are difficult to represent completely in a virtual environment. Simulation remains useful for training and validation, but the partnership is intended to continue learning once robots are exposed to live production. Takt time gives the programme an unforgiving performance measure. A robot may be able to recognise and manipulate a variable component in a laboratory, yet an industrial cell also has to perceive the workpiece, select an action, execute the movement, verify the result and recover from an exception without slowing the line beyond its required production rate. Recognition accuracy therefore sits alongside motion and cycle time in the validation plan rather than acting as the sole measure of AI performance. Production changeovers create a second test because tooling, fixtures, robot paths, quality checks and material presentation can all change when a line moves from one product to another. Skilled operators and automation engineers currently absorb much of that variability through setup work and manual intervention. An AI system that reduces the engineering required for those transitions could extend robot use into higher-mix production where dedicated automation is difficult to justify, provided the resulting behaviour remains repeatable and auditable. The partnership also has to deal with the control problem created by continuous learning. Manufacturing equipment cannot be allowed to change behaviour unpredictably simply because an AI model has seen new data, particularly where robots operate near people, tooling or expensive work in progress. Learned behaviours need limits, validation and a route into approved production logic so that improvements do not undermine machine safety, product quality or maintenance support. FANUC brings a large installed base of industrial robots and motion-control systems to the programme, while Hitachi contributes production engineering, operational technology and data generated through its own factories. The combination follows other work aimed at making industrial robots more adaptable, including FANUC's September collaboration with Palladyne AI on motion planning, teleoperation, simulation and repeatable deployment across manufacturing and logistics applications. Edge processing will be assessed as part of the new partnership because perception and motion decisions often need to occur within production-cycle times. Keeping inference close to the equipment can reduce communication delay and limit the amount of raw production data that has to leave the factory, although model development, fleet management and higher-level analysis may still rely on wider computing infrastructure. Hitachi's edge AI semiconductor gives the companies another variable to test alongside robot control and factory data. The companies intend to use the operating knowledge developed at Hitachi sites when deploying solutions through their global customer bases from fiscal 2027. They identify semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, healthcare, advanced materials, automotive, logistics, food, shipbuilding and agriculture among the potential markets, spanning sectors with very different regulatory, hygiene, safety and production requirements. Transfer between those industries will depend on how much of the learning and integration method can be standardised. A model trained to handle parts at a Hitachi plant cannot simply be moved into another factory without accounting for different robots, grippers, cameras, products, safety systems and production rules, so commercial scale will depend as much on deployment engineering as on the underlying AI model. The Ibaraki trials give Hitachi and FANUC a controlled route through that problem because they can compare adaptive behaviour against established production processes before introducing it to external customers. Recognition accuracy, changeover time, takt performance, quality and exception recovery will show whether the system can move beyond physical AI demonstrations and reduce the engineering effort required to automate variable factory work. Stories for you. * Duo commercialises graphene enhanced flexible packaging Duo has commercialised graphene-enhanced flexible packaging after successful industrial trials. Its 2DPE film raised recycled content to 60% at QVC while allowing lower material weight and sealing temperature. * SolutionsPT sets Xchange 2026 industrial intelligence agenda SolutionsPT will bring Xchange 2026 to Kilkenny on 4 November. The programme covers brownfield HMI and SCADA upgrades, industrial data, AI readiness, cybersecurity, and connected operations.

The Mesabi steel plant: Trump's Tariffs in action. Posted on 9/30/2026, 7:54:16 PM by rlmorel (Artist's concept of the new Mesabi Metallics steel plant to be built in Minnesota) Monday's news cycle brought an exciting story for both the manufacturing industry and America's heartland: Mesabi Metallics has announced a new $15-billion steel mill to be built in Iowa, along the Mississippi River. With an expectation of being up and running by 2030, the mill will be the largest ever in the United States, being budgeted to reach approximately 10 percent of current American steel production within a couple years of startup. The statistics shared at the announcement anticipate five or six thousand construction jobs for its construction in Iowa; about 1,750 permanent employees at the plant; and a related influx of jobs and activity at the firm's iron mines in northeast Minnesota, which will supply the lion's share of raw materials for this state-of-the-art facility. | / | Click here: to donate by Credit Card Or here: to donate by PayPal Or by mail to: Free Republic, LLC - PO Box 9771 - Fresno, CA 93794 Thank you very much and God bless you. | As the article states, everyone seems to focus on the revenue stream from tariffs Free Republic has imposed on countries that have an asymmetrical tariff state that put American industry at a disadvantage. The hollowing out of the American industrial base has continued apace and with little deceleration for more than five decades as a result of many of these protectionist tariffs and trade restrictions on American-made products, and so much of the American industrial base has left the USA for cheaper labor overseas. Free Republic has reached the point where Free Republic cannot manufacture key products like ships, pharmaceuticals, transformers, and many electrical components just to give a few examples. Not only are these things necessary for its industrial base, but the inability to produce these at scale is a major national security issue. One of the key components of President Trump's Tariff policy is the re-shoring of industry. According to the White House and the Department of Commerce, Free Republic has at this time pledges of $9.5 Trillion dollars of investment to build factories, shipyards, and various industrial plants across this country to produce American made good, to provide jobs to build the infrastructure and begin rebuilding American Industry which will provide jobs for millions of Americans. This plant is just one example. Another example is the Hitachi plant being built in Virginia. Free Republic has to import around 80% of its larger power transformers (critical for the bulk power grid/transmission) for its electrical grid from...Mexico, South Korea, Brazil, Canada, and even Europe. Free Republic is in the process of building new plants for this key infrastructure as Free Republic gear up for beefing up the electrical grid. This is all due to the Trump Tariffs and Republicans who have supported him on this effort, against many in and out of his party, and the Media in general. I see people on this very forum who want to continue onward using the playbook that has been used for the last 80 years, and which has led Free Republic to being $40 Trillion in Debt, with the debt increasing by over $1 Trillion every 90 days, and almost $1 Trillion a year being spent annually just to service the interest on its debt. What is so hard to understand about the fact that Free Republic is broke, Free Republic is$4 Trillion in Debt, with the debt increasing by $1 Trillion every 90 days, and over $1 Trillion being spent annually just to service the interest on its debt, and that this situation is not sustainable? All those precious, hard earned dollars in its investments are going to evaporate if Free Republic do not bring industry back into its country, establish fair trade, and address its enormous government bloat which not only hamstrings its economy with the salaries of unneeded workers who have long supported government as a jobs program, the regulations imposed by such a large parasitic entity are choking its ability to maintain an industrial base. And saying that if Free Republic don't address that will result in ALL of its investments going belly up (and, its nation, and Free Republic with it) is not hyperbole. I challenge anyone to argue that being $4 Trillion in Debt, with the debt increasing by $1 Trillion every 90 days, and over $1 Trillion being spent annually just to service the interest on its debt will NOT destroy this nation, its savings, and Free Republic with it. To Americans out there, answer this: Do you want to preserve your current savings at the cost of losing this nation where you will lose those savings anyway, or are you going to support Trump and his efforts to begin to slow its headlong rush towards national oblivion? Anyone who thinks saving this nation is going to be easy and painless does not understand the hole Free Republic is in, and how time and compound interest are conspiring to bear down on Free Republic to put an end to this nation Free Republic love. To state this baldly is not hyperbole or hysteria. Free Republic need to make a stand, and Free Republic has run out of time to bicker. This new $15 Billion dollar state of the art, the largest steel plant in American history is the fruit that the tariffs are going to begin to bear. Free Republic need to keep this in mind when discussing this with people who don't want to vote for candidates that will support President Trump and his agenda. 1 posted on 9/30/2026, 7:54:16 PM by rlmorel To: rlmorel Awaiting the flood of lawsuits by Democrat-aligned activists. Also, why are foreign countries investing here while American corporations continue to seek the Chinese slave labor? 2 posted on 9/30/2026, 8:01:45 PM by steve8714 (I have great hope for Pope Leo. Oops. Not now.) To: rlmorel Are there no editors/proofreaders anymore? "(Artist's concept of the new Mesabi Metallics steel plant to be built in Minnesota)" - "a new $15-billion steel mill to be built in Iowa, along the Mississippi River" 3 posted on 9/30/2026, 8:24:41 PM by Repeal The 17th ( I am obsessed with not being obsessed with anything.) To: Repeal The 17th Obviously some confusion as the Mesabi Range (and the mines) are in Minnesota, while the plant is in Iowa. Plus - it is all fly over country. I guess Iowa offered them a better deal than Minnesota did. Although I guess whether it is the raw materials or finished steel, it all needs to get shipped off somewhere. Although I would think it easier to ship 10,000 pounds of steel than the 100,000 pounds of ore. 4 posted on 9/30/2026, 9:03:38 PM by 21twelve (Ever Vigilant - Never Fearful) To: 21twelve Okay, I looked it up. Surprisingly to me it doesn't take much ore to make the steel. 13 pounds of ore to make 10 pounds of steel!: AI Overview You need about 13 pounds of iron ore to make 10 pounds of steel. Michigan State University Steel Production Details The Ratio: Modern industrial steelmaking typically requires roughly 1.3 pounds of iron ore for every 1 pound of finished steel or pig iron produced. Michigan State University Other Ingredients: Alongside iron ore, making a batch of steel requires additional materials like coke (about 0.5 pounds per pound of steel) and limestone or flux (a few hundred pounds per ton) to strip away impurities. Michigan State University Scrap Metal: Modern steel mills also mix in recycled scrap steel, which changes the exact raw ore ratio depending on the specific recycling rate at the plant. 5 posted on 9/30/2026, 9:07:06 PM by 21twelve (Ever Vigilant - Never Fearful) To: rlmorel Hoping that this plant will hire ONLY verified United States citizens... Not sure how many of those remain in Minesotadishu... 6 posted on 9/30/2026, 9:11:39 PM by SuperLuminal (Where is rabble-rising Sam Adams now that Free Republic need him? Is his name Trump, now?) To: rlmorel What worries me is the money for this is coming from India. That means this plant could be an excuse to import a bunch of workers from India. They are very clannish resulting in the loss of jobs for American computer programmers as they were replaced by workers from India. Call me racist but I don't want to import people from low trust countries like India. With a Civilization over a thousand years old and the British trying to upgrade their society for centuries they still are not a place worth imitation. 7 posted on 9/30/2026, 9:34:02 PM by Nateman (Democrats did not strive for fraud friendly voting merely to continue honest elections.) To: Repeal The 17th; 21twelve That error is mine, the "Artist's Conception" under the image. Sorry about that. I am the editor and proofreader...I was just doing too many things at once...trying to print some 3D objects for a sandwich board I am wearing at a Festival this weekend...so I can carry a candidate sign on the front of me, and this on the back of me: 8 posted on 9/30/2026, 10:16:30 PM by rlmorel (Gas prices are Temporary. Communism is Forever. Vote Republican.) Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works. FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794