MC Enters Capital and Business Alliance with NWC

Mitsubishi Corporation (MC) is pleased to announce that it has acquired a 19% interest in Network Corporation (NWC) through a third-party allotment of shares. The two companies have also agreed to enter into a capital and business alliance. NWC designs, develops and provides centralized management systems¹ that monitor building and facility operations and coordinate their automation.

As an integrator of IoT systems, NWC originally targeted customers that ran semiconductor and chemicals plants, but in 2003 it branched out into building management, and since then it has continued to focus on that area in expanding its business. For more than 15 years, the company has been establishing itself as a leading provider of integrated building management systems in Japan. Its systems have been used in roughly 3,000 facilities across the country, and its customers include owners of commercial properties, theme parks, hotels, hospitals and factories. NWC’s systems have even begun appearing in large skyscraper complexes such as Toranomon Hills in Tokyo.

Until recently, buildings have tended to rely on closed management systems², in which their security, air conditioning, lighting, and other subsystems are all monitored independently. However, NWC offers each of its customers an open management system³ that monitors all subsystems together and does not rely on the manufacturers or vendors of the separate equipment. This provides customers with several advantages when it comes to running those subsystems, including connectivity, precise control, more efficient maintenance and inspections, and labor savings. Furthermore, NWC greatly reduces engineering cost by automating most of the systems-development work, which typically requires a number of highly specialized engineers. NWC has both the experience and expertise to offer each customer a highly versatile, cost-competitive solution to its building-management needs, whether that means creating a wholly new system or upgrading an existing one.

NWC provides one-stop solution including data-gathering sensors that can be installed in building subsystems, controllers for integrating the data, cloud services, and user interfaces that enable remote monitoring and control from customers’ smartphones, tablets or other mobile devices.

MC is engaged in the business of facilities management (FM)⁴ through a partnership with SOHGO SECURITY SERVICES CO., LTD. (ALSOK). Needs are growing within the FM market, where customers are looking to take advantage of IoT technologies, gather and analyze pertinent cloud-based data, and operate their facilities more efficiently. MC aims to use the big data collected via NWC’s systems to optimize smart-building solutions for customers in a variety of fields. Those efforts will include analyzing worker and visitor flows and otherwise making the best use of office space, as well as maximizing energy efficiency to cut CO2 emissions.

MC is also confident that teaming up with NWC will help it to achieve one of its broader objectives, namely to solve some of the problems facing modern societies. This alliance will integrate MC’s global network with NWC’s IoT-tech-based expertise in systems development and ALSOK’s FM-based operational capabilities, thereby enabling MC to offer its customers high value-added services and address digital-transformation challenges in the FM market, which is suffering from labor shortages.

 

1. Centralized Management System: A system designed to automate, monitor, log operational data of and otherwise manage the various subsystems used in buildings and other facilities, including transformers, air-conditioners, water supply and drainage equipment. Use of NWC’s systems will enable customers to both monitor and manage their main subsystems more efficiently in terms of taking them on- and off-line.

2. Closed Management System: A proprietary system in which all hardware and software components are designed, built, provided and maintained by the same company. Each subsystem is managed independently and is not interchangeable with components manufactured by other companies. Due to their reliance on a single manufacturer and lack of versatility, closed systems are not as cost-effective as open systems, and because they incorporate specialized technologies, customers who install them also need to hire specific technicians to maintain them.

3. Open Management System: An open system combines hardware and software from a variety of different manufacturers and allows for both interchangeability and interoperability. It also enables remote operation via the internet. For security, NWC offers its customers cloud services via a protected private network.

4. Facilities Management: Comprehensive and optimized management of land, buildings, structures and other equipment or property, minimizing costs and maximizing efficiency. FM business includes ownership, lease, use, administration and maintenance of the facilities in question. (Translation of description used by the Japan Facility Management Association)

5. iNBIS (see image): Name of NWC’s system.

 

[Reference]

Press release on MC’s capital and business alliance in facilities management, posted March 30, 2020):

 

Mitsubishi Corporation
Head Office: 2-3-1 Marunouchi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo
Year of Establishment: 1954
President & CEO: Takehiko Kakiuchi
Operations: Mitsubishi Corporation is a global integrated business enterprise with operations spanning ten Business Groups: Natural Gas, Industrial Materials, Petroleum & Chemicals, Mineral Resources, Industrial Infrastructure, Automotive & Mobility, Food Industry, Consumer Industry, Power Solution and Urban Development.

 

Network Corporation
Head Office: 8-33, Southcore 7F, Chigasaki-chuo, Tsuzuki-ku, Yokohama-shi, Kanagawa
Year of Establishment: 1995
President & CEO: Shintaro Magoshi
Operations: Development, sales and maintenance of building-automation and energy-management systems and the related hardware and software.