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Mazak Corp. has started assembly operations at its latest production facility in Inabe City, Japan. The company celebrated the completion of the initial construction phase of its sixth Japanese facility and 11th worldwide with an open house event attended by customers and distributors from across Japan. The Mazak International Machine Tool Association (MIMTA) tour program also brought visitors from around the world.

While the final stage of construction is ongoing, the Inabe plant has begun producing Variaxis five-axis machining centers and Versatech double-column machining centers. The facility also devotes floor space to performing test cuts for customers. When the facility is finished in 2019, the 603,000-square-foot (56,000-square-meter) production floor will take over operations from the Seiko plant in Kuwana City, which will serve as a machining facility for the Inabe plant.

The current operations have increased Mazak’s production capacity in Japan by 20 percent, and the company plans to prioritize the expansion of its production floor to meet high levels of worldwide machine tool demand.

Like the company’s North American headquarters in Florence, Kentucky, the Inabe plant will ultimately become a Mazak iSmart Factory. This concept represents the digital integration of factories with the use of state-of-the-art manufacturing technology. They will use the MTConnect open communications protocol and Smooth Technology process support software to collect data from production floor machines, cells, devices and processes.