The all-electric Nissan Ariya. (Image courtesy of Nissan.)

Siemens and Nissan are building upon their long-term partnership to digitalize production lines for the all-electric Nissan Ariya at the company’s Tochigi, Japan plant. IoT-enabled hardware, software and digital services have been Siemens’ wheelhouse for years now, especially with the advent of their open digital business platform, Siemens Xcelerator.

“The successful launch of the new production lines is a milestone in the collaboration of the two companies,” said Cedrik Neike, Member of the Managing Board of Siemens AG and CEO Digital Industries CEO, in a press release. “Climate change and stringent environmental regulations are powerful drivers for the development of electrified powertrains. We will bring in all of our cutting-edge technologies to this collaboration to enable a highly flexible, efficient, and sustainable automotive production.”

Siemens’ safety PLC Simatic S7-1500, ET200SP distributed I/O module has been integral in the success of Nissan’s electric powertrain, which aims to standardize powertrain processing and assembly. Nissan has also implemented Siemens’ diagnostic commissioning system Sidis Pro for data writing and verification of automotive electric components. While managing its suite of data with server functions, the Sidis Pro creates an adaptable automotive production lifecycle that responds to any changes in the production plan while ensuring that resources are being used economically.

Profinet—Siemens’ open industrial ethernet standard—has enabled end-to-end communication across all organization levels, from managers and engineers to field workers. This remains true across the entire range of product lifecycle management (PLM) platforms.

Given the complexity of Nissan Ariya’s Electronic Control Units (ECU), Nissan has tapped into Siemens Totally Integrated Automation (TIA) Portal that offers simulation tools, diagnostics, and digitalized automation services to support designing, digital planning, and integrated engineering.

“At our Nissan Intelligent Factory in Tochigi, we are building the future of mobility,” said Teiji Hirata, Corporate VP of Vehicle Production Engineering and Development at Nissan. “It enables us to not only improve the work environment but also to realize a zero-emission production system.”