Hitachi Vantara's Norman site named WEF Lighthouse

Hitachi Vantara's storage manufacturing facility in Norman, Oklahoma, has been named a World Economic Forum Lighthouse facility, becoming the second Hitachi site to receive the designation.

The World Economic Forum's Global Lighthouse Network recognises operational sites and value chains it considers leaders in the use of advanced manufacturing technologies. Hitachi's Omika Works joined the network in 2020.

The Norman site manufactures storage systems used in data infrastructure and serves as a digital manufacturing and supply chain hub for the group. It was recognised for its use of artificial intelligence across forecasting, inventory management and factory operations.

According to Hitachi, the site cut the lead time from order receipt to shipment by 77% and reduced inventory by 50% through AI-led changes to planning and supply chain management. It also said configure-to-order production lead times fell by 84% after agentic AI was introduced into software configuration work.

The facility handles about 3,000 product variants, reflecting shifts in demand and more customised customer requirements. Hitachi said that complexity made it harder to speed up decision-making and allocate resources efficiently, prompting work between Hitachi and Hitachi Vantara to apply digital tools across the operation.

Factory changes

One part of that work focused on demand forecasting and front-end management processes. Hitachi said AI was used to analyse business meeting data to forecast monthly demand, improving forecast accuracy by about 19%.

The same programme was also applied to sales responses. For requests for proposals received by sales staff, AI generates draft responses based on technical information and past proposal content, reducing customer response times by about 26%, according to the company.

Another part of the overhaul centred on global inventory management. The Norman site established what Hitachi described as a Global Inventory Control Tower, bringing together inventory and supplier information from sites around the world on a single dashboard.

Using AI to calculate safety stock levels for each part, the group said it cut global inventory by roughly half while reducing the risk of stockouts. Hitachi linked the changes to improved cash flow and lower inventory holdings.

On the factory floor, the company introduced autonomous manufacturing processes using agentic AI and AI vision tools. A system called Real-Time Work Navigator uses digital work instructions and image recognition to identify and correct deviations from standard working procedures in real time.

Those changes reduced training time for new workers by 80%, according to Hitachi. The system also supported manufacturing quality while allowing more flexible workforce allocation.

Broader push

The Norman recognition also fits into a wider effort by Hitachi to use its own sites as test beds for new industrial systems before offering related products and services to customers. The company refers to that internal-first approach as Customer Zero.

Hitachi said lessons from Norman would inform HMAX, its suite of AI-based offerings for industrial and infrastructure settings, and would also be extended to other production sites, including Hitachi Rail. It linked the project to a broader push to combine information technology, operational technology and products across the group.

Kiva Allgood, Managing Director at the World Economic Forum, commented on the latest intake to the network. "The world's leading manufacturers are no longer optimizing individual processes; they are reimagining entire operating systems. The newest Lighthouse sites show how intelligence is becoming embedded into the fabric of operations, enabling organizations to respond faster, learn continuously and unlock new levels of performance across their value chains," said Allgood.

For Hitachi, the award provides external recognition for an internal transformation programme that the group says has moved beyond analytics into autonomous decision-making and control. The company has sought to apply that approach from customer engagement and planning through to production and shipment.

Jun Abe, Executive Vice President, Head of Digital Systems & Services Sector at Hitachi, said, "I am extremely proud that the Norman site has been selected as a WEF 'Lighthouse', following the selection of Omika Works in 2020. Under a true One Hitachi approach, we have positioned our own manufacturing sites as Customer Zero and have been driving transformation through the comprehensive use of AI. The results achieved at the Norman site using Agentic AI are a practical example that is unique to Hitachi, combining our strengths in IT, OT and products. Going forward, we will provide the expertise and use cases gained through this initiative to customers around the world through HMAX, contributing to enhanced resilience and sustainable growth across industry as a whole," said Abe.

Akinobu Shimada, Chief Executive Officer of Hitachi Vantara and President of Hitachi Vantara Japan, said, "As AI accelerates business around the world, robust data infrastructure to support it has become more important than ever. We are honoured that the World Economic Forum has recognised the end-to-end supply chain transformation we achieved at Hitachi Vantara's flagship manufacturing site. By applying cutting-edge AI technologies and embedding the expertise gained through this transformation into our solutions, including the VSP One data platform and Hitachi iQ, we are helping our customers accelerate innovation, strengthen data resilience, and gain the most value from their data across their hybrid cloud environments."