DX promotion
Mitsubishi Steel established the DX Promotion Office in 2021 as part of efforts to promote digital transformation (DX) throughout the organization. Beyond simply deploying IT to make business processes more efficient, DX seeks to leverage IT and other digital technologies to transform products, services, and business models and generate new value.
In an era of dramatic change in society and progressive advances in digitalization, Mitsubishi Steel positions DX promotion as an important management strategy. The DX Promotion Office has set the following goals under the ideal vision for 2030:
- 1To transform customer service and workplace processes, strengthen customer satisfaction, and grow sales and profits
- 2To enable swift management decision-making by linking operations throughout the organization and making management information visible
- 3To build rewarding workplaces by connecting individual sections, thereby strengthening employee engagement
The business impact of DX promotion
DX promotion seeks to enhance corporate value by making operations more efficient, improving customer satisfaction, growing sales and profits, and creating new businesses.
Linking and visualizing businesses Groupwide through DX
We will strive to grow both sales and profits by promoting DX in the customer service and manufacturing sections. We will also strive to accelerate management decision-making using information visualized through DX.
Developing the human resources needed for DX implementation
Mitsubishi Steel has a large workforce of individuals intimately familiar with the products they handle in each business domain. Most of these are business human resources (A).
Staff members in IT sections are characterized by high digital literacy. Most of these are DX technical human resources (B).
Achieving our goals will require DX business human resources (C, C+) with a profound understanding of both business and digital fields—individuals capable of linking business human resources (A) to DX technical human resources (B). For this reason, through DX reskilling for all employees, we plan to make digital technologies a standard part of doing business.
This policy calls for growing the ranks of DX business human resources (C+) organization-wide.
We aim to develop 100 individuals by the fiscal year 2025 through promoting business improvements via the utilization of new digital technology and Robotic Process Automation (RPA).
On August 1, we were recognized as a DX-Certified Business by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.
In compliance with the Digital Governance Code, which specifies requirements for business leaders as they adapt to the changes in society spurred by digital technology, the Digital Transformation (DX) Certification Program certifies as "DX-Ready" businesses that have made preparations for using digital technologies to transform their businesses.
Our 2023 Mid-term Business Plan identifies the following basic policies: 1. Enhancing our earnings capabilities; 2. Growing strategic businesses; 3. Investment in human resources; and 4. Sustainability management. Digital technologies will prove essential to executing this plan based on these four policies. We will promote DX through Groupwide initiatives in management, workplaces, and systems to make existing products more competitive, to create value above and beyond business improvements, and provide to customers services that deliver new value.
Without changing the configuration of the basic equipment (hardware), we have replaced the control system + software with general-purpose equipment under our own initiative.
- STEP.1: Digitization of skilled workers' techniques + Quantification of know-how + Labor reduction
- STEP.2: Data collection using the latest sensing equipment + Accumulation and analysis of know-how
- STEP.3: Quality and productivity improvement + Equipment failure prediction ⇒ Full automation, solving labor shortage
We will package this case study and promote its horizontal deployment to other business locations.