The New (Digital) Normal

Upskilling key personnel in the world of digital transformation is the way to go forward

 
Headquartered in Japan, Iwatani Corporation is a multinational corporation (MNC) that has a presence in Singapore, providing gas and energy services to the semiconductor, pharmaceutical, medical and industrial sectors in Singapore and across the region. To unlock new business growth and achieve sustainable competitive advantage, amongst the steps initiated by the company, Iwatani Corporation Singapore has engaged SIMTech to embark on its digital transformation journey in May 2020.

With the rise of Industry 4.0, Iwatani aims to leverage digital technologies to improve and future-proof its business in this digital age. With that in mind, Iwatani sent a total of 5 personnel to receive training under SIMTech’s Digital Transformation and Innovation™ (DTI™) Programme.


The Digital Transformation Journey 
Through the DTI™ Programme, Iwatani’s personnel gained insight into the development of business objective-driven roadmap of various process and technology opportunities through strategic methodology. These opportunities span the shop floor, enterprise and supply chain processes. For instance, at the shop floor where critical information is often manually logged and stored, digitising data logging will help to improve work efficiency, data accuracy and traceability for customer queries and audits. Data will also be available for future data mining, which can be used for improvement opportunities to the shop floor process, leading to improved quality and customer satisfaction.

Other key opportunities include the automation of tracking key inventories in the factory, which can in turn help to maintain or improve the delivery performance with more efficient use of inventory. The automation of billing process can also reduce manpower for this tedious process, freeing up the manpower for other higher value-added activities.

Additionally, the implementation of information system integrated to Analytical Lab will enhance value-added services for customers where quality assurance and fast turnaround analytical capability is of utmost importance. 

The team also gained early exposure to some practical tools such as the risk mitigation technique Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA), and problem solving tool 8D, in its preparation for international certifications that are pre-requisites for certain new market segments.

Through the DTI programme, Iwatani has learnt the knowledge and digitalisation skills for its business growth. Taking this opportunity, we aim to enhance customer satisfaction and contribute to the society by further promoting digitalisation and automation

Mr Hiroshi Murata, Managing Director, Iwatani Corporation

Benefits
Iwatani has seen an increase in productivity by 20 per cent through digitising paper-based forms. During the DTI™ Programme, Iwatani studied their Business Model Canvas closely and uncovered their key value propositions. This allows the company to venture into a new customer segment – Medical Technology, which leads to a 10 per cent increase in sales.

The company also saw a further levelling up of employees from its already lean workforce. They have shown improved ownership and action-oriented mindset in the digitalisation journey to better support the company’s business goals.

Some projected benefits include increased revenue from expanded customer segments from a more focused sales force and improved customer analytics, better customer satisfaction from value-added gas purity analytical services, better delivery performance from improved tracking and digitised delivery-related processes.

The DTI™ Programme has successfully equipped key staff from Iwatani’s Industrial Gas Division with underpinning key knowledge and skills to continue its journey in growing its business further in the current and new markets through its people, processes and technology.


For enquiries, please contact
Mr Rick Yeo, Director, MPTC
Email: rickyeo@SIMTech.a-star.edu.sg