Connected Solutions Company,
Panasonic Corporation

Panasonic is a leading Japanese comprehensive electronics manufacturer. Under the company system, Panasonic is organized into four companies: Appliances Company, Eco Solutions Company, Automotive & Industrial Systems Company, and Connected Solutions Company.

-- “Connected Solutions Company is the company in charge of the BtoB solutions business of the entire group.” explains Mr. Masanori Kimura, the manager of the Company’s Service Parts Division

With “Connected”, CNS wants to mean “connection” such as in a scenario represented by IoT, and they provide development to manufacturing and sales of devices for the “aviation”, “manufacturing”, “entertainment”, “distribution”, “logistics”, and “public works” industries. Among the aforementioned, the Service Parts Division manages repair parts ranging from one screw as the smallest to 100″ liquid crystal displays as the largest for four industries: “entertainment”, “distribution”, “logistics”, and “public works”.

-- “The quality of a product does not end its delivery. A quick repair in the event of a failure is also quality; and in BtoB solutions business, it is frequently the case that this is the service that makes a difference, and the Service Parts Division is a part in that. Customer satisfaction improves depending on how quick we can repair and return a product to the customer, which may lead to the next order.”
stresses Mr. Kimura.

Sales orders handled by the Service Parts Division including their Kyushu base amount to 500,000 per year. Warehouses serving as bases are located in Kansai and Kyushu, and the number of controlled parts in stock exceeds 150,000 items. The total number of people in the division involved in repair parts, from purchase to control is a battalion of more than 100 people.

Even when manufacturing is finished, parts need to be secured for a certain warranty period. During that period, stockout cannot be tolerated at all since it means to lose the customer’s trust. On the other hand, excessive inventory puts pressure on operating revenues and cash flow, and may also lead to parts disposal. Forecasting demand is also difficult because they are repair parts.

-- “Onsite persons in charge are all experts with their own know-how, experience, and familiarity in their respective area. However, it was difficult for managers to grasp the overall state of efforts due to the large number of items managed. I was fully aware that it was an issue that needed to be addressed as soon as possible.” (Mr. Kimura)

Resolution required time and manpower.
Efforts for resolution really start rolling in April 2015, when Mr. Tetsuya Yamaguchi was assigned to the Planning Section of the division.

-- “We first considered developing an in-house solution, but it was too high a bar for us as originally expected. I started browsing the Internet for a package. Then, I found Hitachi Solutions East Japan’s “SynCAS PSI Visualizer”.” looks back Mr. Yamaguchi.

---- “We were pleasantly surprised by the simple and easy-to-understand visualization provided by the Locator function of “SynCAS PSI Visualizer”. Then, after reading Hitachi Solutions East Japan’s technical report, we intuitively knew that it was the solution we were looking for.” adds Mr. Kimura.

Initially after the implementation, “SynCAS PSI Visualizer” was used in a simple way. Once a month, the parts data was downloaded from the core system to create the database. Then, the database was updated with newly purchased parts (Purchase) and delivered parts (Sales) to confirm the current inventory (Inventory).

At the beginning, the Locator function was opened from the Stock-keeping Unit (SKU) list to check for problems in the inventory, but new function requirements started to arise as people started to getting used to it.

-- “At the beginning, we were only able to know the current quantity of parts in stock. But we received requests regarding the desire to know about parts that have been ordered but have yet to arrive, or orders accepted that have yet to be shipped. As a response, we enhanced the functionality to not only show actual results but also plans.” (Mr. Yamaguchi)
The request was addressed by using the inventory planning, shipment planning, and planned production display functions.

In October 2016, the solution underwent a large-scale function enhancement to expand its use, which until then was limited to the base in Kadoma city, to the Kyushu base. At the same time, it was moved from server to the cloud. As a result, it became possible to control the division’s entire inventory and confirm the inventory status from the PC on the desk of all persons involved.

Currently, CNS is eying to visualize and optimize the entire parts inventory on a global scale by using “SynCAS PSI Visualizer”. As a manufacturer, CNS has distributors all over the world including Japan, which provide products to end users. The distributors are the points of contact for servicing and repair. For this reason, also distributors have repair parts in stock to quickly respond to frequent requests for repair.

However, this is a long-standing issue since the degree of commitment varies depending on the region and distributor, with stockout causing inconvenience to customers in one hand, while on the other hand, there are distributors with too much inventory.

-- “I’d like to promote visualization and optimization of parts inventory all over the world to eliminate this.” envisions Mr. Kimura.

“I’d like all parts inventory be transparent and controllable from Japan.” Mr. Kimura is constantly promoting “SynCAS PSI Visualizer” to distributors by creating a demonstration.

On the other hand,
-- “Many requests mean that many people are using this, which is the best compliment I could get as a developer.”smiles Mr. Yamaguchi who is busy developing functions to address user requests. There are many requests regarding pickup and search of desired parts in stock, for which he also requested a proposal to Hitachi Solutions East Japan.

Lastly, when asked about an advice on building an inventory control system, Mr. Kimura asserted:

-- “I believe that inventory control is still very much reliant on manpower. Management is not possible if it relies on personalized, closed technology. Systemization is necessary. It should be transparent so that anybody can do the work, and “SynCAS PSI Visualizer” makes that possible.”