Constructing a Digital Management Platform
To contribute to the expansion of social innovation businesses and to the realization of digital management, we aim to build a digital management platform that will be shared throughout the Hitachi Group. Even as we expand our company scope and portfolio, this shared platform will provide information for growth and keep costs down.
In an effort to enable faster and better decision-making, we have been developing and using a digital business management platform for purposes such as the following: (1) Forecasting business performance and provide information about risks, (2) Visualizing data and performing simulations to be able to improve resilience of the procurement supply chain, (3) Visualizing scope-3 upstream CO2 emissions, and (4) Detecting abnormal procurement values.
To enable managerial decision-making that not only spans the entire Hitachi Group but is also more timely and more flexible, we have been developing and maintaining a digital business management platform in which raw data (such as sales figures and indirect cost details) is collected from the shared ERP#2 through the use of an API#3 management system, making it possible to efficiently aggregate and analyze this data. Most recently, we have been engaged in using AI#4 for predictive management based on global management data that was accumulated in the digital business management platform.
In FY 2022, we conducted assessment of a model for forecasting sales amounts and manufacturing costs. This model was adopted by some business entities and contributed to faster decision-making. We also developed a dashboard to enable visualization and analysis of data collected from the digital business management platform and enable users to perform the following actions: (1) Examine global trends and identify the procurement risks as early as possible, as part of procurement DX initiatives, (2) Implement carbon neutrality measures based on visualized information about scope-3 upstream CO2 emissions, and (3) Examine the detected abnormal values and implement measures to improve the quality of basic procurement processes.
In the future, we will expand on our available linkage of systems to align with usage needs, such as those for sales, human resources, and production.
In addition, we are taking advantage of Lumada#5 services such as time-series prediction and regression analysis to collect, visualize, and analyze information with the aim of contributing to ESG#6 management, which covers problems related to environment, safety, health, etc.
Data governance is extremely important for data accumulation and usage platforms, for which accuracy, comprehensiveness, and integrity are required. To accelerate the use of business management information globally, we are defining common rules throughout the Hitachi Group related to the usage of management data, while at the same time establishing monitoring systems for data quality and working to maintain and improve quality.
