There is a growing momentum for digitalization or digital transformation in industry, society, and government. Recently, the Japanese government has proposed the establishment of a digital agency, but I think there is a sense of crisis that Japan is lagging behind the trend of global digital transformation. Therefore, I think it is meaningful to use the flow of digital transformation in other countries as a reference to hint on the policy to be promoted in Japan in the future. In this blog, we will use the word shortened digitization instead of digital transformation.
When considering the digitization of industry, society, and government, what separates the transition to computer processing from the true meaning of digitalization? I believe that the former is computer processing in search of the efficiency of routine business processing, and the latter is to improve people’s lives and organizational performance by using the latest digital technology with the aim of solving organizational problems.
Consider digitization in education. In Japan, textbooks should be tablets instead of paper-based, wi-fi networks in the classroom are widely installed, and e-Learning, there is a lot of discussions about enriching the software. These things may be said to solve problems in the sense of solving the lack of digitalization infrastructure related to education. However, I feel that it is not a solution to the essential educational issues. In the U.S., we analyzed what kind of issues existed when using digital devices for educational reform, especially in K12 (from kindergarten to high school), and drafted a plan using that as a starting point.
The center of the problem consciousness was that although the rate of going to university was high, the basic ability of mathematics and the ability to write logical sentences were insufficient. When introducing equipment, tablets were not often adopted, and many devices with clamshell type keyboards (it is the image of notebook PCs) were adopted. This is because of common sense that it is better to write sentences using the keyboard to develop the ability to write logical sentences. In addition, free software is used in cloud-based, including the ability to compare responses and different opinions from multiple students. There is a need for sufficient discussion on the issues of education in Japan, but I personally am disgust by Noriko Arai’s proposal, who is the author of “AI vs. Children Who Can’t Read Textbooks.” That’s because many junior and senior high school students solve problems by calculating and memorizing without understanding the context as well as AI. This means that improving the semantics and reading comprehension of junior high and high school students is the most recent issue. When it comes to digital education, digitalization, including solving this problem, is desirable.
Now, let’s move on to digitalization in the industrial sector. Industry 4.0, proposed in Germany, was the first to take the lead in digitalization in the industrial sector. In order to increase the competitiveness of the German manufacturing industry, we will promote the intelligent and smartness of factories and manufacturing processes. The awareness of the challenges at the national level here is that if the dramatic evolution of the manufacturing industry cannot be achieved, the international competitiveness of German manufacturing will weaken and the market will narrow in the future. And in order to secure the profits of German companies, it seems that it was necessary to build an innovative business model including services.
As a result, Germany’s development plan includes customizable and reconstructable manufacturing processes, transparency of manufacturing processes, the ability to monitor equipment conditions, automation of autonomous decision-making capabilities, integration of supply chain and market information, computerized operations, maintenance, integration with ERP (core systems) And so on are included. From this plan, many people can imagine what kind of companies are participating in Germany and the specific names of companies. In Japan, there are issues similar to Germany’s in the manufacturing industry, especially in the manufacturing industry, and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry proposed “Connected Industries”. Keidanren has redefined society 5.0 as “a society that solves social issues and creates value through the fusion of digital innovation and the imagination and creativity of diverse people.”
With such a policy-based plan at the national and industrial level in mind, individual companies need to proceed with digitalization with the aim of solving specific issues. In our activities in the Japanese market, we have heard many issues from manufacturers, including the following:
- Existing equipment and infrastructure are outdated and it is difficult to introduce new technologies.
- The aging of engineers and the difficulty of passing on conventional technologies.
- From in-house vertical development and manufacturing, the need for horizontal development and manufacturing to maintain competitiveness
- Necessity of a management system that can respond to overseas expansion of factories, movement of bases, return to Japan, etc.
I think there are many other issues besides the above. In order for companies supporting manufacturing and social infrastructure to digitize, it is essential to ensure the security of data, ensure real-time processing, minimize delays, and link data generated from various locations. I feel that there are many cases where the adoption of edge computing is the answer to that problem. In 2022, 75% of data is expected to be created and processed outside the data center or cloud. In 2023, 50% of IT Infrastructure is also expected to be converted to the edge. This means that edge computing is likely to play a number of roles when digitizing to solve business challenges in manufacturing and social infrastructure companies. Stratus hopes to contribute to solving customer issues by continuously providing simple, protected, and autonomous solutions in the edge computing space.
