The Challenges of Data Management in Custom-Made Production

Headquartered in Sumida, Tokyo, K.T. Seisakusho Co., Ltd. is a longstanding manufacturer specializing in the development, production, and sales of filling machines. The company's main factory, located in Saitama, is frequently visited by numerous domestic pharmaceutical, cosmetics, and food companies. As a leading filling machine manufacturer, K.T. has established a solid reputation and market position. Recently, the company has ventured into new territories, such as developing automation systems for regenerative medicine.

One of K.T.’s key characteristics is its custom production, where each machine is tailored to meet specific customer requirements. This capability is a major strength, but it has also presented long-standing challenges in the production process.

"Our company values the importance of materializing our customers' needs through our machines. However, with the increasing complexity of products and systems and the growing sophistication of customer demands, we face the challenge of balancing production efficiency with quality improvement," says Vice President Kentarō Kōzuki.

At K.T., the design process typically begins from scratch for each customer request. Due to the diversity of customer needs and technological advancements, it was often more efficient for designers to create new drawings from scratch rather than reuse existing ones. As a result, the practice of referring to past drawings diminished, leading to a lack of accumulated technical knowledge.

"At our company, there wasn't even a concept of 'new drawings'—we issued new drawings for everything. There was a sense of crisis that we weren't building on our technological foundation," Kōzuki explains. The time and effort required to create new drawings were significant, and the company's resources were stretched thin.

"There was a sense of crisis that we weren't building on our technological foundation."
- Kentarō Kōzuki, Vice President

"Even when we received new orders, we sometimes had to request extended delivery times due to a lack of design and assembly personnel, which occasionally led to customers choosing machines from other companies."

In seeking to secure resources, the company identified the need to create an environment where past drawings could be effectively located and utilized. The solution was CADDi Drawer, a cloud-based drawing data utilization tool, marking the beginning of a project aimed at leveraging past drawing data.

The Vicious Cycle: More Drawings Lead to More Work

Production Manager Yōhei Yuzawa reflects on the reasons behind CADDi Drawer's introduction:

"I was amazed by the ability to search for drawings by 'shape.' It felt like a perfect fit for our needs."
-Yōhei Yuzawa, Production Manager

Previously, drawing data was stored in folders and managed, but it was common for components with the same name to have entirely different shapes. Consequently, when searching for similar past drawings, users first had to search by drawing number and then open each file individually to verify the drawing, a process that inevitably consumed a lot of time.

"In the design department, if you couldn’t find a drawing, you’d have to create one from scratch, which led to more drawings and increasingly difficult management," Yuzawa adds.

Kōzuki also notes that the issues surrounding drawings extended to the sales department:

"For example, if a customer accidentally damaged a filling nozzle, we would need to replace the part. Since our machines are custom-made, there isn't a standardized price list. To provide an estimate for the replacement, we had to find the relevant drawing and reference the price at the time of delivery, a process that could take half a day."

In the procurement department, too, being able to easily locate drawings could resolve issues. Each time a part was ordered, procurement would request a quote from suppliers to assess price validity.

"Although similar parts' order histories were stored in the system, the process of finding and verifying the relevant drawings was extremely tedious and time-consuming. Practically speaking, we requested a new quote every time we received a drawing from the design department," Yuzawa recounts.

Utilizing Drawing Data to Promote Company-Wide Standardization

The primary objective of introducing CADDi Drawer was to create a system that would allow cross-departmental efficiency improvements through the reuse of drawings and reference to past order histories.

"If high-quality standardized parts are available, and there's no need to issue new drawings, procurement can directly place orders for the exact same parts as before. Designers wouldn’t need to create new drawings. There’s nothing more efficient than that," says Yuzawa.

For many manufacturers, standardization is a crucial challenge. At K.T., where the degree of customization is high—varying significantly depending on the client's building or installation location—it is difficult to standardize entire machines. The company must carefully determine which components and sections can be standardized and advance standardization efforts accordingly. Properly accumulating data across the supply chain, from design to manufacturing and procurement, is essential.

Since the introduction of CADDi Drawer, ideas and opinions on data utilization in manufacturing have been actively gathered from various departments.

Finally, the two executives were asked about their future goals:

"Balancing the creation of optimized machines for each customer with operational efficiency requires accumulating and utilizing knowledge and data. It’s important to consider the ideal form of machinery and evaluate it comprehensively, including cost. I believe that standardizing where necessary while properly customizing for each customer is a strength of Japanese companies, and we aim to embody that," says Kōzuki.

Yuzawa adds:

"There are still many non-productive tasks in Japanese manufacturing, including procurement. I want to create an environment where systems handle low-value-added tasks, such as searching for various drawings and sifting through documents, allowing people to focus on work that requires human intelligence. I believe that Japanese manufacturing has the potential to fully unleash individual capabilities, and I want to create an environment where that potential can be realized."

K.T. intends to continue transforming the company by digitizing and leveraging the unique knowledge and expertise it has developed over the years.