‍Difficulty in Finding Drawings Leads to Increased Dependence on Individuals in Design and Procurement Work

Kashiyama Industries successfully developed the dry vacuum pump, which became its flagship product, in 1986, and has since engaged in the manufacturing and development of numerous vacuum devices. The company, which upholds "Faster, Fewer, Simpler" as its action guidelines across the organization, is highly regarded in the market for its quick response to industry needs. Kashiyama Industries holds a top position globally in the dry vacuum pump industry, essential for semiconductor and liquid crystal panel manufacturing.

Kashiyama Industries has its own processing division and has been processing key parts that determine product performance in-house. Other parts are ordered from various suppliers. A single product can use as many as 100 different parts, and the total number of parts for all products handled by the company at any given time reaches approximately 15,000. Moreover, the products manufactured by Kashiyama Industries often involve custom designs based on customer specifications, resulting in a large number of unique drawings being created daily.

The drawings are stored in a drawing management system introduced in recent years. However, the details of the drawings were only known to the design engineers and procurement personnel involved in the orders. To find drawings of past similar projects, the only options were to ask the relevant person or to manually search through each drawing, which required an enormous amount of time. Additionally, since the purchase history data and drawing data were managed in separate systems, even if the relevant drawing was found, it was necessary to open the order management system to search for the purchase history related to that drawing.

In principle, procurement should involve comparing multiple suppliers to select the most suitable one. However, many cases prioritized delivery time, making the selection heavily reliant on the experience of the procurement personnel. As a result, procurement work became increasingly individualized, leading to fluctuations in procurement prices of up to 20-30% for similar cases.

Similarly, in the design department, the lengthy search process often led to the creation of new drawings instead of utilizing available similar drawings. The use of past drawings and knowledge depended on the designer's experience, further advancing individual dependence in this area.‍

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Quick and Easy Drawing Search Resolves Individual Dependence and Procurement Price Fluctuations

Kashiyama Industries was seeking to reduce individual dependence in design and procurement, minimize procurement price fluctuations, improve operational efficiency, reduce costs, and promote standardization through the unification of parts. The growing demand for semiconductors was expected to further increase the need for dry vacuum pumps in the future, making a quick response to these needs imperative.

As Kashiyama Industries searched for a new system, they were introduced to CADDi Drawer, a cloud-based drawing data utilization service. After a successful trial, they decided to implement the system. "It was very user-friendly. One of the key factors in our decision to implement CADDi Drawer was its ability to address areas that our existing drawing management system couldn't," explained Kyohei Hara, Procurement Department, Production Headquarters, discussing the background of the implementation.

"One of the key factors in our decision to implement CADDi Drawer was its ability to address areas that our existing drawing management system couldn't." - Kyohei Hara, Procurement Department

With the implementation, the efficiency of procurement department operations significantly improved. CADDi Drawer allows keyword searches based on the contents noted in the remarks column of registered drawings. This reduced the time required to search for similar drawings by a significant margin compared to the previous methods of asking around or guessing and checking. Now, anyone can easily find the necessary drawings. Additionally, since similar drawings are linked to purchase records, there is no longer a need to switch between multiple systems, resulting in an average reduction of over 60% in the time required to gather information about the parts to be ordered, select the supplier, and finalize the order.

The ability to perform instant searches also enables the selection of the most suitable supplier based on past records without relying on personal experience. This has resolved fluctuations in procurement prices and reduced procurement costs. The ease of using similar parts also contributes to these benefits. Previously, cost reductions were primarily achieved through mass production effects by increasing lot sizes, but now it is also possible to reduce costs by switching to similar, more affordable parts or standardizing parts. CADDi Drawer has thus achieved the goals of improving operational efficiency, reducing costs, and promoting standardization.

Strengthening Inter-Departmental Collaboration to Further Improve Operational Efficiency, Reduce Costs, and Promote Standardization‍

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The positive impact of the implementation extended to the design department. The ability to easily search for similar drawings made it possible to reference them during the design process and consider the standardization of parts. This reduced the number of new drawings created. Even when creating new drawings, it became easier to utilize past drawings. Less experienced designers used to rely on asking more experienced colleagues if similar drawings existed, but CADDi Drawer eliminates this need. Now, designers of all experience levels can easily leverage past design knowledge.

Kotaro Nakatani, Deputy General Manager, Procurement Department, Production Headquarters, discussed the future prospects of using CADDi Drawer: "Initially, the implementation project mainly involved design and procurement. In the future, we hope to operate it as a project that includes departments such as manufacturing, production technology, and quality assurance.

"Using CADDi Drawer, inter-departmental communication becomes easier." - Kotaro Nakatani, Deputy General Manager, Procurement Department

For example, if there is a problem with a product, quality assurance can investigate whether the same issue affects similar parts or related products and horizontally deploy this information to other departments. By using CADDi Drawer, inter-departmental communication becomes easier. I believe it would be beneficial if departments could collaborate across functions to propose design methods or cost-saving measures."

Kashiyama Industries plans to continue practicing "Faster, Fewer, Simpler" and remains committed to ongoing improvement efforts and challenges.