Improving Productivity Per Employee to Enhance Profitability

Struggling to Find Similar Past Orders‍

‍Punch Industry Co., Ltd. has been manufacturing and selling mold parts such as punches, dies, and ejector pins for nearly half a century. With multiple manufacturing and sales bases in Japan and overseas, the company operates globally. Punch Industry is a top player in the mold parts market both domestically and internationally and has recently expanded into the FA field, working to build an even stronger global network.

Punch Industry was grappling with inefficiencies in their current workflow. When an order was received from a customer, they would check whether there had been a similar (repeat) or identical order in the past. Specifically, upon receiving a request from a customer, they would search for and compare the content by looking for identical or similar shapes among the past drawings stored in the company.

To search, they used the sales system containing order information to narrow down the customer and search by product name or drawing number to find the drawings. If the product name or drawing number was known for repeat orders, they could search using that information, but for similar drawings, the search was based on memory. This meant that if they couldn’t recall, they might not search at all. Even if they did search, they still had to open the file of the target drawing and compare it with the ordered drawing, which took time.

Veteran employees could complete the search in about five minutes, but since each salesperson might search up to 20 times a day, a significant amount of time was spent on searches. For new employees, it could take over 10 minutes to find a drawing, taking up even more time.

In the inspection department, similar issues were present. They needed to search for past drawings to determine if inspection programs could be reused. Even for repeat orders, the programs couldn’t be reused unless they matched the previous ones exactly, requiring confirmation with past drawings. The search process involved manually entering the repeat order number assigned by the process management system to find the relevant drawing file, which also took about five minutes per search. Given the high number of repeat orders, a considerable amount of time was spent searching for drawings.

Moreover, similar drawings were often found based on individual memory, so the judgment of "no similar drawings" depended on each worker. Setting a standard for how thoroughly to search before concluding "no similar cases" was challenging.

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Switching to CADDi Drawer from the Previously Introduced Drawing Search System

Punch Industry had been looking for a way to search for identical and similar drawings for years to solve these issues. They had already introduced and started using a drawing search system from another company. However, as the number of drawings increased, search times grew longer, and the accuracy of the searches was unsatisfactory. In this context, they started searching again for systems using keywords like "OCR" and "drawing search," and they discovered CADDi Drawer, a cloud-based drawing data utilization service. Executive Officer Fumio Tsuruma, in charge of Management Strategy and DX, decided to implement CADDi Drawer after hearing an explanation from CADDi, despite already having a drawing search system in place.

"The previous system was slow in returning search results, but CADDi Drawer provides results quickly. Since it can digitize drawing text using OCR, you can also search by keyword. I thought this could be used as an assist function during order entry. Additionally, CADDi assured us that they would continue to develop the system reliably, so we trusted them and switched to CADDi Drawer." - Fumio Tsuruma

"CADDi Drawer provides results quickly." - Fumio Tsuruma, Executive Officer

With the introduction of CADDi Drawer, various issues at Punch Industry were resolved.

Previously, they would rely on product names and drawing numbers to find the right drawing, but now, they can search for similar drawings using scanned drawings or keywords. This has reduced the drawing search time in the sales department from about five minutes for veterans to around one minute. New employees, who used to take 10 minutes for a search, can now also do it in about one minute.

Furthermore, even when encountering unfamiliar materials, they can now search by material name to find other drawings manufactured with the same material, making it possible to check the processing vendors used previously. Whereas they used to limit searches to specific customers, they can now search for similar drawings across all customers.

In the inspection department, they can now search by drawing number or keyword in addition to the repeat order number, reducing drawing search time from five minutes to one minute—a fivefold reduction.

The reliance on individual memory for drawing searches has significantly improved.‍

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Expanding Usage Company-Wide with Tenfold Increase in Accounts

‍At Punch Industry, the data volume gradually increased after they began using CADDi Drawer, leading to further utilization. The number of users in the sales department expanded from a dozen to over 100. Now, all sales staff use it.‍

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"Various data are linked to the management numbers and saved in the sales system. So, when we needed to find a drawing, we used to narrow it down in the sales system and then search for the previous management number. The next step was to find the drawing based on that management number and compare it with the new drawing. Now, CADDi Drawer handles everything once the drawings are uploaded. It has become much easier. The user interface (UI) has also been updated and is easier to use. The speed at which CADDi develops the system in response to our various requests is impressive." - Takayuki Hayana and Takakazu Tsuzuki

"CADDi Drawer handles everything once the drawings are uploaded. Finding a drawing has become much easier." - Takayuki Hayano and Takakazu Tsuzuki

Punch Industry is considering expanding the use of CADDi Drawer to procurement, processing, and design departments. They are also thinking of establishing a rule where if CADDi Drawer finds a similar drawing, it is considered to be a similar case. They plan to continue improving operations with CADDi Drawer and realize company-wide DX (Digital Transformation).