Desire to Utilize Vast Past Assets, but Inefficient to Find Them

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Sumitomo Riko Company Limited, a global leader in automotive anti-vibration rubber, has been engaged in advanced manufacturing for over 90 years since its founding. Based on its core competence in “polymer material technology,” the company operates in four fields: “Automotive (Mobility),” “Infrastructure and Living Environment,” “Electronics,” and “Healthcare,” contributing to a safe, secure, comfortable, and environmentally friendly society.

In its main business of automotive components, Sumitomo Riko boasts a high market share not only in anti-vibration rubber but also in hoses. The company offers a wide range of automotive parts, including engine covers and interior components, and has played a significant role in the development of the automotive industry.

In the product development of automotive anti-vibration rubber at Sumitomo Riko, the company has consistently handled development from advanced development to prototyping and mass production launch for each automotive manufacturer it supplies.

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One of the key outputs of the development department is drawings. The development department’s most significant role is to connect drawings that achieve the highest functionality and specifications required by customers and the market at minimal cost to the manufacturing process. To achieve this, the development department has been required to design with high precision, speed, and minimal rework.

With its long history and high market share, Sumitomo Riko possesses a vast amount of drawings and manufacturing-related information. Utilizing this information can improve design quality, speed, and reduce rework. This holds great significance in enhancing development speed as global competition accelerates.

Previously, the crucial aspect of design quality, “prevention,” relied heavily on the knowledge of experienced engineers. As a result, there were significant differences in work accuracy and speed depending on the experience and amount of information input by the person in charge.

Although several search systems were available to assist in development work, they were inefficient for gathering necessary information because each piece of information was not interconnected.

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CADDi Drawer Enables Utilization of Vast Past Assets

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Sumitomo Riko, which had been promoting company-wide digital transformation (DX) for several years, was searching for the optimal tool to utilize past drawings and information. Ryo, the General Manager of the 2nd Engineering Department in the Anti-Vibration Technology Division of the Anti-Vibration Business Headquarters, learned about the drawing data utilization cloud, CADDi Drawer, while gathering information at exhibitions as the department’s DX promotion representative. After receiving an explanation of the functions, such as similar drawing search and linking related information, Ryo felt the potential to realize what they wanted to achieve and decided to implement the system after repeated trials.

“The biggest concern was how to accurately extract identical or similar parts from past drawings that had been converted to PDF.”

“Utilizing past assets was essential, and the decisive factor for the implementation of CADDi Drawer was the potential to solve this issue.”

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“CADDi Drawer can quickly find similar drawings with high precision, even from rough sketches. Once found, we believed we could link and utilize all kinds of information.”

Ryo mentioned that the consistent support from customer success representatives from pre-implementation to post-implementation and the rapid functional enhancements were also decisive factors for implementation.

“Another deciding factor was the continuous support from customer success reps, who acted as a bridge between our desired goals and the system’s capabilities.”

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“Their thorough and speedy support made the preparation for implementation smooth, allowing us to start without much effort on our end. The proactive attitude towards improving convenience through continuous system updates and other enhancements was also appreciated.”

“Since it would be meaningless if the development staff didn’t experience the benefits, we involved them in the trial and considered the implementation together. We placed the highest importance on how they felt, and ultimately, the decision to implement was based on their opinions.”

Aiming to Shift Resources to New “Value Creation” through the Utilization of CADDi Drawer

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At Sumitomo Riko, where CADDi Drawer has been implemented, the time required to search for past similar drawings has been significantly reduced.

Moreover, it has become easier for the person in charge to obtain information such as past problems and manufacturing costs associated with the drawings at the initial stage of design.

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They were able to reduce person-dependent processes that required asking others or relying on memory to find similar drawings. Further utilization of past data is expected to improve development speed, quality, reduce rework, and lower costs through parts commonization.

Sumitomo Riko is also considering linking data between CADDi Drawer and other internal core systems. The company aims to seamlessly connect information globally and maximize utilization efficiency.

“To realize the new ‘value creation’ that we have set forth in our future vision, it is necessary to transform the way we work and create resources.”

“As the automotive industry faces a major period of transformation, development cycles are becoming shorter, but opportunities for new challenges are also increasing. To address these challenges with limited resources, we must thoroughly eliminate waste. We aim to replace the person-dependent aspects of development work with tools like CADDi Drawer, keep up with the changing global environment, and fulfill our crucial role of providing the best products at minimal cost at a higher level.”

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