If we can’t deal with the challenge of digital transformation well, Japan may have an annual economic loss of up to 12 trillion yen from 2025, which is the so-called “2025 digital cliff”.
According to the “digital transformation (DX) promotion guide of the Ministry of economy, industry and industry”, Japan’s digital transformation is defined as “based on customer and social needs, enterprises transform their products, services, business models, even their operations, organizations, processes and corporate culture by using data and digital technology, so as to establish competitive advantages to cope with the rapid changes in business environment.” If we can’t face this challenge well, Japan may have an annual economic loss of up to 12 trillion yen from 2025, which is the so-called “2025 digital cliff”.
Technological development, including the progress of Internet of things technology and the popularity of intelligent devices, will greatly enhance the potential of it and digital technology in business. This requires enterprises not only to improve the production efficiency of existing business, but also to reconstruct business model and create new business. But at present, only a few enterprises, including those in the printing industry, try to cope with the challenges of digital transformation.
As digitization eliminates the time and space constraints, many enterprises begin to have a sense of crisis, that is, existing business and strategies can not make them survive better. In this context, the printing industry to intelligent factory as the theme of a lot of work began. The advantage of intelligent factory is that it can digitize and visualize the operation status and production results, so as to view the data to be viewed in real time, and find and improve the bottleneck in the production process by analyzing the data; at the same time, the continuous improvement of quality control and productivity can be realized through production line automation, abnormal detection, preventive equipment maintenance, etc.
During iGAS 2018, Japan’s major printing machine manufacturers and book binding machine manufacturers have jointly established the smart factory area. Smart factory is a mechanism, which can automatically input the order data received on the network into the system, and then the system will send the job data to the production equipment, and manage the progress of each equipment. Although the mechanism realizes a completely optimized workflow by linking order receiving, processing, delivery and process management, it does not produce enough effect, such as improving production efficiency and reducing cost.
In Japan, smart factories can be seen as part of the digital transformation trend, which is still in the stage of trial and error. Today, all companies, including printing companies, take the challenge of digital transformation as their most important agenda. Otherwise, they will be at a disadvantage in terms of productivity improvement, cost reduction and even global competition. It is out of this sense of crisis that iGAS 2022 aims to provide a convincing demonstration of digital transformation, including better concepts, technologies and successful cases.
Takeshi Hirotsune
Secretary General of Japan printing machinery industry association
Post time: Oct-09-2020