Interstage Shunsaku Data Manager Increases Customer Service and Fuels Home Sales

SANYO Homes Co., Ltd. manufactures and sells prefabricated houses and apartments and manages other housing related business. SANYO is the top provider of Century Housing System (CHS)-certified homes in the industry. CHS was established by Japan's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport to promote better living. Housing that meets high standards in the areas of physical structure durability, functional durability, maintenance management systems, and other quality items is certified as CHS.

To stay ahead of the competition, SANYO extended its leadership in CHS by introducing a concept called Advanced IT Housing, featuring dedicated Web terminals with built-in wireless LANs. "Better living is not just a matter of structural soundness," explains Mr. Yutaka Omata, Information Systems Group Leader of the Business Management Department of the SANYO Homes Business Headquarters.

Advanced IT Housing was developed around the technology of SANYO Electric Group, and SANYO Homes has released the "SANFIT" series of IT housing as the first stage of the commercialization of this concept.

Floor plans became the major sales tool at SANYO as sales people could manage the complexity with high speed.

The floor plan search system at the center of attention for further success

"When we re-examined our business practices, a number of problems surfaced," recalls Mr. Omata. "For example, the main emphasis was placed on sales results, while the activities and processes during business negotiations were not being considered."Customer service needed significant enhancement.

To strengthen competitiveness in the marketplace, it was necessary to reform the existing sales organization. The initiative mainly focused on following areas: increasing the ability to sell proactively and the standardization of sales activities.

Key factors to succeed in proactive selling and standardizing sales processes within SANYO were the ability to customize floor plans and the fast creation of proposals. Therefore, floor plans needed to be quickly accessible. Mr. Kimio Ando of the Information Systems Group of the Business Management Department of SANYO Homes Business Headquarters explains, "We used a CAD system to manage our floor plans, but the search capabilities were not sufficient to support customized floor plans or a rapid creation of proposals. It took too long to retrieve information and display search results. This is why we decided to establish a new, web-based floor plan search system, which would help us achieving our goals."

Interstage Shunsaku Data Manager Adopted for the Floor Plan Search System

With the emphasis on searching, Sanyo Homes Co. started evaluating industry leading enterprise search engines. The targeted search solution needed to simplify the set up and maintenance of multiple search keys. Sales people run searches on various criteria such as budget, area, number of people in the household, arrangement of rooms or type of kitchen. However, an increased number of search keys usually require multiple indices for faster searches. Apart from creating the indices, the index system needed to be maintained. The addition of search keys always created a headache. In some cases the entire index structure needed to be altered while adding or changing search keys.

Fujitsu introduced SANYO Homes to the XML-based search engine Interstage Shunsaku Data Manager. "Interstage Shunsaku Data Manager makes it easy to change or add data items – and search speed is not affected by the volume of data or complex search conditions. These features were exactly what we were looking for," continues Mr. Omata. "We felt that Interstage Shunsaku Data Manager would be the perfect solution for our new floor plan search system because it didn't require indices to guarantee a fast performance and its search algorithms proved to be outstanding."

The actual implementation of the new floor plan search system began in July of 2003 - two months later, the system was ready for production. And it was named "S-TEP" system. "The data to be searched was extracted from existing CAD drawings. Simple XML enablement and loading prepared the floor plan drawings to be accessed by Interstage Shunsaku Data Manager" explains Mr. Ando. "Interstage Shunsaku Data Manager, together with Fujitsu's expertise, enabled us to create the system quickly and cheaply."

Ten Times Faster Search through Interstage Shunsaku Data

"Retrieval of the floor plans of "S-TEP" system seems 10 times faster than the response time of the previous search system. Besides, the time required for data maintenance with Interstage Shunsaku Data Manager is negligible as opposed to the constant re-indexing and re-structuring of previous search systems, which could take multiple days, "said Mr. Omata.

Double Data Volume by Keeping the Same Response Time

"We made the right choice with Interstage Shunsaku Data Manager. Currently, approximately 5,500 floor plans are stored in the system. However, the company intends to double the stored floor plans to around 10,000. Based on our experience, Interstage Shunsaku Data Manager will allow us to double the data volume by keeping the same search performance without major re-structuring or re-indexing" continues Mr. Omata.

Floor Plan Availability Increases Customer Service

Because of the high search performance, the new system found great adoption by on-site sales personnel. Interstage Shunsaku Data Manager lets sales people retrieve floor plans fast, which increased the creation of custom floor plans. Also, based on the faster search capability, the time to create proposals dropped significantly, explains Mr. Ando. Customer service improved considerably with Interstage Shunsaku Data Manager.

Additional Benefits Already Targeted

Mr. Omata hopes the system can also be used in other areas. He already plans to link Interstage Shunsaku Data Manager with their three-dimensional CAD systems. Also, making the powerful search capability available on the company's Web site will further extend SANYO's customer service and open up additional sales opportunities.