Fujitsu and Co-Op Kobe Launch Home-Delivery Dinner Service

Tokyo, March 31, 2011

Fujitsu and the Consumer Co-operative Kobe today announced that they will begin to roll-out a home-delivery dinner service that provides safely packaged meals and other dishes on a daily basis starting on April 1, 2011, with Nishinomiya City.

In preparation for the new service, the Consumer Co-operative Kobe (Co-op Kobe) worked in collaboration with Fujitsu to build the system that provides total management and support for home-delivery dinner operations, ranging from menu ordering to processing and delivery. The system recently began operations.

By offering home-delivered dinners, Co-Op Kobe will deliver a new type of service which accommodates the lifestyles of co-op members, including those who are elderly, disabled, or live alone. The service hopes to contribute to the creation of a prosperous city in which residents can enjoy a new type of convenience without any added worries.

Background

The Consumer Co-operative Kobe is one of the largest cooperatives in Japan and operates approximately 170 retail locations and home-delivery services for its approximately 1.65 million members. As such, the organization has been expanding its community-based businesses. In Kobe City, the elderly account for roughly 20.7% of the total population, making it the 35^th largest population of elderly residents in Japan⁽¹⁾. Approximately 30% of Co-Op Kobe's members are elderly people over the age of 65⁽²⁾. Due to the rising number of elderly people who live alone, it has become a challenge to build a city infrastructure in which co-op members, who are elderly, disabled, or live alone, can live stress-free and convenient lives.

Starting January 2011, Co-Op Kobe conducted a test launch of its home-delivery dinner service, for which elderly and other co-op members had expressed a great need, in Nishinomiya City. Beginning April 2011, the organization will officially begin offering its "Dinner Support Maikuru"⁽³⁾ service in Nishinomiya City, Amagasaki City, and Ashiya City. With the new service, support staff consisting of local residents will deliver safe and delicious dinners to co-op members on a daily basis, while checking on their well-being, thereby providing local residents—including elderly people living alone—with a healthy alternative, reassurance, as well as personal contact. In the future, Co-Op Kobe will gradually expand the area in which it offers services.

For the new total management and support system, Fujitsu enhanced its home-delivery dinner solution from Fujitsu Chugoku Systems Limited—which has been deployed by Co-Op Yamaguchi and Seikyo Hiroshima—by incorporating functions assessing membership details such as the status or well-being of a co-op member and co-op withdrawal reasons, as well as an accounts receivable management feature. In collaboration with Co-Op Kobe, Fujitsu built the home-delivery dinner management and support system overseeing the overall operations from ordering to processing and delivery, in only six months.

In an effort to boost the employment of local residents and promote interaction among co-op members, Co-Op Kobe is commissioning housewives and retired seniors to assist with the home-delivery. By having delivery staff plan delivery schedules and routes that take into consideration the lifestyles of co-op members in each area, the cooperative will be able to deliver services that accommodate the needs of local communities. The home-delivery dinner solution also incorporates wage calculation and payment support features that accommodate the co-op's unique employment structure, as well as home-delivery scheduling and management features determining the priority order of visits.

As a feature to support staff in checking on the well-being of co-op members, the new solution has included additional information for co-op members, such as emergency contact information, hospital details, and whether the co-op member wants to be checked upon or not.

Starting in 2007, Co-Op Kobe was among the first to launch a home-delivery dinner service to support the elderly. The organization continues to enhance its operations for supporting local residents through efforts that include offering discounts to co-op members who require support in their daily lives as they are raising children or need nursing care. In aiming to bring about an enriched society that values relationships between people, Fujitsu plans to offer a SaaS version of the home-delivery dinner solution during the first-half of fiscal 2011, to cooperatives that deliver the service.

Fujitsu will continue to contribute to Co-Op Kobe's business by providing ICT solutions tailored to the expansion of the home-delivery dinner service.