Fujitsu leverages data and AI to enable Panasonic EW's resilient supply networks

Fujitsu Limited

Kawasaki, May 29, 2024

Fujitsu today announced that it has developed a new system based on Fujitsu Data Intelligence PaaS ⁽¹⁾ an operation platform for Fujitsu Uvance that leverages data and AI to achieve resilient supply networks for Electric Works Company, Panasonic Corporation (Panasonic EW), and has started a full-scale operation of the new system at Panasonic EW in April 2024.

The new system will integrate large amounts of data residing in more than 3,000 sites, including domestic and overseas suppliers and factories across the entire organization to support decision making for business continuity. Panasonic EW, which handles electrical construction materials, manages products, parts, and other information for each department, division, and location separately, using different formats of data. By introducing this system, it will be possible to visualize the inventory and order information for approximately 200,000 part numbers for all sites during natural disaster, while at the same time implementing highly accurate demand forecasting through the use of AI, thereby avoiding product supply disruptions.

Panasonic EW enables dynamic and resilient supply networks by using data to quickly respond to natural disasters by using AI to predict the uncertain outcomes in order to make corrective decisions.

Features of the new system

Panasonic EW utilized Fujitsu Data Intelligence PaaS to integrate, store, and visualize data, and to develop an all-in-one business system. As a result, it has been able to gain control of parts procurement plans and inventory status at each site at the company-wide level. The new system will give insight on each order received during natural disasters, as well as the impact of profit and loss on the entire business and will ultimately support decision-making for maintaining production and supply systems.
In addition, by leveraging Fujitsu Data Intelligence PaaS's seamless data integration capabilities, Panasonic EW successfully identified and visualized parts in its inventory of over 200,000 parts in as little as 2 weeks, without the modification of existing systems.

Figure 1 Data Integration to visualize inventory parts ⁽²⁾

Formulating high-precision demand forecasts with AI

Panasonic EW utilized Fujitsu Kozuchi AutoML, Fujitsu’s AI service that can generate highly accurate machine learning models in a short period of time, to generate 300 predictive models based on sales results of key components over the past 5 years from information integrated into the data base. This will enable highly accurate demand forecasting for each component category.

Figure 2 AI-based demand forecasting model ⁽²⁾

Future Plans

Towards 2030, when the labor shortage is expected to become apparent due to the rapid decline in the working-age population in Japan, Fujitsu will support Panasonic EW in building a sustainable and resilient supply networks.
Under Fujitsu Uvance, Fujitsu will contribute to the realization of a sustainable world by providing a comprehensive view of the entire supply chain through Digital Shifts initiatives that utilize data and technology to help companies strengthen their resilience and respond to environmental and societal issues.

• [1]
  Fujitsu Data Intelligence PaaS :
  Platform consisting of Fujitsu Kozuchi, a cloud-based AI service, Fujitsu Track and Trust, a blockchain technology that enables data linkage and traceability across companies and industries, Palantir and Microsoft Azure
• [2]
  Applications built on Palantir

Related Links

• Fujitsu Data Intelligence PaaS
• Fujitsu Kozuchi

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This press release has been revised on June 11, 2024. (revised "Supply Chain Management" in the title to "Supply Networks" and the text was revised accordingly)

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