Shift to a New “Monozukuri” Style Appropriate for the Design Environment of the “New Normal” Era

2. Issues in switching to telework at design and development sites at Fujitsu

This section describes issues in switching to telework at design and development sites.

2.1 Identification of issues in switching to telework

Fujitsu has launched “Work Life Shift” as a concept of a new way of working in the new normal era. Employees were given questionnaires and interviews with the aim of sincerely addressing and responding to the voices of workers in the process of implementing reforms.

At manufacturing departments, issues were found at various levels in promoting telework and remote operations in design and manufacturing sites.

2.2 Issues related to remote work environments

Questionnaires and interviews with employees made it clear that there are various issues in each process, from conceptual design to detailed design, production equipment design, and manufacturing. Among other things, the respondents indicated that “3D data cannot be viewed due to poor Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) response,” “data cannot be accessed safely from the outside due to security reasons,” “on-premise systems in the office cannot be used,” “home PC specifications are low,” and “downloading takes time.”

2.3 Communications-related issues

As telework spread, various issues came into view. Communications-related issues were found to be particularly numerous. These included things such as “it’s hard to ask questions casually like in the office,” “it’s hard to change the topic during online meetings,” “it feels like people just talking one way,” “the lack of back-and-forth exchanges is unsettling,” and “there’s no sense of unity in the organization.”

1) Changes in communication culture

Japan is one of the most high-context communication cultures in the world, relying on the context of shared knowledge, experiences, and values fostered by being in the same place and time. However, the change from the traditional collective way of working to the distributed way of working through telework is causing a shift from context-dependent communication to a language-dependent, low-context culture.

2) Monozukuri in a low-context culture

Monozukuri through feedback-rich, fine-grained teamwork, which is one of Japan’s strengths, is premised on high context.

However, in the new normal era, monozukuri in a low-context culture requires a new efficient communication environment that minimizes miscommunication.

4. Toward a smooth communication environment

This section describes a smooth communication environment using 3D models for communication among related parties such as participants performing design reviews as part of design work.

By introducing an information sharing mechanism using 3D models, it will be possible for multiple parties to share product images and communicate smoothly. Some examples of Fujitsu’s efforts and the technologies for utilizing the collected information are presented below.

4.1 Example of information sharing centered on 3D models

This section describes an example of Fujitsu’s efforts and technologies for communication using 3D models.

1) Design review between multiple departments using 3D models

Figure 4 shows an example in which related departments such as design, quality assurance, manufacturing, and maintenance use 3D models to conduct design reviews and share the findings gained therefrom as knowledge, in order to improve product quality before trial production.

Figure 4 Example of design review between multiple departments using 3D models.

In this example, the cycle starts with a verification request from the design department. The related divisions perform verification from their respective perspectives, and the design division then makes changes accordingly and notifies the related department about the results. The information generated in each related department during this cycle is linked with the 3D model and shared as knowledge, which will be utilized in subsequent development work.

In this example, “FUJITSU Manufacturing Industry Solution COLMINA Design Review, Knowledge Sharing” is used as the mechanism for knowledge sharing.

2) Successful shortening of the development period by 25%

In the past, when indicated matters such as suggested changes or concerns were communicated to the designer as a result of the verification in the form of text or images, the designer had to identify the indicated parts of the product while manipulating the 3D model before considering how to respond.

In this example, we were able to reduce the development time by 25% by linking the indications with the 3D model, which allowed us to start considering how to respond immediately and thoroughly verify the results on a virtual machine. Further, by utilizing past knowledge, we were able to reduce the number of serious indications, such as requests for design changes, that could cause major rework after the prototype was manufactured.

4.2 AI-based similar 3D shape search technology

This section describes the search technology that efficiently utilizes the information linked with the 3D model, introduced in the previous section.

Linking information with a 3D model makes it possible to search for information related to a selected 3D model without having to memorize keywords. However, since the shapes of parts change product by product, a function to search for similar shapes is required instead of searching for the same shape.

Fujitsu has developed a proprietary similar 3D shape search technology [2] for finding similar 3D models using AI. Technology to search for 3D models based on shape similarity has been under development since 2008, but as shown in Figure 5, the search accuracy of the conventional algorithm-based method without AI varies greatly depending on the shape of the part, and there was the problem that a new algorithm had to be developed each time a part that could not be successfully searched was found. The introduction of AI in 2017 did reduce shape-dependent variations in search accuracy, but the search accuracy using only AI in the public domain was only on the order of 60%, which was not satisfactory. Therefore, we developed a proprietary technology for the generation of images from 3D models for AI training that do not cause data set quality degradation when repeatedly used for learning. In addition, various tunings were added to the Deep Learning neural network, including setting the number of layers in the middle layer to obtain optimal accuracy. The result was similar 3D shape search technology that achieves a high search accuracy of about 90% regardless of shape type.

Figure 5 Comparison of conventional method and AI-based similar 3D shape search technology.

The AI used by this technology is trained on a large number of 3D models accumulated by Fujitsu. As a result, this technology achieves search speeds that can withstand practical use even for vast bodies of data on the order of one million parts, regardless of the industry, making this technology suitable for a wide range of applications, including general-purpose use.

6. Conclusion

This article has described the internal practices of Fujitsu, which is working toward the realization of design and development environments in the new normal era, the technologies that have been developed for these practices, and a proposal for a new style of monozukuri.

Going forward, we will continue to bring the digital transformation to the manufacturing industry by utilizing the know-how and reliable technologies we have cultivated through in-house practices designed to fit the changing environment. In so doing, we aim to meet the expectations of our customers for a new style of monozukuri and earn their trust in the process.

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