Abstracts of Magazine FUJITSU 2014-11 (Vol. 65, No. 6)

Special Issue: Municipality Solutions to Support Transforming Society

Social Security and Tax Number System

• Fujitsu Group's Activities for Introduction of Social Security and Tax Number System

The number system to be introduced based on the Social Security and Tax Number Law that was approved in May 2013 is intended for developing the infrastructure for identifying personal and organizational information owned by administrative organs with the information of the same persons and organizations. For the introduction of the Social Security and Tax Numbers, the national government has been studying its impact on local governments since before the approval of the law and, after the approval, making preparations including the provision of various guidelines, presentation of drafts of ordinances of the competent ministries and holding of briefing sessions. In response, many local governments are developing a study framework for the introduction of the system while grasping the duties to be affected and studying solutions to various issues. The Fujitsu Group has been engaged in the gathering of various types of information and investigative research related to the Social Security and Tax Numbers since before the approval of the law. This paper describes the Fujitsu Group's activities for the introduction of the Social Security and Tax Numbers and various types of support for safe and secure realization of the construction and improvement of information systems in local governments.

• Efforts to Implement "My Number (Social Security and Tax Numbers)" on Basic Systems of Municipalities

The "Act on the Use of Numbers to Identify a Specific Individual in the Administrative Procedure" was enacted in May 2013. The implementation of this Social Security and Tax Number System will require local public bodies to conduct extensive preparatory work over different areas, including Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) support, establishment of regulations, and public relations activities for local residents, in addition to the modification of affected systems. Fujitsu will assist such governmental agencies introducing the Social Security and Tax Number System, through company-level support backed by its past experience in simultaneous operation system installations such as basic resident register network systems. Fujitsu also offers diverse support services ranging from information-provision activities, system modification and training assistance, to call centers for local residents. In the process of local governments incorporating the Social Security and Tax Number System, our "MICJET Number Linkage Server" will solve critical issues such as connecting to the Information Sharing Infrastructure and the realization of a system of inter-organization integrated identification codes. The MICJET Number Linkage Servicer will also work to overcome problems associated with a multi-vendor environment connection and the acquisition of identification codes to provide information. This article will address Fujitsu's approach to the implementation of the Social Security and Tax Number System.

• Fujitsu's Activities in Field of Children and Child-rearing

As reform of the social security system is carried forward, the Comprehensive Support System for Children and Child-rearing will be enforced in April 2015. The aim is to provide solutions to issues related to the environment surrounding children and child-rearing such as the declining birthrate and children on the waiting list for enrolling in nursery schools. Since the enforcement of the Act on Advancement of Measures to Support Raising Next-Generation Children in 2005, child-rearing support projects implemented by local governments have been diversified. This has occurred along with the promotion of measures that accommodate the rapid birthrate decline and changes in the home environments. To meet the needs of diverse child-rearing support projects, Fujitsu has provided the market with the MICJET MISALIO child-rearing solution based on the concept of "pursuit of general versatility," "pursuit of operability" and "system of growth and continuation." For the Comprehensive Support System for Children and Child-rearing, which will be officially enforced in April 2015, we are carrying out activities for a nationwide and simultaneous start of operations while carrying on with and evolving the child-rearing solution concept. This paper presents the activities conducted by Fujitsu up to now in the field of children and child-rearing and future developments.

Optimization of Local Governments' Management and Operating Processes

• Latest Consulting for Local Government Management Reform

Japan is now faced with a full-scale depopulating society and a sense of crisis regarding the sustainability of local communities is becoming evident. With this situation in the background, the results of the second round of decentralization reform have been manifested by the establishment of various laws, and the environmental improvement in institutional terms has reached a certain point. At this stage, respective local governments are expected to produce specific results in the decentralization reform. For local governments, which are expected to face a difficult management environment in the future, to maintain and form sustainable local communities, it is essential to establish a management foundation based on the plan-do-check-act (PDCA) cycle and operate it with high effectiveness. However, the PDCA cycle has become emasculated in many local governments and management is at stake. This paper presents important points in ensuring that the PDCA cycle of a local government functions to establish local government management. Specifically, it discusses Fujitsu Research Institute's idea of an ideal "reform of a comprehensive program contributing to the starting point of management" and "reform of organization and human resource management to assume local government management" as a reform of the starting point of a PDCA cycle and of the supporters of a PDCA cycle.

• Realization of Business Process Optimization and System Procurement Streamlining by BPM/BPMN

Recently, a need has arisen among government organizations and local governments for business process reform to realize systems and policies that can quickly respond to the diversification of needs of the people and changes in the social environment. The U.S. Government introduced business process management (BPM), an administrative management tool, to improve the agility of administration and administrative services, and this has also proved effective in eliminating personal dependency. This paper describes the feasibility of business process reform in governmental organizations and local governments by introducing BPM/Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) based on the results of empirical research on BPM/BPMN conducted by Fujitsu Research Institute jointly with a certain research institution in FY2013 and the knowledge acquired through business process and system optimization consulting. Furthermore, it discusses issues such as the revision of the standard description forms for streamlining the government information system's procurement process.

• Activities for Management of Public Facilities with Effectivity

Recently, the national and local governments have come to show increasing interest in the aging of public facilities. Public facilities, which were rapidly developed along with the population upsurge in Japan's high economic growth period (between 1955 and 1961), are now over 40 to 50 years old and expenses for maintaining and renovating them are estimated to concentrate in a short period. Meanwhile, local governments, in particular, are faced with a fear of a fall in investment capability due to reduced tax revenues and increased social security costs caused by the population decrease and aging population combined with a falling birthrate. This has made it difficult to continue to maintain the conditions of all public facilities without exception. Accordingly, activities are urgently needed for managing public facilities and comprehensively grasping their status in order to maintain, renovate and utilize them in conjunction with fiscal management. Under these circumstances, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) issued the "request for developing a comprehensive management plan for public facilities" to local governments nationwide in April 2014, and this accelerated local governments' activities for the management of public facilities. This paper presents to the local governments that are working on such management of public facilities the points in practicing Fujitsu Research Institute's idea of strategic management measures with higher effectivity.

• Efficient and Strategic Maintenance of Social Capital Making Use of ICT

Recently, measures against aging of public facilities, or so-called "social capital," intensively developed during and after the high economic growth period in Japan (mid-1950s to early 1970s) have become a national issue. Under the policy of the "Basic Plan for Extending the Lifespan of Infrastructure" announced by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT), the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) has issued a "request for developing a comprehensive management plan for public facilities" and local governments are working on measures to extend the service life of facilities including government buildings and schools in addition to various fields of infrastructure such as roads, bridges and water supply/sewerage. It is said, however, that under poor financial conditions, securing the cost of measures against aging will be inevitably impossible. Accordingly, appropriate long-term maintenance techniques for all public facilities owned by local governments are required from the perspective of total optimization of social capital. This paper presents an example of Hyogo Prefecture, which is efficiently and strategically working on the maintenance of social capital by using information and communications technology (ICT). It also describes activities of utilizing social capital information as open data and future developments of efficient social capital maintenance by making use of ICT.

Technology to Optimize Local Government Systems

• Approaches to Comprehensive Optimization of ICT Resources for Local Governments

Many local governments operate a dual network of backbone and information systems. Fujitsu thinks this is a hindrance when the authorities streamline their information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure because the dual network is often cumbersome to maintain and manage, and loses flexibility due to its structure. It also makes computer terminal integration and virtual server consolidation more complicated, pushing up the cost of the processes. However the national identification number system (NINS), once introduced, not only improves the efficiency of government services, but also prompts the establishment of a national-level ICT infrastructure that supports the services provided. In order for local governments to connect their existing systems to intermediate servers online, they will need to connect the Local Government Wide Area Network (LGWAN) and the backbone system, and this is a good opportunity for optimizing the local government ICT infrastructure. This article takes Fujitsu's "TRIOLE LG Grand Design," which is a future ICT infrastructure for local governments, as a model to describe three approaches for realizing system optimization. The first is to have network reorganization, and the second is to have terminal integration through Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI); these make it possible to streamline complex networks. And the third is to realize virtual consolidation of a practical server with added features of system operation and non-functional requirements. The practical wisdom gained through these approaches could be transformed into Fujitsu's TRIOLE Grand Design Solution, offering local governments the chance to optimize their ICT infrastructure, possibly leading to a way to leverage cloud computing for local governments.

• Modernization-Based Reconstruction in Large-Scale, Mission-Critical Operations of Local Governments

With "evolution away from mainframes and replacement with open systems" as motivation, large-scale and mission-critical systems have recently been undergoing reconstruction in various parts of Japan. While examples are beginning to appear of reconstruction and operation of tax, personnel compensation and other systems, not many examples have been brought to successful completion with respect to the original project goals. This paper discusses issues peculiar to mission-critical system reconstruction in local governments that are large in terms of the scale of organization such as prefectures and ordinance-designated cities and presents the results of activities in the actual site of development and operation. In addition, it proposes the concept of modernization activities as an option of a large-scale and mission-critical system reconstruction method from the perspective of ensuring quality, cost and delivery (QCD) and business continuity.

Fujitsu's Latest Solutions and their Case Studies

• Efforts to Introduce Local Government Clouds for Resident Information Systems of Special Wards

The special wards of Tokyo (hereafter "special wards") have been optimizing resident information systems as a means of replacing systems with open systems and package applications since the beginning of the 2000s. In this situation, Fujitsu was quick to launch the resident information solution "MICJET23" package intended for special wards in 2003 and currently provides it for seven out of the 23 wards. Migration to local government clouds, which is recommended by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC), has been accelerated by the advancement of virtualization technologies. With resident information systems, however, the data handled are important pieces of personal information and customization is required for local governments' own respective operations. These have hindered the migration. In this environment, Fujitsu started providing cloud services mainly including the resident information solution "MICJET23" package in January 2014. This paper presents examples of activities for migration to clouds through optimizing resident information systems for special wards in view of the progress of migration to local government clouds.

• Standardization of Mission-Critical Systems and Non-Customized Application for Small- to Medium-Sized Cities: Examples of Application of MICJET MISALIO

With the conventional package application, reconstruction of mission-critical systems (here this refers to residents' records and tax information) of municipalities required a large amount of customization, which has made it arguably difficult to standardize the systems. Fujitsu's "MICJET MISALIO resident information solution" is a SaaS non-customized package and has been significantly enhanced as a standard system for small- to medium-sized cities in the last four years since its release in March 2010. During this period, reconstruction was mainly needed due to the limits of mainframe system maintenance, a review conducted five years after the municipality consolidation, foreign resident registration system and other reasons and nationwide application of mission-critical systems has been making non-customized package application an established practice. With the first stage of replacement with open systems in small- to medium-sized cities expected to be basically completed by the introduction of the number system, from now on, local government cloud computing will be the mainstream. With local government cloud computing, reduction of application periods and costs will be accelerated as in the transition from individual introduction to simultaneous application to multiple organizations by cooperation and aggregation. This paper discusses our approach to standardization of mission-critical systems and non-customized package application for small- to medium-sized cities based on examples of application of MISALIO.

• Internal Information Solution to Realize New Internal Administrative Work: IPKNOWLEDGE V3

Social systems are beginning to make major changes such as the Social Security and Tax Number System and reform of the social security system. In order to offer resident services that accommodate these changes, local administrative organs are required to further improve the efficiency of their internal administrative work and reduce costs. Fujitsu's internal information solution package IPKNOWLEDGE helps them to improve work efficiency. It facilitates the total optimization of internal administrative systems including financial accounting, personnel compensation, document management, general affairs and electronic settlement and also reduces waste by achieving paperless application and approval, which were conventionally processed on paper, and eliminating re-inputting. Since its release in 2000, IPKNOWLEDGE has been installed by over 500 customer organizations in the 13 years up to 2013. This paper presents a new concept "make more use for more comfort" and describes the aim of and activities for IPKNOWLEDGE V3, which was released in 2014.

New Efforts for Solving Local Problems

• Local Municipalities' Efforts to Address Issues of Super-aged Society: Examples of Mutual Support in Metropolitan Suburbs

In the near future, societal aging will occur mainly in urban areas. Aging in metropolitan suburbs presents quite a different picture from aging in rural areas. Elderly people in the suburbs, whose numbers have recently been on the rise, have relatively weak ties within their local communities, as they originally moved there from the countryside and commuted to the city center every day for work. When they retire, however, they end up spending most of their time in their neighborhoods and local communities. How to support these elderly people as a community poses a significant challenge for local governments. Furthermore, the issues facing a super-aged society are not limited only to medical and nursing care, but are wide-ranging and intertwined. These issues cannot be resolved only with the conventional systems of government and local municipalities providing social and public assistance to support the weak. Self-help through individual efforts and purchasing products and services available on the market alone will not be sufficient either. Industry, government, academia and local residents must cooperate organically to promote elderly people's participation in society and to develop a system of mutual help in which the elderly support each other within the community. As they attempt to find their role in a super-aged society, local municipalities in the Tokyo metropolitan area in cooperation with universities and companies are implementing health promotion and social participation initiatives targeted at the elderly. In this paper we introduce several case studies of such initiatives and examine the future of local governments in a super-aged society.

• Conversion of Regional Information into Open Data and Their Utilization for Enhancement of International Competitiveness in MICE

In 2013, 10 years after the start of activities for realizing a tourism-oriented country, the number of foreign tourists visiting Japan exceeded 10 million for the first time. At present, the Japanese Government is further ramping up the activities in order to achieve the target of 20 million foreign tourists visiting Japan in 2020, when the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games will be held. Above all, the promotion of meetings, incentive travel, conventions and exhibitions/events (MICE) is positioned as an important tourism measure for the future and specified as one of the pillars of the Japan Revitalization Strategy and the Action Program toward the Realization of Japan as a Tourism-Oriented Country. However, there are many issues to tackle in order to strengthen international competitiveness in MICE. They include insufficient coordination in activities to attract MICE between parties involved in the activities such as convention bureaus and hotels, and insufficient regional information for promotion by MICE venues. This paper presents a MICE-strengthening model devised by Fujitsu Research Institute as a system of solving these issues by using information and communications technology (ICT) and shows the direction in which to head when strengthening international competitiveness in MICE by making use of the model.