Morinaga Nutritional Foods, Inc.
Through the introduction of automation, work quality improvements and major savings in time and costs were achieved.
Work that had taken hours to complete could now be done automatically with a single click, with no usage of paper or chance of human error. The solution also enabled easier automation of office work as employees work remotely.
Introduced service
Issues solved through the adoption of Kintone, UiPath and ABBYY FlexiCapture
Inefficient data entry
and trouble searching for and viewing data
- Because there was no way to send, record or view data from a mobile phone, salespeople had to do data entry at a PC after taking their photos at branch stores, which was inefficient.
- It took too much time to search for reports and check their contents.
Accounting processing was time-consuming, with no simple way to check on processing status
- To check on accounting results, on where processing was held up or on when things were processed, required checking with the people in charge.
- It took time for management to check on things like when employees posted their reports, where invoices were located, and whether particular accounts had been processed or not.
Human error was unavoidable during monthly report creation, leading to additional work
- Every month, sales data reports that took about 5 hours to make were created.
- Often missing data or other mistakes in the reports were found, which could waste a day or two of work. Furthermore, when the person in charge of making a report was not present, the report could not be made.
Data entry from documents was done by hand, taking time and leading to many mistakes
- Received bills of lading could be in PDF or .jpg form, and manually entering the data from them was a big job.
- Each document contained many numbers, such as pallet numbers, serial numbers and best-by dates, and problems in the documents were often missed by manual checking.
Data can now be checked instantly
Now salespeople can use smartphones or tablet PCs to report in real-time the status of branch stores. No longer is there a need to create reports after returning to the office, leading to time savings.
Furthermore, previously reports were not centrally managed, so searching for them was a time-consuming process, but with Kintone, they can now be searched for by smartphone, PC or tablet PC, using filters to organize by store, by product, etc. Now status can be checked from anywhere, improving time-use and efficiency.
Reports now easily creatable by anyone, dramatically improving work efficiency
Report creation had been a job requiring time, people and concentration, but now they can be created by anyone at the touch of a button, dramatically improving work efficiency.
Monthly sales reports now creatable by anyone by a single click
Monthly sales reports had also been time-consuming, taking some five hours to create, but now they can be completed in about three minutes. If there is found to be missing data or another such problem, the report can be automatically generated again in another three minutes. The reports are now creatable in one click, even if the person normally in charge of the report creation is absent.
Reduced human error
Work that until now required two people working for two hours every day became possible in under one minute with a single button click, with human error largely eliminated.
Why these solutions were chosen
Systems usable by anyone, created quickly and at low cost
Through automation of work, required work time and human error can be greatly reduced.
We wanted to make systems that could be used even when the person in charge of a job was absent due to taking time off or illness.
The mobile apps possible through the solution are easy to use, improving work efficiency.
Comparing the quoted price with personnel costs, we found we could recover the cost in 1 to 1 and a half years.
Benefits
Sales report creation that had taken 5 hours every month now only takes 3 minutes
Through the adoption of Kintone, reports can be made in closer to real-time, and communication between operators and managers became smoother.
Through the adoption of ABBYY FlexiCapture and UiPath, the time needed for monthly sales report creation dropped from 5 hours to 3 minutes. Furthermore, problems stemming from human error were greatly reduced, removing the need to redo steps.
Mistakes and costs both greatly reduced
The solution was applied primarily to daily work, work that could inconvenience business partners if mistakes occurred (or that could result in heavy financial damages), and work in which many people were involved. The greatest benefit achieved was the reduction of mistakes, and then the large savings in personnel costs. Work that had taken 2 hours every day by 2 people can now be done in under 1 minute, with a single click.
Message from KDDI sales
We are very proud that we were able to propose RPA (UiPath) and OCR (ABBYY FlexiCapture) to Morinaga Nutritional Foods. We want to continue working with customers’ end-user staff to find issues and work to address them. We are happy if through automation we were able to contribute to the company’s work reform.
Customer profile
Morinaga Nutritional Foods, Inc.
- Head office
- 3838 Del Amo Blvd., Suite 201, Torrance, CA 90503
- Establishment
- 1985
Founded in Los Angeles in 1985. They began selling tofu throughout the United States, which through the technology of Morinaga Milk Industry Co., Ltd, could now be preserved for long periods of time. The Morinaga Milk Industry corporate group, of which Morinaga Nutritional Foods is a subsidiary, was founded in 1917, and in 2017 it passed a century of operation. With a new corporate slogan of “for shining smiles”, they work to contribute to a happy society.
