Hitachi Industrial Equipment Systems Optimizes Global Operations with Aras

Hitachi
Headquarters
Tokyo, Japan
Established
2002
Size
~1,000 Employees
Industry
Industrial Equipment

Before Aras: Challenges

  • Siloed product data: Hitachi Industrial Equipment Systems (HIE) relied on a 40-year-old legacy system with product data scattered across multiple production facilities, departments, and IT systems, making it difficult to share critical information effectively.
  • Inefficient and inconsistent process workflows: The absence of standardized processes led to product development bottlenecks and version control issues. Each office operated independently, creating inconsistencies across production bases.
  • Limited support for global operations: To stay competitive, HIE aimed to innovate faster and improve its in-field product support capabilities. However, the outdated system couldn’t be scaled to meet the demands of a global operation or provide the necessary visibility for improved customer service.

After Aras: Outcomes

  • Centralized product data: Aras platform consolidates product information across all facilities and systems, enhancing data visibility, fostering multi-location and multi-disciplinary collaboration, and reducing errors.
  • Standardized and streamlined process workflows: By customizing Aras platform BOM and Workflow features and integrating with SAP, HIE has standardized processes from product design to procurement. This has led to faster product delivery and improved traceability.
  • Enhanced customer support and innovation: With unified EBOM and MBOM data available across all departments, sales and service teams have access to richer product knowledge. This enables more effective customer support and aligns with HIE’s initiative to expand global sales and service capabilities.

Explore This Story

    “With Aras Innovator and SAP successfully integrated, we have streamlined the features for registration and revision of master data or order information that is linked to SAP.”

    Manager, IT Strategy Department, Hitachi Industrial Equipment Systems

    HIE was established in 1907 as Tokyo Tukudajima Machinery Company and became independent from Hitachi Ltd. in 2002. Headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, HIE specializes in the manufacture, sales, and service of a wide range of industrial components and equipment, delivering advanced solutions across industries such as power, transportation, infrastructure, industrial automation, and healthcare.

    HIE adopted the Aras Innovator® product lifecycle management (PLM) platform to unify and standardize product data, enhance product support, and accelerate innovation. By replacing its fragmented legacy system with a centralized, scalable solution, Aras Innovator supports HIE’s mission of operational excellence and global development.

    Pain Points

    Before leveraging Aras Innovator, HIE struggled with a 40-year-old legacy system that managed product design data at each office and production location. This system operated separately from HIE’s computer-aided design (CAD) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems and couldn’t connect across production sites, preventing critical product data from being shared among locations.

    As a result, product information was scattered across production facilities and departments, making it difficult for teams to access up-to-date data. This fragmentation led to inefficient workflows, as each department and facility had to independently manage its processes. The lack of standardization created bottlenecks and version control issues and slowed down product development.

    As the company aimed to expand its global operations and improve product support capabilities, the outdated system couldn’t provide the visibility or flexibility necessary to meet these growing demands. This limited HIE’s ability to innovate and maintain a competitive edge in the market.

    PLM Requirements

    HIE’s executives recognized the need to consolidate their operational and IT systems to streamline global product development.

    The HIE team decided that the key requirements for a modern PLM solution would be:

    • Flexibility: Remain adaptable to meet the diverse operational needs across HIE’s multiple facilities
    • Scalability: Support HIE’s global operations and be able to scale as the company grows and its needs evolve
    • Cost-efficiency: Feature a low implementation and running cost structure that ensures long-term value while aligning with the company’s budget
    • SaaS architecture: Serve as a cloud-based solution that supports remote accessibility, with an intuitive interface that allows staff to manage and maintain the system
    • Collaboration: Enable seamless collaboration across departments and locations, ensuring all teams have access to product information and standardized workflows

    Successes with Aras Innovator

    The team discovered Aras Innovator after reviewing the use of the Aras PLM platform and its implementation within the Hitachi Group. Impressed by its success, HIE determined that Aras Innovator met all its functional requirements and ease-of-use needs.

    HIE developed a phased implementation plan for Aras Innovator, starting with its Nakajo Division, which manufactures a wide array of products like transformers, circuit breakers, and power distribution systems. The company customized two of Aras’ out-of-the-box capabilities (BOM management and the Workflow feature), which helped streamline collaboration across the product design, manufacturing, and procurement departments. HIE also completed integration into SAP ERP to simplify product data flow across departments.

    After Phase I’s success, Phase II will establish the PLM platform for all product development at the Shimizu and Ebina divisions, while Phase III will expand to even more product divisions.

    “With this implementation plan, we could achieve the consolidation of operational systems and all product data which used to be managed individually at each office and production base location. We are excited to have the E-BOM and M-BOM shared by everyone who designs, produces, or supports the product.”

    Manager for the HIE Center for Operational Process Transformation

     

    Results

    The impact of Aras Innovator at HIE has been substantial. Aras platform is managing all the product data across 24,000 products, 55,000 parts, and 138,000 intermediate parts, improving visibility and accuracy across HIE production sites. This centralized data approach, along with Aras platform BOM management and Workflow features, has enabled HIE to foster a more integrated workflow across multiple departments and locations, minimizing fragmentation that previously slowed development

    Engineering change management (ECM) has also seen improvement, with over 6,400 engineering change orders (ECOs) tracked through Aras Innovator. By integrating with SAP ERP, HIE streamlines order and master data management, reducing manual input errors and revision mistakes.

    “Streamlined collaboration for our various teams and partners as well as improvement in our service—those are based on PLM’s originally stated purpose.”

    Manager, IT Strategy Department, Hitachi Industrial Equipment Systems
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