May 12, 2022
Asahi Kasei Corp.

Asahi Kasei has established a group-wide data management platform called “DEEP” (Data Exploration and Exchange Pipeline) to accelerate Digital Transformation (DX) throughout the Asahi Kasei Group, and started its operation in April 2022. DEEP has already been utilized in the analysis of several businesses, and is expected to make further contribution to the enhancement of management and businesses.

Under its previous medium-term management initiative launched in 2019, the Asahi Kasei Group identified the promotion of DX as a key for enhancing businesses, and many results were achieved. Positioning “people,” “data,” and “organizational culture” as the essential factors to accomplish DX, and considering utilization of data accumulated group-wide as necessary in order to accelerate value creation, Asahi Kasei launched a project to establish a data management platform. This project established a “data catalog” function enabling the search of data dispersed throughout the Asahi Kasei Group, and a “data hub” function enabling simplified linkage of data among different systems. By providing visualization of data inside and outside of the Asahi Kasei Group, the platform is expected to shorten lead time for data utilization and make such utilization more efficient, achieve productivity improvements, underpin data governance within the Asahi Kasei Group, and foster a culture of data utilization.

DEEP utilization examples

The DEEP platform for personnel in the Asahi Kasei Group to easily search, link, and utilize data assets throughout the Asahi Kasei Group began trial operation in 2021. Two notable examples of its utilization are described below.

Integrating sales data in automotive-related businesses

In automotive-related businesses, although each business collected and analyzed sales data, etc., customer-specific sales trends among the different businesses could not be perceived. By using DEEP, the group-wide automotive-related business situation is displayed as a dashboard, enabling multifaceted analysis of each business’s management environment. While achieving operational efficiency by reducing analysis lead-time, this contributes to the further enhancement of businesses.

Visualizing CFP among synthetic rubber and elastomer products

To achieve carbon neutrality, the Asahi Kasei Group works to reduce its own GHG emissions and to contribute to reducing the world’s GHG emissions. From the perspective of GHG emissions, Asahi Kasei has begun calculating CFP (carbon footprint of products) sequentially, starting with major products. Such calculation requires the linkage of production and procurement data as well as the implementation of CFP computational logic. DEEP was utilized in the CFP calculation system for synthetic rubber and elastomer products, enabling visualization of their CFP. This initiative will be extended to other business sectors while the frequency of data linkage is raised to enable nearly real-time CFP visualization.

DEEP is established on the Azure cloud environment provided by Microsoft Japan Co., Ltd., and utilizes services including Azure Data Factory and Azure Purview. Furthermore, Azure Synapse Analytics, Azure Data Lake Storage, Power BI, etc. are used in DEEP data utilization projects. ZEAL Corporation supported the introduction and establishment of the infrastructure, and the promotion of application cases.

In the Asahi Kasei Group’s new medium-term management plan launched in April 2022, DX and maximum use of intangible assets are identified as key areas for strengthening the business platform. By using DEEP to promote the shared utilization of information assets group-wide, Asahi Kasei will further accelerate business innovation and transformation. Enhancing businesses and raising efficiency will also be advanced by utilization of the Asahi Kasei Group’s data assets together with stakeholders.

Considering DX to be essential for business growth, the Asahi Kasei Group aims to achieve “contributing to sustainable society” and “sustainable growth of corporate value” by leveraging the data from diversified businesses and the personnel who use it as sources of value.

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