We strongly promote digitalization strategies that use data and digital technologies, driving implementation along the three pillars of business added-value, business operation competitiveness and management speed as we aim to become a leading company in the DX sphere.
The Group is pursuing a DX strategy as a way to lay the foundations to prevail on the global stage. Toward achieving Our Commitment from 2030 to 2050, the DX Promotion Department is playing a central role in driving transformation with three missions, Strengthening today: using digital technology to reinforce existing business, Creating tomorrow: co-creation of new business and services, and Cultivating talent: reinforcing human resources and systems to effect reform continuously. To materialize the three pillars of DX promotion, namely business added-value, business operation competitiveness and management speed, we have selected priority themes to be addressed based on the key DX perspectives of enhancement of customer touch points, process coordination and increasing management decision making speed, as well as the system and data infrastructure improvements and human resource and culture improvements that underpin them. Our business divisions and IT/digital departments are implementing these activities on a joint basis. By carrying out these activities on a speedy basis, the Group will aim to achieve real-time management that is responsive to societal change, environmental change and our own transformation. Since fiscal 2021 we named these DX initiatives of the Mitsubishi Materials Group "MMDX", and from fiscal 2023, two years after the start of MMDX, we shifted into a new phase as "MMDX2.0."
While MMDX activities to date have started to yield results in connection with several themes including the enhancement of customer touch points, issues have also emerged, such as the setting of limited themes in the area of manufacturing, efforts being in parallel with those being promoted by other organizations such as smart factory activities, inadequate implementation capabilities at the execution stage, and understanding of MMDX among employees in the field lacking penetration. Given these challenges, from fiscal 2023 we have been addressing the following three points on a priority basis as MMDX2.0.
The first is strengthening the manufacturing area. To ensure that field-level activities are efficient and effective, we incorporated efforts such as the smart factory activities pursued by the Monozukuri and R&D Strategy Division to date as DX themes, integrating both the themes and the structures underlying them. In addition, under MMDX2.0 we have reorganized DX efforts into five areas: Business related DX and Manufacturing related DX, R&D DX as a manufacturing business, as well as Company-wide DX, Renewing key operation as DX initiatives that span the Group.
The second is strengthening the execution system. We have developed a promotion structure that unifies business and DX divisions by transferring specialists from the DX Promotion Department to the business divisions and other areas responsible for executing the DX themes. In addition, to roll out DX themes across the Group and internalize a structure for the development, maintenance and operation of systems, we split IT functions from Material Business Support, the affiliate company entrusted with the Group's indirect operations, and established Mitsubishi Materials IT Solutions (MMIS) as a system function company inheriting some employees from the DX Promotion Department at head office.
The third point is activation of bottom-up activities. In addition to existing DX themes that have been set according to a top-down approach, we have been working to make MMDX a groupwide endeavor that involves those working in the field by establishing various schemes including the creation of themes originating in the field, a system to take on challenges that allows for failure, and the provision of learning programs and accompanying support for employees.
In May 2023, the Company has been selected as a "Noteworthy Digital Transformation (DX) Companies 2023" in a program run by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE), and the Information-technology Promotion Agency, Japan (IPA).
The selection as one of the "Noteworthy DX Companies 2023" is in recognition of MMC's DX achievements, human resource development, and efforts to foster a corporate culture. We are currently operating a business that collects E-Scrap (discarded circuit boards, etc.) from all over the world and recycles them into valuable metals. And in December 2021, we launched a new platform called "MEX" (Mitsubishi Materials E-Scrap EXchange) that enables the transaction to be conducted online, realizing a business model that will attract more business partners through DX.
Furthermore, regarding the development of DX human resources, we are working on "common digital literacy education" to raise the level of all employees and "advanced digital education" to secure human resources who will drive business growth.
We will continue to pursue management reforms through "MMDX 2.0" and implement a variety of initiatives to realize our vision and evolve into a competitive corporate group.
