Japanese automotive transmission manufacturer scaled its automation enterprise-wide after seeing 200,000 hours of productivity gains in its R&D department over 4 years
JATCO Ltd, a leading Japanese automotive transmission manufacturer, is expanding the use of the AI-powered UiPath Business Automation Platform enterprise-wide.
JATCO plays a crucial role in the Japanese automotive industry. As a subsidiary of Nissan Motor Company, the company provides high-quality, continuously variable transmissions (CVTs) and automatic transmissions (ATs). These products are supplied to automakers worldwide and are highly valued for their reliability and durability.
JATCO first implemented the UiPath Business Automation Platform in its Research & Development (R&D) department in late 2018. The R&D department had issues with manual work and managing hours spent on time-intensive tasks like the extraction and analysis of data.
Given the variety and sheer number of specialized instruments and equipment used by the R&D team in developing new products, they sought an automation tool that could extract the necessary data from these devices to speed up the development process. After comparing various tools, the company selected UiPath, as it was able to support almost all third-party software and programs used by the team.
Since implementing UiPath, JATCO’s R&D department has developed over 750 workflows, which has saved more than 200,000 hours over four years. This has led to significant productivity gains.
For example, the company has improved the efficiency of report preparation through automation and can now review its hour usage on a weekly basis. Prior to this, the report was available only on a monthly basis. This helped the company to quickly identify causes of delay and adjust delivery dates and resources in advance.
Additionally, they were able to build a framework that converts raw data generated by testing equipment and devices into comma-separated value (CSV) formats.
Integration with Kintone for faster data entry support and analysis
JATCO also integrated UiPath with Kintone, a no-code/low-code process improvement software by Cybozu, a Japanese software provider. The company used to enter expense processing data both into the Kintone application and a legacy system. However, JATCO developed a framework to automate data entry into the expense processing system after manual entry into Kintone.
This allowed the company to improve business processes without significant investments in resources and time to revamp its systems.
To expand and entrench the automation initiative, JATCO is training citizen developers in each division so that they can develop their own workflows. The company introduced four educational programs for employees of different proficiency levels. Over 900 people have completed at least the entry-level program and are now capable of developing RPA.
As JATCO accelerates automation of business processes across the company, it’s also focused on fostering digital talent, by incorporating digital skills in its internal employee assessment criteria.
Rob Enslin, Co-Chief Executive Officer, UiPath said: “With automation fast becoming the new way of operating and innovation, ensuring that the workforce is well-placed to work with automation solutions will be critical. By augmenting its automation solutions with skills training for its workforce, JATCO will be able to reap the full potential of automation and future-proof their business.”
