Taiyo Wire Cloth Co., Ltd.

“In our company, we utilize RK in three departments: Materials, Operations, and Quality Assurance. Among them, the Materials department employs RK most frequently, using it primarily for generating Excel files for inventory and delivery date management.
Specifically, we access our sales management system to export data such as orders, receipts, purchases, and sales as CSV files. RK then extracts the necessary data from the CSV files, processes it, and uploads it to the groupware "Garoon" with comments.

Considering the varied approaches to management for equipment and mass-produced parts, we created approximately 20 scenarios (automation programs) for Excel generation.
Before RK was introduced, each employee spent about 1.5 hours manually creating Excel files after arriving at work. Now, by running RK at night, I can have the Excel files ready when I get to work, which saves me a lot of time.

In addition, we use RK to automate routine tasks, such as inputting shipping information into our sales management system.
Currently, we are also working on creating new scenarios based on field interviews and requests, responding to the needs and demands directly from the field.”

“Until a few years ago, when considering business efficiency within our company, our focus was mainly on "system modifications." However, it was realized that even with the currently implemented software, there were aspects that we had not fully mastered and features that had not been utilized at all. It was suggested that by effectively utilizing these aspects, we could enhance operational efficiency without the need for system modifications.
As a result, we established the "Information Utilization Committee" to explore ways to improve efficiency while utilizing existing assets.
During the committee's exploration of operational improvements, one employee shared a story about automating tasks using a free RPA (Robotic Process Automation) software, introducing us to the existence of such tools.
After researching and comparing various RPA software from different manufacturers, we decided on Keyence's RK for the following reasons.”

“The free RPA had limited functionality and in order to do what we wanted we would have to switch to the paid version. Given that, I thought it would be better to use RK, which seemed easy to use and included full support.”

“We were able to significantly shorten work hours and reduce careless mistakes.”

“The term “efficiency improvement” has connotations that can be perceived negatively. Some people may feel worried that they could lose their job, or that they are being told that their work is a waste of time.”

“I paid particular attention to the way I communicated the message. Instead of repeating the words “improving work efficiency” too often, we had a dialogue about their automation needs and asked questions such as “If this aspect of the workflow is eliminated, would your work become more efficient?”. That’s what I did. Additionally, once automation was implemented, the company repeatedly communicated that there are tasks that require human thought and input, and that the company wants to focus time on these tasks.
We also used a large monitor to show RK in action as a “demo.” When people actually see it in operation, they seem to think it’s not a bad thing. Thanks to this initiative, the impression of RK has improved considerably.”

“The best thing about it is how easy it is to use. I especially like the fact that everything on the screen is written very clearly and straightforward. The menu categories, such as “Excel” → “Cell operation”, are well-organized, so you can create scenarios without any confusion. Even when using image recognition to select the appropriate button, the results are very accurate and give us confidence there will be no issues. Our sales management system has some quirks, and the accuracy of image recognition was really helpful, especially since on-screen coordinates couldn't be used to determine positions of where to click.”

“Yes. After the first few training and support sessions, I was able to use it without any problems, and I haven’t had many questions since then.”
When asked about any difficulties, “it was actually quite simple, so much so that I’m a little at a loss for an answer. If you have even just a little programming experience, you should be able to use it within the same day.”

“The trick is to create an environment that makes it easy for RK developers to do their work. Instead of just loosely discussing ideas for automation, there needs to be a concrete workflow and a breakdown of the tasks and details that need to be automated. It’s much easier to produce good results if you explain the process step-by-step.
If you run into any issues with the automation not working properly, you need to also consider your own systems as a potential source of the problem. For example, with our sales management system, the login screen did not appear immediately upon startup, so there were times when RK operations were too fast and we were unable to log in successfully. In that case, I solved the problem by creating a scenario where I intentionally caused the login to fail and then tried logging in again. One trick is to create a scenario that can effectively absorb problems like this, even if they occur in areas other than RK.”

“RK has been a great tool for helping us to accomplish improvements in business efficiency. However, there is still a lot of room for improvement, and we are continuously getting new ideas from everyone on what they would like to automate. We also only have a limited number of people that can use the software currently, so the plan is to get a few others trained on it. Since our company has several other locations, the eventual goal would be to have them adopt this platform as well.”