FPT to digitally-transform 90% of Nippon Steel Spiral Pipe VN's operation

The application of FPT Software's akaMES manufacturing operating system is significant improvement for Nippon Steel Spiral Pipe Vietnam (NPV) after 10 years of operation. With high flexibility, spiral-welded steel pipes being the main line of product, all production procedures were documented by hand and data had to be processed/input manually on spreadsheets and management systems. This process is time-consuming and is highly susceptible to human-error, creating inconsistencies in production management, costing additional time to process data due to being not synchronized. For example, it took 3 days for the factory staff to manually locate a steel pile in a 100,000m2 warehouse.

Overview of NPV plant

The aforementioned problem was proposed by NPV to FPT Software when converting their factories. A survey was conducted by FPT Software followed by the evaluation and consultation to homogenize data platforms, creating a "tailored" solution to the automated production processes based on the akaMES operating system for NPV.

With akaMES, the entire production process in NPV factories, from the first step of importing raw materials to the last step of exporting digitally transformed finished products, data is synchronized and linked across departments, with a common production plan.

The system's highlight is the compatibility with portable mobile devices, making maintenance and upgrades easier. Data is recorded by scanning QR codes and synchronizing directly, marking coordinates, minimizing errors, allowing transparency between departments and personnel at all levels to actively arrange work.

Mr. Nguyen Duc Hien, an expert of FPT Software considered this a difficult project due to the complicated production process and high requirements. But with akaMES, the entire production process of NPV has been digitally transformed, eliminating nearly 90% of handwritten documents in production management. In the next step, FPT Software will continue its push for 100% digital transformation, helping to identify and eliminate errors early in production”.

Along with the automation of production processes and stages, NPV will merge akaMES with the ERP (enterprise resource management) system under the assistance of FPT Software, modulating finance...optimizing production capacity and operation.

“This is the first major innovation in 10 years since the company’s foundation. With FPT Software’s expertise to make this powerful innovation, we believe the project will be successful.” – Mr. Hatano Koji, a representative of NPV affirmed the plant's determination for digital transformation.

akaMES belongs to the ecosystem of applications by FPT to boost any firm or organization’s digital transformation, productivity; reduce cost, utilize resources and overcome upcoming obstacles. akaMES includes applications to manage information, tracking product’s origins in the factory, ranging from input to the final product and export to end-users. akaMES helps customers to solve 3 core problems in production: real-time production management; Integrated data and display KPIs to compute the cost of production over each transmission line.

akaMES is now being deployed to customers in the automobile and steel manufacturing sector in Vietnam, Japan, and Malaysia. In 2021, akaMES will expand to the wood and textile production market. There will be new features to add in the service such as: automatic production scheduling on Artificial Intelligence (AI); Data analysis of production and, material forecasting and sourcing planning.

In 2020 akaMES won the Gold medal in the category "New innovative product in the manufacturing industry" of the Stevie Awards 2020 Asia-Pacific. The only award that recognizes innovation in business management regionally and also a top global-ranked in business sector, founded in 2002.