Taisei Uratani
Business Process Innovation Group Business Process Management Dept.

The role of the Business Process Innovation Group, to which I belong, is to create an environment where employees of Mitsubishi Materials Group can focus on their core tasks. Every day, we reassess various applications, administrative tasks, and other ancillary tasks across departments and locations, providing support to improve and stream- line these processes.
For example, we are driving business process innovation by fundamentally rethinking our operations through initiatives such as promoting paperless operations with IT tools, revamping in- ternal systems, and eliminating non-essential tasks, all under the slogan “Eliminate, Reduce, and Change” (commonly known as NHK, based on the Japanese terms nakusu, herasu, and kaeru). These initiatives vary in scale, ranging from company-wide efforts to location-specific projects. In addition to organizational improvement activities, we have set up a consultation service on our internal website to address employee questions and concerns related to business process innovation.

I have been a member of the Business Process Innovation Group since 2021. While I am now responsible for leading business process innovation for the entire Mitsubishi Materials Group at the head office, my previous roles included three and a half years in production management for cutting tools at the Tsukuba Plant and five years in domestic sales of cutting tools at a Tokyo sales office. Although I had some experience improving business processes at the departmental level, I lacked specialized skills or expertise in this field. In fact, I was the type of person who struggled to break away from conventional ways of doing things.
Meanwhile, I recognized the need to rethink business processes. The challenge here is to introduce new methods and overcome the difficulties of getting started. Our current focus is on enabling people to actually experience the benefits of business process innovation. For example, we are creating opportunities for employees to try out seemingly complex IT tools by streaming demonstration videos and holding training sessions where they can practice using the tools firsthand. Through these efforts, we aim to foster an organization where every employee is encouraged to review and improve their own work processes.

The Business Process Innovation Group was established in 2021, and many employees are still unaware of it. Since December 2023, we have been holding an “Operational Efficiency Café” once a week in the head office cafeteria, where everyone is welcome to stop by. Since FY2025, we have also launched the “Pop-up Café,” which visits various company locations. Through these initiatives, we aim to get people to remember our name and feel comfortable reaching out to us for consultations. Our motto is, “Never pass the buck on a consultation request,” and perhaps thanks to this motto, the number of consultations has been steadily increasing.
In the workplaces I have been a part of, I have often found that ancillary tasks, such as documentation, take up valuable time, leaving little for the core tasks that should be our priority. For this reason, I strongly believe that it is essential for each workplace to be able to focus on its core tasks. To achieve this, we will continue to drive business process innovation by involving the entire company. My mission is to create an environment in which each employee can focus on tasks that contribute to the company’s value and ultimately support its growth.