'Good Companies in Japan' (Article No.4): 'Eightfold Satisfaction' Management for Everyone's Happiness

JFS Newsletter No.190 (June 2018)

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The JFS newsletter has introduced a selected series of examples of good companies in Japan, referring to the book "Jizoku Kano-na Shihon Shugi" ("Sustainable Capitalism," written in Japanese) by Kazuhiro Arai, director and asset manager of Kamakura Toshin, a Japanese investment company. In the final article of this series, we introduce other good companies that were not included in the categories we have introduced thus far.

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Japan Weather Association and NEC Collaborate to Reduce Food Waste Using Big Data

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A new initiative in Japan is tackling the global issue of food loss and waste by attempting to eliminate mismatches between food supply and demand. This "Supply and Demand Optimization Platform" can share and utilize crucial information in the entire value chain.

The Japan Weather Association (JWA) and NEC Corp., a leading Japanese electronics company, announced on February 28, 2018, that they would collaborate to optimize supply and demand in entire value chains, including manufacturing, distribution, logistics and sales in various industries and sectors.

To begin with, they applied their platform to the food value chain. By optimizing the supply and demand of not only individual industries but the entire value chain by providing user companies with demand forecasting data, inventory information and sales results, they aim to help address the social issue of food loss and waste.

The platform utilizes a technology called "Heterogeneous Mixture Learning Technology" developed by NEC. Besides automatically discovering specific patterns based on correlations in big data, it can switch reference patterns depending on the analyzed data. With traditional machine learning it is generally difficult to discover more than a single pattern, but this new platform has high-precision prediction and anomaly detection even in data with varying patterns.

One key feature of this particular technology is that it clearly shows the underlying explanations for the forecasts it makes, and this facilitates smoother decision-making and implementation. With its solid track record in consulting on commodity demand forecasting, JWA will provide meteorological data for the platform's data analysis, and also offer commodity demand forecasting services using the data.

To boost the platform's accuracy, the partners have been conducting a demonstration trial for beverages since January 2018. Besides demand forecasting for the retail industry, they have already begun to see a significant improvement in the accuracy of product demand forecasting for manufacturers by utilizing information directly associated with consumption, including retail sales data, and weather and event information.

The platform is expected to help reduce food loss and waste, through production planning and order planning based on highly accurate demand forecasts, and adjusting the supply-demand balance based on fluctuations in demand forecasts. The partners are also considering future development of the platform beyond demand forecasting, by linking with operational systems such as supply-and-demand planning, production planning, order planning, and inventory management.

Renewable Energy Institute Releases "Restructuring of Japan's Bio-energy Strategy": Recommendation of Review on FIT Scheme

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The Renewable Energy Institute, a public interested corporate foundation in Japan, released "Restructuring of Japan's bio-energy strategy." Regarding this energy, with its large potential in Japan and being expected to contribute to the realization toward the decarbonized society, it presents an immediate strategy along with its domestic problems, as well as clarifying the long-term vision.

According to the report, a Feed-In Tariff (FIT) scheme is required to change in the power sector as soon as possible. In Japan, the heat utilization of bio-energy is not being fully developed, while a co-generation system would provide a high power conversion efficiency of 80 to 90 percent. Therefore, granting a bonus to co-generation plants under the FIT scheme would promote better heat utilization.

Also, a new coal-fired plant would be able to get support from Japan's FIT scheme if it co-combusts biomass with coal. In order to reduce fossil fuel consumption, this type of generation plant should be excluded from the FIT scheme, regardless of mixed combustion rates, the report said.

For other strategies, it suggests securing biomass fuels derived from domestic forest resources and preventing wood resources from deteriorating, and utilizing waste such as rice husk/paddy straw and unused wood products, such as bamboo in the agricultural sector.

The Institute will deploy positive activities based on strategies in the report to promote the utilization of bio-energy with its characteristics and roles.

Osaka City University Develops CO2 Consuming Biofuel Cell Utilizing Microalgae Spirulina

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Osaka City University announced on April 25, 2018, that it succeeded in developing a new biofuel cell system with the functions of a solar cell and the ability of carbon dioxide conversion. Utilizing the photosynthesis function of spirulina, a biomass of dark-green unicellular microalgae, this solar-light driven biofuel cell generates electricity by consuming CO2 in water as source material and produces formic acid as a byproduct while generating electricity.

The team led by Prof. Yutaka Amao in the Research Center for Artificial Photosynthesis of Osaka City University had focused on the effective oxygen-evolution photosynthetic function activity spirulina shows in water. Using a device containing CO2-saturated buffer solution with two electrodes coupled with each other therein, an electrode on which a photosynthetic membrane derived from spirulina is immobilized and another electrode on which formic-acid dehydrogenase is immobilized, they found a certain amount of electric current (measuring 55 microamperes) flowing through the circuit when visible-light is applied to the photosynthetic-membrane immobilized electrode. They also found that formic acid was produced above the formic-acid-dehydrogenase immobilized electrode by reduction of CO2. They also confirmed the evolution of oxygen and reduction of hydrogen carbonate ions derived from CO2.

Thus, this biofuel cell introduced a new technology to create bioenergy that not only consumes CO2, a major global warming substance, as a useful source for generating power, but also produces an organic molecule, formic acid. Formic acid has a large usage potential, such as a hydrogen-energy storage medium, a synthetic material for organic chemicals, and a solvent for inorganic-organic chemical compounds. It is expected that this technology will become an effective tool to realize a low-carbon society.