Hitachi Construction Machinery Wins Red Hat APAC Innovation Awards 2023

Tokyo, October 11, 2023 – Hitachi Construction Machinery Co., Ltd. (TSE: 6305 President and Executive Officer: Masafumi Senzaki, "Hitachi Construction Machinery") won two prizes at the Red Hat APAC Innovation Awards 2023, in the categories of "Digital Transformation" and "Cloud-Native Development." The awards were presented at the Red Hat Summit Connect 2023 event organized by Red Hat K.K., the Japanese subsidiary of the world's leading provider of open source solutions (Shibuya-ku, Tokyo; President and Representative Director: Miho Miura, "Red Hat").

In the "Digital Transformation" category, organizations are evaluated on their achievements in effectively resolving IT issues and creating business value as a digital enterprise. In the "Cloud-Native Development" category, organizations are evaluated on their performance in using agile methods in the development, maintenance, and deployment of business apps.

The Hitachi Construction Machinery Group established the DX Promotion Group in April 2020 as an organization that operates across the group under the direct control of the company president, and has been promoting a company-wide program to develop approximately 1,000 digital human resources in FY2022 and FY2023. Based on the "Customer Interest First" (CIF) values that Hitachi Construction Machinery has embraced in the development, production, sales, and services of construction machinery up to this point, the company has promoted agile development to conduct research, verification, and improvement in a short period of time, placed emphasis on operational excellence, and pursued efforts to improve corporate value through business value creation and business process reforms. By embracing these CIF values, the Hitachi Construction Machinery Group aims to grow as a true solutions provider for customers through its unique approach to digital transformation.

In addition, through the ConSite service solution for remotely monitoring construction machinery, the Hitachi Construction Machinery Group has helped solve the customer issues of reducing life cycle costs and improving safety and productivity. To ensure further such contributions to customers in the future, it is important to promote the global spread of ConSite while also strengthening the relationships with dealers who are closely involved with customers in each region and establishing a support system in the digital domain.

Accordingly, in April 2021, Hitachi Construction Machinery established the Dealer Network Acceleration Project (hereinafter "DNA Project") in the Global Marketing Group as a cross-functional activity that spans the departments responsible for sales, parts and services, IT, and other department. In the DNA Project, Hitachi Construction Machinery has received consulting from open source solutions provider Red Hat, and established an in-house agile development system. The project promotes the development of mechanisms for streamlining the workflow between dealers and Hitachi Construction Machinery, as well as systems that enable customers to efficiently manage and operate their entire fleets of equipment.

These awards are a recognition of the efforts of Hitachi Construction Machinery, which is primarily engaged in manufacturing, to develop digital human capital resources and foster a corporate culture oriented toward becoming a solutions provider for customer issues. The awards also show that even companies that operate globally are capable of implementing agile development on par with that of venture companies.

Comment from Seimei Toonishi, Hitachi Construction Machinery CDIO, President of New Business Creation Unit

These awards mark an important milestone in the transformation of Hitachi Construction Machinery's corporate and organizational culture. Based on our code of conduct founded on the principles of "Challenge, Customer, and Communication," which are central to the Kenkijin Spirit, we will continue to create new value as a close and reliable partner that works together with customers to solve their issues. Going forward, we aim to build an agile development team that invariably consists of 300 members by 2025 and pursue changes that enhance the agility of our organization and business culture. The Hitachi Construction Machinery Group is currently working to create new value based on "DX Platform" that can utilize data collected from customers' machines as well as a variety of content data. In the future, we aim to establish a data monetization business model that can generate revenue by utilizing and commercializing data as a management resource, and develop an ecosystem that promotes collaborative creation with various business partners.

In the Hitachi Construction Machinery Group's "BUILDING THE FUTURE 2025" medium-term management plan that began in FY2023, the pursuit of "Delivering innovative solutions for customer needs" is positioned as the top of the four core strategies and reflects our aim to grow as a true solutions provider. These awards demonstrate that some of our efforts are greatly appreciated. Looking ahead, the Hitachi Construction Machinery Group will continue to utilize digital technology to deepen the solutions we provide at all points of contact with customers.

Trademark notice

ConSite is the registered trademark of Hitachi Construction Machinery Co., Ltd.

Related information

About Hitachi Construction Machinery Co., Ltd.

Hitachi Construction Machinery Co., Ltd. (TSE: 6305), headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, is a construction machinery manufacturer which globally deploys development, manufacturing, sales, and service businesses for its hydraulic excavators, wheel loaders, compaction equipment, and mining machinery, etc. In addition to its new machinery business, Hitachi Construction Machinery is expanding its "value chain businesses" of parts and services, remanufacturing (parts and machines), rentals, and used equipment as it aims to grow together with customers as a true solutions provider that offers innovative solutions to customers. With roughly 25,000 employees around the world, the consolidated sales revenue for Hitachi Construction Machinery was ¥1,279.5 billion for fiscal year 2022 (ended March 2023) with an overseas sales revenue ratio of 82%. For more details, please see the the company's website.

Information contained in this news release is current as of the date of the press announcement, but may be subject to change without prior notice.