Consulting Services for Business Reformation ProjectWhy are consulting services needed?

What are consulting services?

TOYO offers an array of services for plant owners, including project planning, feasibility studies, project management and support for operation and maintenance. For domestic production and distribution system owners in particular, we also offer support for supply chain optimization that encompasses production planning and distribution network improvement. Another feature of our services for domestic businesses is support to facilitate the retention of technologies within an organization.

While consulting services for plant construction projects involve planning, feasibility studies, project management, and support for operation and maintenance in relation to plant construction, domestic clients usually possess most of these functions for their operations. For this reason, we principally diagnose existing facilities and analyze operation, maintenance, distribution and other tasks, and then prepare facility plans or make proposals for improvement.

Why are consulting services needed?

In Japan, manufacturing and distribution businesses are exposed to fierce competition, reflecting the maturity of the manufactured goods market, increasingly competitive emerging economies, and surging prices of source materials.
For this reason, these businesses have hired outside specialists not only for constructing manufacturing and distribution facilities, but also for tasks that they have conventionally carried out themselves, such as facility planning, operation and maintenance. This is enabling them to concentrate their resources on core business areas to achieve greater competitiveness.

For example, when constructing a production system that is able to respond precisely to demands from the supply chain, it is effective in the facility planning stage to use a production system simulation that assumes diverse market changes.
In general, however, building a simulation model requires expert technologies. Moreover, highly experienced experts are needed to assess differences between the simulation results and actual situations.
Even though facility operation is still largely the province of the plant owner, participation by specialists is also needed when applying state-of-the-art optimization tools. Also, an outsider’s viewpoint is effective when reforming operation tasks, so hiring a specialist in business reforms is desired.

A great deal of maintenance work is outsourced. Companies today seek not only cost savings but also clear maintenance policies. For example, an expert in materials and facility maintenance is needed when preparing a risk-based maintenance plan that applies material technologies.
Even though specialists are needed for preparing even more sophisticated facility plans or for configuring a system for operation and maintenance, plant owners do not need to retain them on an ongoing basis. Rather, these services are being sought on a consulting basis.