Level: Beginner
【Presenter】
Kyohei Hanaoka, Advanced Technology Research and Development Center, Showa Denko Materials Co., Ltd.
Yuki Nagai, Advanced Technology Research and Development Center, Showa Denko Materials Co., Ltd.
Koji Ohta, Showa Denko Materials Co., Ltd. Information and Communication Development Center
[Presentation overview]
Since around 2017, Showa Denko Materials has been promoting a company-wide initiative to incorporate statistical methods into the development of functional materials, which are our main products. Functional material development is an extremely complex design optimization problem that involves tuning dozens of design variables to optimize multiple objective variables, and trial and error is repeated every day to solve it.
Statistical methods such as design of experiments are effective in reducing the burden of such trial and error, but it is not easy for many materials researchers who have not received statistical education at university to incorporate statistical methods into their work and make full use of them. That's why we turned our attention to JMP, which is easy to use even for statistics novices. Centering on JMP, we have been training dual-skilled human resources with both statistical skills and material knowledge for four years.
In this announcement
・Significance and effect of promoting JMP & statistics as a materials manufacturer
・Efforts to develop in-house data scientists at our company
・Education and dissemination activities by JMP users themselves in each department
I will talk about this from the standpoint of the person in charge of promotion.
*The release of the video of this announcement has ended on January 31, 2022.
The word “AI” is gaining popularity around the world, but I think there is too much thinking that AI can do anything, skipping on-site experience and unique mechanisms. In reality, I think we need a cycle in which engineers analyze data with their own eyes, formulate rational experimental plans based on their experience, and utilize them in practice and decision-making. In order to proceed smoothly, it is really important to improve the data analysis skills of individual engineers while making full use of convenient applications such as JMP that do not interfere with their work. Obtaining the understanding and approval of the organization and top management to disseminate activities is not easy in Japan, where profits and results are driven, and there are many cases in which grassroots activities fail. Your company's efforts are truly wonderful. Please continue and develop it in the future.
