Infor, a global leader in business cloud software specialized by industry, announced that Kyowa Chemical Industry, a manufacturer and seller of chemical products for industry and healthcare, has implemented Infor M3 Cloud, Infor’s ERP software for large global manufacturers, distributors, and after-sales service providers, to enhance business data visibility and business efficiency in its global operations as it gears up for international expansion.

Kyowa Chemical Industry develops safe and secure products that are both people- and eco-friendly. It manufactures and sells industrial products, pharmaceuticals and food additives using the magnesium in seawater as the main raw material, and possesses the largest share in the domestic market for inorganic industrial chemicals and active pharmaceutical ingredients. In recent years, it has sold an increasing percentage of products overseas, mainly for industrial use, and with five production/sales sites overseas, including in the Netherlands and China, it is also focusing on international expansion.

To further grow its business in Japan and overseas, Kyowa Chemical Industry is working to achieve business data visibility and business efficiency improvements. Close information sharing with overseas sites, in particular, is necessary for it to achieve a stable supply of products while expanding its business globally. It was unable to reform its business practices with the previous office computer-based system it has used for sales, purchasing and inventory management.

As its office computer systems aged, Kyowa Chemical Industry decided to adopt Infor M3 Cloud because it packages together all the functionalities required for global sales, purchasing and inventory management, and enables centralized data management with a single system. Another factor for the decision was that Infor has extensive experience in production management for domestic and international process manufacturing industries, and Kyowa Chemical Industry is considering adopting a production management package in the future.

Using Infor M3 Cloud, Kyowa Chemical Industry built a new business platform for managing its sales, purchasing and inventory, which it launched across its domestic sales offices in April 2019. The platform is being rolled out in the company’s overseas sales offices to enable centralized management of global sales, purchasing and inventory information, which will accelerate information sharing and business decision-making with overseas sites. Promoting standardization of skills-dependent business processes, Infor M3 is also expected to become the cornerstone of future company-wide initiatives to improve business efficiency. In addition to sales, purchasing and inventory management, Kyowa Chemical Industry is considering using Infor M3 as the core factor of the system to realize optimal coordination of supply and demand on a global scale.

“At Kyowa Chemical Industry, we have continually worked on enhancing our sales and production sites in Japan and overseas to directly provide our customers around the world with unique products. We adopted Infor’s ERP cloud solution to enable connection with branches overseas, which are growing in importance, and to drive business efficiencies,” says Mitsunori Kado, director and head of human resources at Kyowa Chemical Industry. “Going forward, we hope to draw from the extensive process of manufacturing knowledge of Infor to continue enhancing our business platforms and expand our range of high-safety, eco-friendly products globally.”