By leveraging advanced supply chain visibility, Roland DG significantly reduced safety stock by hundreds of millions of yen and avoided tens of millions of yen in annual air freight costs.
About Roland DG
Headquartered in Hamamatsu City, Shizuoka Prefecture in Japan, Roland DG Corporation is a global leader in digital solutions, delivering products to over 200 countries and regions around the world. The company empowers anyone to express their creativity and engage in Monozukuri (the art of making things) easily. Renowned for its innovations in digital printing and 3D manufacturing technologies, Roland DG provides high-precision printing and cutting solutions for manufacturing, signage, and packaging sectors. Its flagship commercial inkjet printers are widely adopted for applications ranging from advertising, signage and interior décor. With a robust portfolio that includes 3D production technologies and cloud-based services, Roland DG addresses a broad spectrum of customer needs.
Challenge
Shifting to end-to-end supply chain optimization through TOC and reassessing the value of lead time reduction
Since its founding, Roland DG has valued communication with partners both locally and globally, striving to grow together through continuous efforts. Under strong executive leadership, the company has remained agile in responding to market changes, while advancing value-added manufacturing and actively embracing cross-functional initiatives to build a sustainable supply chain.
In 2022, Roland DG began a major reform aimed at achieving holistic optimization in SCM (Supply Chain Management) through the adoption of the TOC (Theory of Constraints). As part of this effort, the SCM Department was integrated into the Production Division, and the organizational structure was overhauled. Additionally, shifting production planning to a replenishment-based production model, which had been under consideration for some time, was accelerated. In 2024, the company kicked off a large-scale project spanning the entire process from parts procurement to finished goods shipment, as well as global stock management in overseas business units.
At the heart of this initiative is a strategic transformation from a “push-based supply approach”—relying on sales forecasts from buyers around the world—to a “pull-based replenishment model” centrally managed by headquarters based on actual consumption. This transformation required the redesign of production, sales, and logistics processes, along with a fundamental reassessment of Roland DG’s entire SCM architecture.
When we looked at the challenges in production planning from the PSI perspective, the fluctuation of transportation lead times had a big impact. We thought visibility and management of lead times were key.
Naomi Suzuki
Group Leader, Global Transportation Management Group, Logistics Management Unit
Additionally, in recent years, the business environment has become more uncertain than ever – ranging from the global disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, which triggered repeated cycles of stock shortages and overstocking, to prolonged transportation lead times influenced by geopolitical risks. With future outlooks remaining unpredictable, Roland DG has come to recognize the value of lead time management. With any uncertainty, even a one-day fluctuation in lead time could significantly affect stock levels and undermine replenishment planning.
Roland DG has developed a strong awareness that to “replenish only what has been consumed in a timely manner,” it is essential to precisely understand and manage actual lead times. This growing awareness underscored the need for better visibility in the supply chain at the company.
“Without real-time visibility to accurately capture lead times in a timely manner and the ability to analyze trends, our new replenishment model simply wouldn’t be viable,” said Ms. Naomi Suzuki, Group Leader of Global Transportation Management Group, Logistics Management Unit. “This strong sense of urgency and commitment at the management level fueled the implementation of a visibility solution.”
Solution
Implementation of project44’s visibility solution
Roland DG conducted a thorough evaluation of multiple solution vendors. Key criteria was the ability to support not only one transport mode (ocean shipments) but also multimodal transport modes that could enable the solution to scale with their evolving global supply chain needs. The company also prioritized robust visibility features, including real-time data access, flexible data usability, scalability across global sites, and access to rich, actionable insights. After a comprehensive evaluation across multiple criteria, Roland DG selected project44 as its visibility partner.
Immediate value: Enhanced cross-functional communication
One of the most immediate results following implementation was a noticeable improvement in the speed and quality of internal communication—driven by enhanced supply chain visibility. Previously, shipment status data had been siloed within the logistics team, which often created bottlenecks for other departments such as sales or overseas business units. With real-time visibility now accessible across teams, all relevant stakeholders can instantly check shipment status and receive timely updates.
Having critical information readily available—such as current container location and estimated time of arrival—enabled the company to identify potential risks of delays earlier. This also facilitated decision-making within the supply chain management team when disruptions occurred.
Data-driven lead time analysis and optimization
Transportation data provided by project44 is used in their business intelligence (BI) tool that was co-developed by Roland DG’s logistics team and digital transformation (DX) team.
This visibility data goes beyond simple shipment tracking—it enables deeper, actionable analysis, including:
- Quantitative measurement of transportation lead times (actual data based)
- Segment-level trend analysis (median, variance, distribution)
- Validates impact of critical company initiatives (Before/After comparison)
Armed with this deep analysis, the logistics team can now understand the latest trends surrounding lead time and determine appropriate actions to shorten lead time. As data utilization expands, a strong foundation for “data-driven decision-making and action” has been established throughout Roland DG’s global supply chain. This means visibility data has become a cornerstone to drive the company’s continuous improvement (PDCA: Plan, Do, Check, Act) cycle, enabling smarter, faster, and more strategic supply chain operations.
Examples of analysis
Lead time breakdown analysis and bottleneck identification
The logistics team at Roland DG broke down the overall transportation lead time into the following key segments and analyzed the median and variance for each segment:
- From container readiness to arrival at the port of loading
- Dwell time at the port (CY dwell)
- Ocean transit time (Port-to-Port)
- Delivery from unloading port to final destination
They then created color-coded graphs to show monthly trends and shared this analysis regularly with the team. Visualizing this data made it easy for team members to easily identify where delays are occurring, and which routes or carriers show higher variability.
Route optimization through comparative analysis of transshipment and direct transport
Historically, lack of visibility hindered oversight of triangular trade routes. Roland DG is actively analyzing lead times in triangular trade transportation and has begun gaining valuable insights. For example, through their lead time analysis, the logistics team discovered that there is a direct shipping option available for Thailand-to-the United States lane, but not transshipment. Then Roland DG discussed with their freight forwarder partners to put forward a policy that “prioritized direct services”. This change, supported by ongoing monitoring and collaboration with freight partners, significantly reduced transit times. In addition, the logistics team analyzed transshipments at ports to identify “what segment is having unexpected delays”. Based on the results of this analysis, Roland DG became able to proactively negotiate with external partners.
Lead time stabilization enables stock optimization
Previously, conservative stock planning was a common strategy to mitigate transportation uncertainty. However, through taking measures based on visibility and analysis of lead times, Roland DG has successfully stabilized transportation lead times. This stabilization enabled them to re-evaluate optimal safety stock levels. In other words, they can now improve the accuracy of stock management, which also opened the way to major improvements that impact overall business operations – such as improved on-time delivery rate, cost reduction, better cash flow, and enhanced customer satisfaction.
Furthermore, Roland DG references predicted ETA (Estimated Time of Arrival) provided from project44 for stock replenishment decisions, allowing them to fine-tune replenishment timing. Now Roland DG is able to implement a stock strategy that can maintain a stable supply structure while reducing “just-in-case stock piling”. As a result, they achieved outstanding reduction in safety stock by hundreds of millions of yen.
Avoidance of emergency air transport costs through improved accuracy in air shipment decision
project44’s visibility data helps the team understand the current location and estimated arrival date of containers in ocean transit more accurately, which had a major impact on air transportation decisions too. For products with approaching delivery deadlines, by cross-checking the ETAs of in-transit shipments with existing stock, Roland DG is able to determine “whether air shipping is really necessary for that item” with confidence. As a result, within the first year after project44’s visibility solution was implemented, Roland DG avoided emergency air transport costs of tens of millions yen.
Ripple effects
Change of mindset in the team through data utilization
The visibility initiative sparked a broader cultural transformation within the logistics department. Team members have developed an awareness toward the shared goal for “lead times reduction”, fostering a new culture where they proactively propose solutions and take actions for improvement based on data. Standout examples are glowing collaboration like “gain visibility in booking status with local 3PLs”, “Latest trend analysis of lead time delays,” and “refinement of stock buildup decision.” Among these, the company saw a positive effect of an extensive initiative with bidirectional actions between Roland DG logistics team and 3PL company in Thailand—The two parties now hold weekly check-ins to review booking statuses together, resulting in improved operational efficiency and reduced lead time.
As mentioned earlier, stabilization of transport lead times through visibility enables the team to lower safety stock levels and reduce air freight costs—both highly impactful from a business perspective. The logistics team believes that lead time analysis, powered by visibility data, has driven cross-functional collaboration across the company. This glowing collaboration is expected to support the optimization of the entire value chain. “We are seeing the positive effects of this initiative spreading throughout the organization—beyond what we originally expected,” said Mr. Yukinori Yamamoto, Manager of Logistics Management Unit.
Accomplishments
“Improved reliability of lead times” brought about reduced safety stock levels
After the implementation project44, Roland DG realized substantial outcomes within a short timeframe.
- Operational efficiency: The logistics department and overseas stakeholders can grasp shipping status and ETAs in real time, which accelerated their decision-making.
- Optimized decision for air shipment : Clear ETA data minimized local overstocking at the local site. Additionally, in the first year of implementation, unnecessary air freight costs of tens of millions of yen were avoided.
- Smarter routing: Through proactive negotiations with 3PLs and freight forwarders, improved transport planning and direct route adoption cut lead times by up to 26 days.
- Strengthened collaboration with overseas offices: Better coordination between headquarters and overseas offices improved operational efficiencies and customer satisfaction.
- Enhanced accuracy of stock replenishment decisions: Review optimal stock level by analyzing lead time including predicted ETA, which enabled to reduce safety stock by hundreds of millions of yen
Even the management team was surprised that we were able to achieve results this quickly and to such an extent. Project44 has already become an indispensable presence for our Logistics Management Unit.
Yukinori Yamamoto
Manager, Logistics Management Unit
Strategic outlook
These outcomes are more than operational wins—they mark the beginning of a long-term journey to maximize results in the entire value chain with SCM at its core. Going forward, Roland DG aims to further deepen collaboration across their organization using shared visibility data, to leverage the insights derived from that data, and optimize their business to establish a sustainable competitive advantage.
