Japan funds 6 supply chain resilience projects in India

The Japanese government will support six Indian projects as part of its efforts to diversify the risks associated with supply-chain disruptions. The companies that will implement these projects in India are ACSL Corporation, Sagri Co. Ltd, Fujifilm Corporation, Showa Denko Materials Co. Ltd, Instalimb Inc., and Denso Corporation.

Overall, Japan has allocated around $8.6 million for eight projects under the “Programme for the Supply Chain Resilience in the Indo-Pacific Region,” in its third supplementary budget for the fiscal year 2021. The other two projects will be implemented by Japanese companies in Australia.

In a statement, the Japanese Embassy in India said the eight projects (out of which six are from India) were selected on April 25, 2022, from the public applications that were received until April 11, 2022. These projects are to be implemented by March 2023.

“There are diverse risks associated with supply chain disruptions that companies are facing these days. In order to respond to such risks, supply-chain visualisation, data linkage and supply chain diversification using digital technology becomes paramount for companies to improve their business environment,” the embassy stated.

These projects will initially conduct a demonstration programme to help Japanese companies visualise their supply chains, upgrade logistics, facilitate trade procedures and diversify their production bases.

Thus, the ACSL Corporation will establish a master database of manufacturing components, which will enable access to information across the manufacturing process so the digitisation of the drone manufacturing process can be promoted. Sagri will reduce the usage of chemical fertiliser, thereby reducing carbon emission in farmland through informatising farmland and visualising SC of chemical fertilizer with satellite data and AI.

Fujifilm will utilise or expand the cancer checkup facility in Bengaluru to provide affordable but Japanese-style quality medical checkup services to people from different backgrounds to create a market for medical checkups in India by establishing a medical checkup database. Showa will promote the creation and operation of an end-to-end database for semi-conductor related products from suppliers to customers, identify key risks in real-time, improve the speed of business decisions, including risk responses, and build a database that includes customers and suppliers.

Instalimb will deploy 3D printed prosthetic foot software as SaaS in India and Denso will conduct a feasibility study of the cold chain marketplace, which will lead to the matching of shippers and logistics providers as part of the approved projects.