As the tobacco market changes at a dizzying rate, we built an internal platform system that allows us to respond to those changes immediately, to pass down and create a tobacco culture.
Product Development
Yukari Asano
Supervision of standardization and specifications for tobacco products
We operate and manage a company-wide internal platform system in anticipation for the future of the tobacco industry.
I began my career doing work to analyze and evaluate tobacco products and have also been involved in product design and development. My duties are to carry out simulations and make proposals on how to combine elements such as tobacco leaves, blends, paper types, and filters to create cigarettes with taste, flavor, and smoking sensations that can satisfy consumers. I worked in Japan for my first two years and was then stationed for the next two years in Germany, so I have participated in the design and development of products intended for overseas markets. After a full series of development processes is completed and the product specifications are finalized, I am responsible for accurately communicating that information to production lines and divisions responsible for logistics. I am currently engaged in the operation of a platform system to distribute such information within the company and coordinate work operations between the divisions. I have been involved with this system since its launch, and my daily work consists of aiming to improve it by discussing with other related divisions on matters such as design, operation, and data input management.
At times when I felt uncertainty about the future, I stopped and re-examined the significance of my work, and found my own vision.
The introduction of an internal platform system is a large-scale change that involves many divisions in the JT Group, and greatly affects their work methods. Development divisions have development-related needs, and factories have factory-related needs. Since each division has its own unique requirements, I must listen to and consider all of them, make adjustments, and organize and complete my work by the specified date. Of course, those measures for coordination are not easy. So, I have at times asked myself, “Is there really any point to this introduction?” or “What can be done to benefit everyone?” At such times, I reflected again in my own way on the importance of my work and its benefits to the company. Introducing an integrated system that connects different divisions would provide the advantages of dramatically increasing the efficiency of information distribution, and coordinating various tasks in shorter periods of time. I believed it was an initiative that looks forward to the future and enables us to respond immediately to the dizzying pace of changes in the global tobacco market. While working on it, I always explained my own vision for the future of the JT Group which will likely be reached in five or ten years. It enabled me to work together with others and achieve my mission.
The tobacco industry is one that creates culture. It is my desire to create a new tobacco culture.
The tobacco industry is one that is greatly affected by changes in the regulations, cultures, and customs of various countries. For example, when I entered this company 10 years ago, I could not have imagined that heated tobacco products would spread as much as they have. The team I currently belong to gathers information on the regulations in various countries and on market trends, and from other internal departments. Since I was also involved in the development of overseas products in my previous assignment location of Germany, I feel that changes are occurring at a bewildering pace both in Japan and in other countries. We must respond quickly to the demands of the world, which continue to change without end. I believe that tobacco has aspects as a part of our culture. I entered the JT Group due to the interest I had in the wide variety of tobacco flavors. That interest has only deepened as I have become more familiar with work sites through my work in Japan as well as overseas. Sometimes I am asked, “What will happen to tobacco culture in the future?”, but that is precisely what we ourselves are in the process of creating right now. I believe that the JT Group is a company that will create a new tobacco culture for our world.