Taking society a step forward
with digital technologies

 Recent advances in ICT, most notably enhanced smartphone performance and the latest cloud technologies, have enabled the interconnection of previously independent systems and data as well as the high-speed processing of large data volumes, making it possible for companies to develop innovative services that up to now have not been viable, such as the use of AI for customers.

 By combining these various digital technologies with the mobile content and service development know-how we have nurtured since our establishment, at MTI we work to create brand-new innovation, make society more affluent and convenient, and take the world a step forward.

1. What companies aiming to realize digital transformation (DX)
need to do in terms of system development and operation

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Agile organizations and processes

The key to any company’s survival and ability to respond to market competition is to be quick to identify new value for customers and be first to provide services that enable customers to realize such value. It is essential to maintain a fast-paced organization where those in frontline service development dealing with customers on a daily basis hold decision-making authority, coupled with responsive processes capable of creating services with a short turnaround time using agile development methods. It is frontline service development that needs to build autonomous teams capable of engaging in effective communication with a firm focus on collaboration. In order to promote digital transformation and achieve these goals simultaneously, many companies need to go back to basics and implement a fundamental review of their organizations and systems.

Development and education of human resources

An important element for an individual to be able to engage autonomously in work is to designate roles within a team. Avoiding vague role definitions helps to prevent any increase in inefficient activities. A further point that should not be overlooked is the strong correlation between work-related satisfaction and motivation and performance. It is therefore essential to ensure that individual goals are consistent with an individual’s career plan. This means that companies must make certain that a team’s mission and vision, individual roles, and the skills needed to fulfill them are all clearly defined. It is also critical to provide engineers with both the time and opportunity to acquire new skills.

Responding to technology

Smartphones are becoming increasingly more powerful and cloud technologies continue to advance rapidly. Using these technologies effectively to build new customer-oriented services will not only differentiate companies from their competitors in the eyes of their customers, but will also lead directly to significant business benefits, ranging from shorter system development times to higher performance and quality, as well as reduced maintenance and operation costs. Companies can also enjoy the benefits of value-added creation through AI, including everything from collaboration among diverse systems and data integration, to machine learning and data mining.

Implementation of API and utilization of microservices

One of the greatest benefits to be found from the evolution of technology is the integration of systems. Services are connected to each other through networks centered around the internet, and by working together it is possible to realize services that create great value. One of the central technologies to such systems integration is API management, including APIs, microservices, and authentication and authorization infrastructure. API in the financial industry is powering the realization of new services in the Fintech sector. Connectivity to legacy systems is also possible through the construction of API.

Enhanced security measures

Ensuring data security, including customers’ personal information, is a critical requirement in the development and operation of DX-capable services. Security measures can be generally classified into incident prevention, monitoring, defense and response.
“Prevention” requires not just the implementation of a testing process that avoids introducing vulnerabilities into the system, but also a design that considers security requirements from the design stage, such as access control, encryption, and obfuscation, as well as a backup and recovery operation design that corresponds to the system’s service levels. For “monitoring” and “defense” an operational design that realizes day-to-day operations using the latest cloud services is essential. In addition, to be able to respond to an incident requires an environment that enables instant understanding and identification of the location of the problem and its impact, together with an ability to defend against attacks, swiftly restore systems from any damage inflicted and issue status reports.

Development of IT governance

Companies are required to prepare and utilize appropriate governance structures as a management approach to avoid leaving the quality assurance of services purely to development teams. What is required are reasonable rules for various types of development workflows (requirements, design, analysis, implementation, and testing), various checks from a quality assurance perspective, and for highly important items an approval process by a manager at the time of release. Moreover, an organizational structure capable of inspecting services is also required, from the perspective of internal BCP and server security.

Technologies that are highlights of MTI’s strengths

Technologies that are highlights of MTI’s strengths

Since our founding we have provided many mobile content services, and have accumulated extensive knowledge and experience in everything from iOS/Android-based apps and web development to data analysis. In addition, depending on the characteristics of the service and the customer value we aim to realize, we engage in development using various public clouds, mainly Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services (AWS). Recently MTI has been focusing on development utilizing API*1 and microservices *2, and in API has adopted an authorization and authentication infrastructure centered on OAuth*3 and OpenID Connect*4.

  • ※1:Application Programming Interface; refers mainly to the interface between software and programs.
  • ※2:A design technique for software development used for building a single large application or site by combining and linking a variety of smaller scale services.
  • ※3:A communication protocol for “authorization of access privileges” between SNS and web services. OAuth 2.0 is the latest standard, issued in 2012.
  • ※4:A communication protocol utilized when a user wants to link user information from one service to another (ID linkage) when using a certain service.
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  • Microsoft Azure is a registered trademark or trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and other countries.
  • Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a trademark of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliate companies.

MTI’s systems development methods

当社のシステム開発手法

With a focus on agile development we engage mainly in systems development incorporating scrum methodologies. In addition, working with operations engineers the development team develops and operates systems through DevOps, with most of our services being CI and CD*5 compliant.

  • ※5:Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery: These are methods that incorporate automation in the developmental stages to increase the frequency of application delivery to customers.

Luna-Luna provides services that offer support for women’s overall health, from menstrual schedule management, fertility treatments, pregnancy and childbirth to pill (OC/LEP) medication support and support for consultations at medical institutions.

In order to respond quickly to user needs, since 2015 we have migrated our development environment to the cloud, where we are conducting agile development. We have built a system that smoothly and securely connects user data held by the service, implemented functions based on the outcomes of joint research with research institutes and medical institutions, and successfully added functions that enable medical institutions to present their own data, in so doing returning value to users.

This app predicts the possibility of sudden torrential rain, which until now has been difficult to detect, and notifies users approximately 15 to 20 minutes before the rain is forecast to occur via a smartphone push notification, encouraging them to take evasive action.

By utilizing a state-of-the-art weather radar known as a Phased Array Radar*6 that is capable of detecting localized heavy rainfall with a high degree of accuracy, weather information is acquired at a high frequency and processed at high speed to provide time lag-free notifications in the form of easy-to-understand 3D images of the ever-changing development of rain clouds, the intensity of rainfall, and the interior of rain clouds.

※6:Outside of the forecasting range of the Phased Array Radar (currently limited to some areas in the Kanto and Kansai regions), data from the Japan Meteorological Agency C-Band Radar is used to make predictions.

ARVI and 3D ARVI are aviation weather systems that enable pilots to confirm on a single screen various weather information that could impact flight plans and flight operations.

Using parallel distributed processing*7 to appropriately handle and process the vast volumes of data sent from weather information providers, it is possible to obtain weather information on flight paths within the space of just a few minutes, and cross-sectional maps of flight paths and various weather data can be quickly and accurately displayed on the app graphically. By overlaying weather information and flight plans, the system intuitively and clearly displays weather patterns that are likely to affect the flight, supporting pilots and dispatchers*8 who make important decisions relating to operations and helping to realize flight safety.

On 3D ARVI, which provides 3D visualization of bad weather areas based on the theory of the aircraft lightning strike prediction technology developed by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), we have improved the algorithm to calculate the lightning hazard level using the very latest, frequently updated weather information that we have acquired, and calculate the lightning hazard level around airports throughout Japan in real time.

※7:A single calculation process that divides vast volumes of data among multiple servers simultaneously.
※8:Flight manager. All scheduled and non-scheduled airlines engaged in the air transport (passenger and freight) business are obliged to ensure a dispatcher is present to manage flight safety.

Supporting new value creation for customers

Development of digital transformation services for our client companies and their customers also requires us to recognize the challenges that currently exist for our clients and their customers, and to identify solutions. Setting out and organizing requirements before embarking on system development is of paramount importance, and MTI organizes our work processes using service blueprints*9 and seeks to find solution ideas through design sprints*10, working hard in a joint process that involves communication as appropriate with our clients’ stakeholders and customers.

  • ※9:A diagram that illustrates a chronological list of the movements in both user experience and service providers in the process of service provision
  • ※10:A program capable of going through processes at high speed to validate the value of ideas early in a project. Design sprints can be introduced in the preliminary stages of transitioning to a full-scale project, making it easier to understand procedures and challenges when generating ideas.

We provide an agile development structure that brings together a team of planners, developers and designers, capable of going from a service plan to the development of a prototype in a turnaround time as short as two weeks, before moving quickly to the implementation and testing stage that is then checked and repeated. Through the provision of our human resources and structures we become a mid- to long-term partner, assisting customers in nurturing a culture of agile development.

Online development
by global human resources

MTI’s software development system is operated using a combination of both Japanese and offshore resources. In Japan our system comprises our own engineers and multiple collaborating partners, and our offshore subsidiary has hubs in Ho Chi Minh and Da Nang in Vietnam. We also have multiple collaborating partners in China, and in total we have almost 500 engineers working constantly on software development. MTI’s own engineering team includes some richly experienced foreign members who concentrate primarily in highly specialized fields. We have put in place a working structure that enables our development team members to collaborate online, working in an environment where they can perform at their best, whether at the office or from home.

We are providing operational and digital human resource development support for the systems development department at Ocean Network Express Pte. Ltd. (ONE), a company that operates a fleet that includes some of the world’s largest mega-container vessels and has an extensive network in over 120 countries. Starting with collaborations in team building at our Vietnam development hub in order to provide MTI’s expertise in building systems for agile development and while engaging in collaboration with both onshore and offshore teams, we are assisting ONE in firmly establishing the necessary structures and culture through implementation of agile development, and in so doing supporting development that is capable of responding quickly to changing times and needs.

IT governance structure

A development structure that supports digital transformation must be agile, proactive and autonomous. On the other hand, in order to manage quality from a governance perspective, a quality assurance team is assigned independently from the development team, and various checklists for development workflow and environment are used for the purposes of confirmation and correction. In addition, for projects with high degrees of complexity or high technical risk that require project management, we always assign project managers, coupled with which we also conduct quality checks through the PMO*11. We have compiled and deployed various guidelines relating to processes and technical infrastructure through a company-wide committee-based approach. We have also established and are working together under various governance structures relating to internal audits, information security, BCP, and cybersecurity risk.

  • ※11:Project Management Office a cross-departmental organization responsible for project management.

This identify verification system was developed using advanced operational technologies in accordance with the stipulations of the FISC Security Guidelines*12, and ensures convenience and security that is also in compliance with the revised Ordinance for Enforcement of the Act on Prevention of Transfer of Criminal Proceeds*13. The system is being introduced by banks, insurance companies, and other financial institutions, and is helping to enhance user convenience and boost operational efficiency. For example, at banks, where previously it was necessary for customers to post hard copies of identification verification documents for the purpose of applying for a loan, using eKYC this can now be completed online. Similarly, insurance companies can conduct verification using a photo taken on a smartphone by the policyholder themself and other identification documents, eliminating the need to enter a password.