Access Operations Project

--What are the research areas and missions of the access operation project?

Nakajima: The research area of the access operations project is operations, but it may not be generally known. Operations are simply the "operations" that are required to provide services and operate an organization. Many companies have introduced various business systems and are focusing on improving business efficiency. We work on a wide range of technologies, from analysis of biological information and video data such as sensors, to information processing and software technologies such as machine learning, natural language processing, statistical modeling, and even psychology. We aim to create new ways of working. In recent years, the slogan of work style reform has been advocated in Japan.In the future, as the working population declines, workers who work more efficiently, such as thorough efficiency of simple work and skill-less work with high creativity, will be promoted. The importance of a working environment that makes full use of the diverse characteristics of will continue to increase. Our mission is to continue to create technologies that can be used practically in Japan as well as in the world for issues of great social significance.

In response to such issues, we are pursuing R & D from three broad perspectives. These are "operation unification / analysis technology", "business knowledge intelligent technology", and "business navigation technology". These technologies use sensing technology and log collection technology to digitize and accumulate accurate information on the site, analyze the collected big data with advanced information processing technology such as AI, and extract and extract points for improvement. It is based on the idea that by realizing a platform that can immediately reflect the improvements that have been made in the work, workers themselves can continuously improve their work according to changes in their skills and circumstances. We call this concept the Smart DX Spiral, and there are technologies that are actually being used within the NTT Group, as well as products that have been commercialized for general companies.

--What role do you play in that?

Koya: Usually, we are conducting research and development with the team of "Operational Centralization / Analysis Technology", "Business Knowledge Intelligence Technology", and "Business Navigation Technology". We are working together. Each team is further conducting research by sharing various technologies and products, but there are two major phases depending on their maturity. One is to discover the research theme and establish the basic technology, and the other is to develop the established technology to a level that can be more practical and send it out to the world. I am currently in charge of the latter, and are conducting R&D for the practical application of annotation and UI extension, one of the business navigation technologies. This technology has already been commercialized and sold to general companies, but by listening to the people who actually use the product, it is difficult to understand just by sitting at the desk in the laboratory, initially assumed We are now seeing some research issues that we couldn't do. The goal is to research new technologies to solve it and achieve further radical advancement.

Kure: My current goal is to establish basic technology for me and Mr. Yamashita. I am in charge of "Operation centralization and analysis technology", and I am studying design and operation technologies for virtual networks and cloud environments. In recent years, various application services have become virtualized environments with high cost and availability. However, in network and environmental design, it is necessary to determine the optimal network configuration, CPU, memory, and other resource parameters based on the intended use of the user, and the skilled skills cultivated by designers are indispensable. Therefore, we are working on our own AI technology that automatically determines the optimal resources simply by giving an ambiguous usage with parameters. Ultimately, my goal is to enable users to use services easily and in a timely manner, and to make the use of networks and virtual environments more accessible and natural. It is also important to establish technology, but it is very important that it can be applied to products and OSS of each company without any hassle.We participate in international standardization organizations such as TM Forum and ETSI and fly around the world, It also contributes to the standardization of.

Yamashita: I am in charge of "business navigation technology". By analyzing biological information that can be obtained from wearable devices such as glasses by statistical processing and machine learning, the contents of business performed during desk work and I am engaged in research to objectively grasp the psychological load during work. Some solutions have been put to practical use to understand what applications have been operated and the operations that require time from the PC logs, and claim business efficiency. However, my research has expanded the scope of business to work other than PC, We aim to achieve breakthrough work efficiency that goes deeper into people. Overcoming the engineering barriers that no one has been able to break through before, building a world where human behaviors and conditions can be widely estimated, and ideal working styles based on the characteristics of workers, such as their strengths and weaknesses I want to realize. I have been working on this theme for three years since I joined the company, and there are many issues for practical application. The other day, a paper was accepted for peer review at an international conference. Some seniors have received Best Paper Awards at international conferences. Mr. Kure and other team members are also actively involved in academic contributions.

Nakajima: Mr. Kure has been in the company for four years, and Mr. Yamashita has been in the company for three years. After joining the company, he researched the research themes himself and conducted research under the guidance and support of senior employees. As a team, I think it is important to cherish new employees' unconventional ideas and actively incorporate them. The work environment is changing every moment, and my generation used to be a computer, but now tablets and AI are changing to a more commonplace era. Operation research is aimed at business improvement, but the "people" who perform the work are also changing, and it is important to be able to accurately catch "natural" and "good things" from a young perspective. I feel I want them to believe in their ideas and work hard on their research.

--You seem to be actively engaged in R&D and international standardization. Can you tell us about the technologies that have been put into practical use and the products that are actually sold?

Nakajima: In our project, various research results have been adopted in the business systems of NTT Group companies, and it is so confusing as to what to explain. If you introduce some characteristic products, are they WinActor, Bizfront/Annotation, Bizfront/SmartUI? In fact, annotations are based on research themes that new employees at the time considered.

Koya: These products are the product of research results cultivated in business navigation technology, and are sold to general companies by NTT Advanced Technology and NTT Techno Cloth of various companies including group companies. As I mentioned earlier, not only the NTT Group, but also various customers will use it to provide feedback to their research on emerging issues and launch even more new technologies and solutions.

* Click here for details on WinActor:
  https://winactor.biz/
* Click here for details on Bizfront/Annotations and Bizfront/SmartUI:
  https://www.ntt-tx.co.jp/products/bizfront/

--You all seem to be actively working on R&D and international standardization. Can you tell us about the technology that has been put into practical use and the products that are actually commercialized?

Koya: Now, in the enterprise world, Robotics-Process-Automation (RPA) is taking the lead by the backing of work style reform. WinActor is one of the leading solutions in the RPA field, used by many companies, and is a product that has changed the existing business scene. As a matter of fact, the technology underlying WinActor was already in practical use within the NTT Group around 2010 when the term RPA had not yet emerged, and we were working on advanced technology from that time. At present, Bizfront/Annotation and Bizfront/SmartUI are also different from WinActor in the characteristics of work that can be made more efficient, but these concepts are a break away from the traditional "business improvement = system development". It is not a choice of business improvement by system development, but the people who use the system themselves can improve the system as they want, aiming for a world that is familiar and familiar to those who work with low-code development.

--What made you happy and motivated to work?

Koya: I feel that it is challenging for a research institute to be able to form software technology that he / she has created with his own hands, rather than developing software based on given specifications. Also, our technology is first introduced into the workplace of the NTT Group, where there are a large number of users and we can receive a lot of feedback directly. I think that having an environment where users of the technology they have formed is close to them and where they can directly provide feedback including good and bad points is an environment that is blessed as a software engineer and researcher. It also leads to motivation. The moment when I was happy was when I came up with the technology that I developed and developed while working with the person in charge at the site, or when the technology was sold to the general market and became available to more users.

Kure: Although I am a foreign national, I was able to take Japanese classes for foreign employees and was very helpful in presenting dissertations in Japanese. Careful training for foreign employees is also provided for career advancement. For example, it is possible to receive training such as negotiation skills in English necessary to assume important roles such as chairman of standardization. I'm done.

Yamashita: I majored in my college days in the field of purely basic human behavior, and in the engineering field such as the application of machine learning, I joined the company. It was after. I was worried whether I would be a researcher in such unknown fields, but when I first published my paper in a recognized international conference, I was able to contribute to the academic community. I was very happy to feel this and feel that I was one step closer to realizing the world described above.