Managing Tasks and Progress of Company-wide Business Improvement Activities in One Place with monday

Meet Hitachi Construction Machinery Co., Ltd.

Hitachi Construction Machinery, which develops, manufactures, sells, and services construction and mining machinery globally, plans to change its name to "LANDCROS" in April 2027. In its medium-term management plan "LANDCROS 2028," the company has set a target of becoming one of the global top 3 by 2030, with priority initiatives including independent expansion of its North America and Latin America businesses, and strengthening of its mining and solutions businesses.

Supporting such challenges, which can be described as a "second founding," is a relentless commitment to improvement. Under the philosophy of "TIPS" (Total Innovative & Inventive Production System), which embodies the manufacturing culture nurtured over many years, the company has been advancing company-wide improvement activities called "RT (Road to XX)" since 2019. The aim is to ensure that various improvement initiatives led by the field are completed within deadlines, with various KPIs (key performance indicators) set, including sales, operating profit margin, and manufacturing process costs.

The Challenge

With more than 100 improvement proposals submitted from each field site every month, the management tool used until then had been designed specifically for managing progress and numbers on a case-by-case basis, making it difficult to cross-aggregate multiple initiatives from diverse perspectives.

"For example, when we wanted to extract all initiatives related to carbon neutrality and then reclassify and re-aggregate them from a DX perspective, it took a lot of cumbersome effort and time."

— Hakaru Matsui, General Manager, Common Infrastructure Reinforcement Department

Furthermore, a survey conducted among users of this management tool received many opinions and requests, including: "the system is slow to start," "entering an ID and password every time is cumbersome," "I want to be able to set multiple aggregation flags," "I want more customization options for the visualization screen," and "I want to use it for schedule management of activities other than RT activities."

Before implementing monday.com, the key challenges were:

• Difficult to cross-aggregate and analyze improvement initiatives from multiple perspectives such as carbon neutrality and DX
• Man-hours for checking progress and following up with field sites grew significantly against more than 100 improvement proposals submitted per month
• In addition to slow startup of the management tool and input burden, the customizability of the visualization screen was also insufficient

The Solution

To address these challenges, the company decided to overhaul the management tool supporting its RT activities. After comparing multiple solutions, it selected "monday" and partner Gaprise. Through a trial that began in 2022, the company comprehensively evaluated factors including operating costs, means of visualizing tasks, and customizability. Specifically, the company highly valued the ability to flexibly set necessary items for each initiative and visualize progress and status on a dashboard.

"Previously, field-side staff had to open the management tool themselves to check the progress of initiatives, and the secretariat also had to follow up individually by groupware and email. In contrast, the ability to automate notifications and reminders based on deadlines and status was also one of the deciding factors for choosing monday."

— Kunitaka Taguchi, Planning & Standardization Group, Common Infrastructure Reinforcement Department

Rollout and Adoption

monday was officially introduced in 2023, initially launching operations centered on manufacturing departments, with approximately 2,000 users at domestic factories and some overseas locations and group companies. However, not everything went smoothly.

"Because some staff showed strong resistance to transitioning from the old management tool, parallel operation with monday continued for about two years. During that time, inefficient tasks also arose, such as checking information while comparing the screens of both tools and manually re-entering data from the old management tool into monday."

— Kunitaka Taguchi

Expanding Use Cases

What gradually changed this situation was monday's high versatility and convenience, which extended beyond just managing RT activity initiatives.

"For example, for issues flagged during safety inspections, field staff can use voice input to enter improvement proposals in monday and upload photos, and progress management begins on the spot. Similarly, the scope of monday's use has gradually expanded to equipment management, team and individual task management, and even management of medium-term management plan initiatives."

— Hiroki Otsuka, Planning & Standardization Group, Common Infrastructure Reinforcement Department

Thanks to such efforts, as of July 2026, consolidation to monday as the management tool was nearly complete. The user base has also expanded to approximately 3,500 users, with in-house development being conducted mainly by key personnel at each department and location.

"In particular, for deployment to overseas locations, we were greatly helped by the training, use case sharing, and API utilization study sessions provided by monday.com and Gaprise, which helped accelerate adoption at the field level."

— Kunitaka Taguchi

The Impact

By being able to centrally manage various initiatives related to RT activities in monday, the company has seen significant man-hour reductions.

"According to the QBR (Quarterly Business Review) from monday.com, it has been shown that approximately 17,200 hours in business processes and approximately 6,100 hours in data analysis have been saved company-wide. On the secretariat side as well, we feel that the man-hours spent on field follow-up have been reduced, and we are now able to allocate the extra capacity to higher-value work."

— Hakaru Matsui, General Manager, Common Infrastructure Reinforcement Department

The greatest benefit from the introduction of monday is the ability to view the progress and milestones of various initiatives at a glance on the screen. With more than 100 improvement themes being submitted monthly, the ability to cross-search and check the accumulated initiatives brings major benefits to both the secretariat and field sites.

"It has become easier to identify locations facing similar concerns and challenges, and the movement to deploy improvement know-how cultivated domestically to overseas locations has also accelerated. RT activities are steadily approaching the ideal state of moving from individual optimization to overall optimization."

— Hakaru Matsui

monday.com has also improved the communication across departmental and location boundaries.

"Now that company-wide initiatives have become visible, dialogue across departments has expanded, triggered by inquiries from staff who showed interest. In that sense, I see monday not merely as a tool for project management or task management, but as a foundation for generating and supporting new communication and collaboration. Cross-organizational connections have expanded, and we are increasingly receiving consultations from people who want to take on new challenges."

— Kunitaka Taguchi, Planning & Standardization Group, Common Infrastructure Reinforcement Department

monday has now evolved into a "common language" for the entire company — visualizing field challenges and accelerating resolution through dialogue.

Future Outlook

What the company has its eye on to further enhance the effects of monday is AI. They plan to actively utilize AI features that are being expanded in monday, including document summarization, translation, and classification; sentiment analysis; and business application creation using natural language.

"For example, if we can globally search for initiatives related to specific tasks, such as improvement initiatives submitted from the welding department, learning across locations will advance even further. In addition, if we use the translation function, content registered in Japanese can be more easily shared with overseas locations in their local languages. Furthermore, AI-based sentiment analysis is expected to serve as a clue to capturing the real challenges at field sites behind improvement initiatives, and signs that support is needed, at an early stage."

— Hakaru Matsui, General Manager, Common Infrastructure Reinforcement Department

In fact, work has already begun toward developing business applications using "monday vibe," which is an AI-based no-code tool.

"We have prototyped an app that allows us to affix QR codes to equipment and simply scan them with a PC camera to manage lending and returning. Even from such small steps, we feel confident that we can internally develop systems to quickly resolve field inconveniences. In addition to managing the progress of RT activities, if we can complete everything from implementing improvement measures on monday, business reform will accelerate even further."

— Hiroki Otsuka, Planning & Standardization Group, Common Infrastructure Reinforcement Department

However, simply providing convenient features is not sufficient. It is required that field sites themselves further unleash the potential of monday.

"Expanding use through people, and increasing the number of mechanisms whereby each individual can feel ‘my work becomes easier by using this,’ is the key to further adoption."

— Kunitaka Taguchi, Planning & Standardization Group, Common Infrastructure Reinforcement Department

With the company’s name change to LANDCROS approaching, and growth and transformation being accelerated globally, monday.com is playing an important role as a foundation for visualizing, connecting, and expanding diverse field-driven improvements. This effort of sharing knowledge across departments and locations is the very challenge of practicing the company’s stated "inheritance and evolution" in daily work.