Hitachi Recognizes Customer Innovation with Spotlight Awards

At Hitachi, a spirit of collaboration and powering good in the world is core to our mission. We provide technology and services that address some of the greatest challenges in society and business, and help our customers leverage their data to build a better future.

We are grateful every day for the opportunities presented to us to help our customers turn their innovative ideas into reality. That is why we are proud to recognize clients who share our Social Innovation values at the Hitachi Social Innovation Forum 2021 Americas. This year, we are honoring distinguished customers with Spotlight Awards in six categories. And the winners are…

SOCIAL INNOVATION

Working together to create innovative solutions to societal challenges, is the essence of Social Innovation. We were proud to support two outstanding clients in this category.

Winner: General Motors

With the onset of COVID-19 and a severe shortage of personal protective equipment and face masks, GM raced to action and launched a rapid-response project to rev up mask production. In partnership with JR Automation, a Hitachi Group Company, GM designed an end-to-end PPE production line, sourced and repurposed supplies, and transformed a GM cleanroom into a mask factory within a record-breaking six days.  The combined effort and innovation between leadership, engineers and employee volunteers, led to producing life-saving masks at scale, to essential healthcare workers in the fight against a global pandemic.

Honorable Mention: Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust Healthcare

When healthcare becomes data-driven, hospitals can provide their staff with real-time insights about patient admissions, patient health, and the availability of beds and surgical facilities. To realize this vision for its staff and patients, Salford Royal Hospital and Hitachi co-produced and designed the Digital Control Centre (DCC), a technology platform that helps staff accurately predict demand; provides insights on resource availability and discharge planning; and enables better decision making about integrated care to reduce delays in patients’ visits.

DATA-DRIVEN INSIGHTS

Nominees redefine their business or industry with insights generated by combining different data sources, correlating new mixes of data types and designing methods to maximize their return on data.

Winner: Disney Parks

Disney Parks: Powering “The Most Magical Place on Earth,” Disney Parks is continually innovating through experiential park attractions and guest experiences that use data to drive predictive maintenance. With the help of the Lumada platform, Disney leverages real-time and predictive insights about an attraction’s operations and generates immediate alerts for service engineers, enabling them to address needs, facilitate maintenance and ensure that attractions are running as efficiently as possible. Disney is using real-time insights and data-driven operational intelligence for predictive maintenance to reduce operational costs, shrink maintenance windows, and increase attraction availability for great guest experiences.

Honorable Mention: Swisscom Business Customers

Swisscom Business Customers, part of Switzerland’s largest telecommunications and one of its leading IT services provider, is leveraging Hitachi to improve customer service by centralizing the company’s vast amounts of data into a single view. Now, instead of needing to check multiple data sources for a single request, customer service representatives have all the data they need at their fingertips.

INNOVATION THROUGH CLOUD MODERNIZATION

Nominees demonstrate how cloud technologies support collaboration between customers, researchers, organizations and more, to help the wider society.

Winner: American Heart Association

The American Heart Association, a global force for longer, healthier lives, used Hitachi Vantara technology to develop the Precision Medicine Platform, a digital solution with secure, private workspaces equipped with tools for machine learning, artificial intelligence and data analysis. The Precision Medicine Platform provides secure, private environments where global teams can collaborate seamlessly, accessing the power of cloud computing to manage their data. The Precision Medicine Platform provides cutting-edge solutions for data management and analysis needs for healthcare.

INFRASTRUCTURE INNOVATION AND MODERNIZATION

Each nominee reshapes their business, enhances their customers’ experiences, and develops and scales new capabilities, drive efficiencies to enhance corporate value.

Winner: Rabobank

Consumers expect banking services to be available online, 24/7.  Rabobank’s 9.6 million customers in 38 countries are no exception.  By leveraging Hitachi solutions, Rabobank met these expectations, even during the pandemic, when online transactions increased exponentially.  When the number of home-workers suddenly increased from a few hundred to up to 30,000 per day, Rabobank was able to adapt and support its workers without disruption.  This allowed Rabobank to continue delivering on its sustainability goals in the Food & Agriculture sector, and focus on the well-being and prosperity in communities where the bank is active.

Honorable Mention: Celepar (Paraná Information and Communications Technology Company)

Celepar is responsible for many essential public applications, and with increasing demand for digital services, they leveraged Hitachi solutions to modernize its infrastructure.  Enabling cost savings, footprint reduction, better response times and optimizing their services for citizens of Paraná.

ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY

Nominees are coming together to think on a global scale to create novel solutions that improve environmental health and quality of life that can power good for this and future generations.

Winner: Rainforest Connection

Since 2012, Rainforest Connection (RFCx) has been building the first and only platform to collect and analyze real-time ecoacoustic data to understand large-scale biodiversity trends and alert rangers to sounds of threats of illegal logging, poaching, and mining. Hitachi Vantara has built original predictive analytics algorithms based on Rainforest Connection’s data. Using Lumada software, Hitachi Vantara helped Rainforest Connection to predict – rather than just detect – illegal loggers, giving forest rangers up to five days earlier notice on deforestation activity.

Honorable Mention: Workhorse Group, Inc.

Workhorse develops technology solutions for last mile delivery that includes commercial Battery Electric Vehicles, Battery Electric Drones, and associated telematics & control software which is cloud-based, fully integrated with their units, and enable operators to optimize performance, maintenance, energy and route efficiency.

CREATING TOGETHER

This award showcases organizations that accelerate their transformation in innovative and successful ways using technologies from Hitachi Group and its partners, for strategic advantage to drive real value for business and the society.

Winner: Delta Flight Products

Delta Flight Products (DFP) has worked with the Systems Products Division of Hitachi High-Tech America, Inc. to develop the first wireless in-flight entertainment (IFE) tablet for Delta Air Lines. Made possible by teamwork and a shared spirit of innovation, Delta provides an exceptional customer experience with more entertainment choices while also reducing its overall system weight by around a pound per seat, which means less CO2 emissions and a more sustainable flight.

Honorable Mention: Termocandelaria S.C.A. E.S.P., subsidiary of Termocandelaria Power Limited (TPL)

Termocandelaria partnered with Hitachi ABB Power Grids and delivered energy for the region despite the challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Get a front-row seat to the future of Social Innovation. Join us at the virtual Hitachi Social Innovation Forum on May 25-27. Register here.

Hicham Abdessamad is Chairman & CEO of Hitachi America, Ltd. and Chief Executive of Hitachi Global Social Innovation Business.