Japan turns to tech, adaptation to beat worst labor crunch in 25 years

Oct 16, 2017 | News On Japan

Oct 16, 2017 (Japan Times) - Before Hisashi Kanbe in 2013 introduced BakeryScan, the world's first image recognition checkout system designed specifically for bread, it was the job of every bakery worker in Japan to memorize the assorted prices of each baked good - from baguettes back to bagels.

Unlike shrink-wrapped food, whose prices are easy to calculate by scanning barcodes, bread is usually displayed sans packaging because "it sells better that way," said Kanbe, CEO of a Hyogo-based company Brain Co. "But in a store with as many as 100 kinds of bread, it's virtually impossible for inexperienced workers to remember all of their prices."

But with BakeryScan, even novices can handle purchases by placing a tray of bread under a scanner, which identifies every item based on shape and color, calculates the prices and displays the total on a screen - all in just one second, eliminating the need for workers to manually enter prices piece by piece at the cash register.

"Many bakery owners say our product has made their job much easier and much more efficient," he said, adding that the system is already used by about 250 bakeries nationwide.

BakeryScan could be a game-changer for the nation's service industries, which are struggling with the worst labor shortage in a quarter of a century.

The Bank of Japan's tankan quarterly economic survey, one of the key indicators of the nation's current economy, released this month showed the country is facing the tightest labor market since 1992. In the survey of 10,687 companies, the index for firms complaining of the labor shortage as of September showed a reading of minus 28, down 3 points from minus 25 in the previous survey published in June. The reading was the worst in 25Â½ years.

The labor crisis is taking its toll on companies. In the first half of 2017, 49 firms shut down their businesses due to manpower shortages - 2.9 times more than the figure during the same six-month period in 2013, a July survey by Teikoku Databank Ltd. showed.

The situation has prompted some companies to tap IT and robots, while others have simply cut services to reduce overall workloads.

Convenience store chains have been among the first to turn to new technologies for solutions.

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