Survey of Big Data Use and Innovation in Japanese Manufacturing Firms

This paper shows the results of a survey on big data use in manufacturing firms and innovation, conducted in November 2015. The survey investigated (1) firms'organization of big data use, (2) collection and business use of big data by type of data, and (3) use of datasets outside firms, with 539 respondents out of 4,000 firms. We divided the entire manufacturing process into three parts, i.e., development, mass production, and after services, and find that big data are widely used in all activities. In addition, firms with dedicated big data use function are more likely to conduct big data activity across various departments, as well as demonstrate a higher performance impact. However, we also find great disparity in terms of the usage style, particularly by firm size. For example, more than half of small and mid-sized enterprises (SMEs) responded that they have heard of Internet of Things (IoT), yet they are unaware of how to respond to such trend. Policy implications based on the results include (1) promoting diffusion of big data use, particularly for SMEs, (2) supporting human capital development for big data use, and (3) strategic standardization activities of IoT.