Tobishima Corporation View blueprints, documents and other media on tablets at any time

Challenge: streamline on-site information lookup 

Tobishima Corporation wanted to streamline their cumbersome process for looking up information on-site to improve efficiency of operations and align with their goal of reforming working patterns

Tobishima Corporation celebrated 135 years in business in 2018. In that time, they have worked on some of Japan’s leading civil engineering projects, such as the Seikan Tunnel and the Tokyo Bay Aqua-Line, as well as numerous construction and social infrastructure development projects. In recent years, the corporation has been promoting reform to “create the future of construction” by drawing on innovative technologies in the construction and disaster prevention fields. “We aim to evolve into what we call a ‘New Business Contractor.’ In the construction industry, infrastructure development has peaked leading up to 2020, making it critical that we find a solution to the long working hours employees face. We also felt that, to acquire and develop human resources and support the further growth of our business, we urgently needed to reform our workflows, starting with our IT environment,” explains Atsushi Ozawa, Tobishima Corporation.

As part of this policy, the corporation distributed lightweight laptops to all employees, as well as fanless, dust-resistant tablet devices to take on-site. This enabled them to develop a mobile work environment that was not tied to a specific location such as the construction site, site office or branch office.

But they needed to look again at how they could manage data being viewed on each device. Back then, documents like site blueprints and construction method statements were being stored and managed in Network Attached Storage (NAS) at the site office. However, a difference in operating systems made it difficult for the tablets to access the NAS data, so employees would return to the site office to check documents. 

“Since our workers couldn’t access the blueprints and other materials on-site, they had to go back to the office every time they needed to check something. We needed to store the data in a way that would enable our workers to access the information in a more time-efficient way,” says Takahisa Nakaya, also from Tobishima Corporation.

Solution: user-friendly way to share and view large files

After combing through the modern data storage options available to them, Tobishima Corporation chose Dropbox.

“In addition to the ability to view documents on a tablet, cloud-based storage was a must-have, since it would allow us to mitigate the risk of data loss due to NAS failure or natural disaster, and alleviate the burden of maintenance and operation. We went with Dropbox because its interface is simple to navigate, and it’s easy to use even for people who are less familiar with IT,” explains Ozawa.

The team was also drawn to Dropbox’s differential synchronization feature, which allows large files such as CAD data and site photographs to be uploaded quickly and securely. Also, the ability to view files offline means the team only needs to store files related to ongoing projects on local devices, and the range of apps that can be linked.

“All our Site Managers, myself included, keep personal data on previous sites we’ve worked on for reference in our work. This data keeps growing, and cloud-based services offer us greater flexibility in increasing our storage capacity compared to NAS, which you need to keep adding to. We really appreciate that,” says Nakatani.

Results: look up information at any time, anywhere, and even share files with external companies

After a successful trial, Tobishima Corporation began full-scale adoption of Dropbox.  “When I want to check a blueprint, it takes a lot of time and effort to go to the office, especially when I’m working on high-rise levels, so being able to check documents on my iPad is a huge help. It not only improves work efficiency, but also reduces the workload for Site Supervisors like me,” says Yusuke Tanaka.

It also helps the team achieve a paperless environment on-site. In the past, they often needed to bring physical blueprints made using a plotter to the construction site, but they found that this was no longer needed. “Now we can view all the data we need in Dropbox on our phones and iPads, so we don’t end up in situations where we printed one blueprint but need another,” explains Tanaka.

Dropbox has also proved useful for joint ventures, which are commonly used for projects in the construction industry.

“In a joint venture, you need to be able to share information with multiple companies. However, there are security and compliance issues involved when making the company’s file servers available externally. Dropbox lets us make detailed adjustments to settings such as viewing privileges, so we can share our files with peace of mind,” says Ozawa. 

Tobishima Corporation is also taking advantage of the same benefits to share files within companies in the group.

They plan to use Dropbox to manage a wider range of files in the future. Firstly, they plan to start using it for photos. At each construction site, workers take many photos every day for recording and reporting purposes, and they create a logbook to store and manage these photos. Previously, this task was contributing to increased working hours. 

“Some sites have now started to store their photos in Dropbox, and they also outsource photo management and logbook creation via Dropbox. We plan to roll this out more widely in the future to help bring down the workload for our personnel,” says Ozawa, adding that he hopes this initiative will help reduce working hours. 

In the future, they’re also considering eliminating their site office-based NAS and consolidating all their data into Dropbox. “We’ve already brought our file servers over to the cloud and deployed Microsoft 365 as a corporation-wide communication tool, making improvements to working practices one of our key areas of focus. We look forward to continuing to work alongside Dropbox to support our series of initiatives,” concludes Ozawa.