We would like to enlist the help of foreign personnel in the development of ICT technology and new businesses

Q.Why did your company decide to take on interns? What did you aim to achieve?

Since our establishment in 1950, we have contracted civil works such as river and road public works in our regional construction business, and we also perform restoration work in the event of disasters. Today, with the shortage of workers in the construction industry, there is a demand for improvement of efficiency by incorporating ICT technology. From our early days we introduced Japan's unique Construction/Civil Information Modeling (CIM), aiming to visualize the site with construction making use of video transmitted by our company (video CIM), and we have promoted three dimensional management to display design drawings in 3D. In addition, as a new business, we are working on the development of a "cooling paint" that demonstrates a midsummer water-sprinkling effect. In order to promote further advancement of ICT technology and expand our new business, we would like to broaden the framework of our company without the constraints of conventional ways of doing things. We decided that we wanted to host talented overseas ICT technology personnel and work with them for further development while discussing the effectiveness of our CIM technology and video CIM system, so we requested to host interns.

We discussed the effectiveness of our proprietary technology using the common language of civil engineering terminology

Q.What kind of internship did you run? What difficulties did you face and how did you resolve them?

We first explained video CIM to the interns and asked them to participate in discussions regarding how useful it was for safety management, quality control, and productivity improvement. The activity plan revolved around three main points: on-site construction planning to management mastering of video CIM, and cost management. In the first half, we asked them to create make 3D models and CAD drawing from the design drawings and plan camera settings, before having them experience Japanese construction management on the actual site. In the second half, we had them learn about cost control of the actual site. Both of them have strong abilities, and they were able to complete the tasks we set them without difficulties, and they advanced ahead of the initial plan. Since the prepared tasks were finished early, we asked them to translate our pamphlets and 17 articles of the Civil Engineering Creed. Initially there was a language barrier, but since as both of them were civil engineering majors, were able to communicate with each other's knowledge and nuance with the technical terms of civil engineering, which was good. Also, one of the interns was able to speak some Japanese and the other had some actual experience working in civil engineering, so they were able to help each other to advance their activities.

We gained confidence in creating relationships with foreign personnel to aim to take on the world with our civil engineering technology

Q.Comparing before and after the internship, what effects did it have on you, your employees, or your organization?

The adoption of ICT in the construction industry in Japan is still in its infancy, but after hosting the interns we came to understand that it is widely used abroad, and that there are many young human resources who have mastered it. In addition, the Japanese CAD is a translated version, but the interns, who had studied using the original version of English, knew lots of little tricks and shortcuts. Our employees were greatly inspired by these talented interns. In future, we hope that by accepting excellent foreign talent, we can increase the level of our company as a whole and broaden the scope of the work we do, and communicate to the world the unique civil engineering technology of Japan and our own company. This time, we tried hosting foreign personnel, and we felt that it was important to engage with people regardless of their nationality, culture or language. We think there are differences between Japan and overseas in terms of values with regard to work and in ways of working, but we believe that the first thing to do is to build relationships so that at least one person can understand our feelings and philosophies, and this will in turn lead to the next stage. One of the interns has a dream of "wanting to build a house for refugees" in the future. Our company would also like to support this dream, from the perspective of network building, etc.