More Than 70% of Manufacturing Orders Are Still Received by Fax

Approximately 90% of Personnel Who Manually Input Document Contents into the System Prefer the Implementation of an Automated Data Entry Tool

Tokyo, August 29, 2024 –  AI inside Inc., a provider of an AI platform, surveyed 329 persons in charge of order receipt operations in the manufacturing industry regarding the status of paper document use in order receipt operations. This survey aimed to grasp the current state of digitization in the manufacturing industry, a significant industry that supports the Japanese country.

Click here to download the survey report (Japanese only):
https://info.inside.ai/document_ordering_survey_202408

Results

At least 95.2% of personnel in charge of order receipt operations have paper documents still being exchanged

2.4% of the respondents answered “None” when asked, “Q1. What documents are currently exchanged on paper? (Multiple answers allowed)” (n=329). Excluding the 2.4% who answered “I don’t know/Cannot answer,” we found that at least 95.2% of respondents communicated by paper documents. The most common documents exchanged were “delivery notes” (60.5%), “invoices” (56.5%), and “purchase orders” (51.7%).

73.3% of those in charge of order receipt operations that exchange paper documents answered that they receive documents by fax in some of their operations

We asked, “Q2. Do any of your operations currently receive documents by fax?” (n=321) to those who answered other than “none.” 25.9% answered “Yes, considerably,” and 47.4% answered “Yes, slightly.”

The average number of documents received by fax per month: 43.0% of respondents answered “1,000 or more”, of which 11.5% answered “5,000 or more”

To those who answered “Yes, considerably” and “Yes, slightly” in Q2, we asked, “Q3. How many documents do you receive by fax on average per month?” (n=235). 11.5% responded “5,000 or more,” 11.5% responded “2,000 to 4,999,” and 20.0% responded ”1,000 to 1,999.”

60.4% responded that they “enter manually” for entering the document contents received by fax into their order system

To those who answered, “Yes, considerably” and “Yes, slightly” in Q2, we also asked, “Q4. How do you enter the document contents received by fax into your order system?” (n=235). 60.4% responded, “Enter manually,” while 34.0% answered, “A system enters automatically.”

88.4% of those in charge of order receipt operations who receive documents by fax “would like to” stop communicating by fax

To those who answered, “Yes, considerably” and “Yes, slightly” in Q2, we then asked, “Q5. Would you like to stop sending and receiving faxes?” (n=235). 36.9% responded, “would very much like to,” and 51.5% answered, “fairly much so.”

The number one reason for not being able to stop sending and receiving faxes: “Cannot shift to other tools because of the business partners’ use of faxes”

To those who answered, “would very much like to” and “fairly much so” in Q5, we asked “Q6. What are the reasons why you have been unable to stop using faxes, despite your willingness to do so? (Multiple answers allowed)” (n=208). 63.0% of the respondents answered, “cannot shift to other tools because of the business partners’ use of faxes,” 32.2% answered, “No effective alternative tool available,” and 30.3% answered, “Fax is easier to send because many documents are handwritten.”

88.1% of those in charge of manual data entry into order entry systems hope to “implement a data entry automation service”

To those who responded that they “enter manually” in Q4, we asked, “Q7. Would you like to implement a data entry automation service?” (n=142). 45.8% responded, “would very much like to,” and 42.3% answered, “fairly much so.”

Summary

Despite the demand for paperless and digitalization, paper documents are still widely used in business-to-business transactions in the manufacturing industry. The most frequently passed and received documents are “delivery notes” (60.5%), “invoices” (56.5%), and “purchase orders” (51.7%).

Furthermore, 73.3% of those in charge of order receipt operations who answered that they receive documents by paper also responded that they receive documents by fax. 43.0% of the companies answered that they receive more than 1,000 documents on average per month, and 11.5% receive more than 5,000 documents by fax. 60.4% manually input this enormous amount of paper documents into the system, revealing that companies have not yet broken away from the paper culture.

While 88.4% of those in charge of manual data entry “prefer to stop communicating by fax,” 63.0% of them “cannot shift to other tools because of their business partners’ use of faxes,” highlighting a structural issue that makes it difficult to change business processes solely for their own reasons.

88.1% of those in charge of manual data entry hope to “implement a data entry automation service;” it is apparent that the personnel in charge are troubled by the inefficient work. The introduction of services such as AI-OCR makes it possible to automate data entry work while remaining compatible with paper documents received via fax. Not only does it reduce the workload of those in charge of order entry, but it also reduces input errors and labor costs.

Utilization of AI-OCR for order receipt operations (Japanese only):
https://app.ferret-one.com/cms/preview/share/c24032539148/3827171?show_draft_template=false&token=80072eab-1823-4329-b3c1-619212773a24

Survey overview

Name of survey: Survey on the Use of Paper Documents in the Manufacturing Industry’s Order Receipt Operations
Survey method: Internet survey planned by Research PR “Research+P” provided by IDEATECH Inc.
Survey period: June 5, 2024 to June 6, 2024
No. of valid responses: 329 persons working in the manufacturing industry in charge of receiving orders
*Composition ratios are rounded to the first decimal place; therefore, totals do not necessarily add up to 100.

About “DX Suite”

“DX Suite” is an AI-OCR service that offers the industry’s highest level of OCR accuracy, equipped with AI inside’s original character recognition AI. It is capable of digitizing printed and handwritten text in all types of forms with high accuracy without prior training, regardless of whether they are in structured or semi-structured formats. It is equipped with OCR functions to structuralize unstructured data, such as “Item extraction,” which has more than 1,000 presets for semi-structured forms, and “Full page OCR,” which reads all text strings in a form in bulk.

A fax integration connector is currently under development as an optional service optimized for document receipt by fax. This connector will automate the pre-processing of documents received by fax before uploading them to “DX Suite.”

“DX Suite” will drastically improve the efficiency of data conversion of various documents, which used to be done manually. It will also contribute to improving the productivity and sophistication of data management for all companies and organizations.
Website: https://dx-suite.com/en

About AI inside Inc.

AI inside is a tech company that conducts R&D and social implementation of cutting-edge technologies, such as generative AI, LLM, and autonomous AI. We provide the AI agent “Heylix,” the AI-OCR service “DX Suite,” and the AI infrastructures “AnyData” and “AI inside Cube” to a wide range of government agencies, local governments, and private companies. Our AI services have been used more than 5.5 billion times by over 50,000 users. Through these initiatives, we will promote the collaboration between humans and AI, and realize the “VALUE SHIFT,” by shifting the time saved through improved productivity and operational efficiency to higher-value-added, advanced operations.
https://inside.ai/en/

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