ENEOS Materials was established in 2022 as a core entity within the ENEOS Group, dedicated to its materials business. The company develops, manufactures, and sells a wide range of products, including rubber used in automotive tires and golf balls, industrial rubber products, binder for lithium-ion batteries, and advanced next-generation materials.
Recognizing the need to boost productivity amid labor shortages and rising costs, and to use AI securely and accurately with proprietary information, ENEOS Materials was among the first companies in Japan to adopt ChatGPT Enterprise and has since expanded its use to all employees.
The impact of this adoption can be seen in the following results:
- 80% of employees reported significant improvements in their workflows during their pilot phase
- 90% reduction in data aggregation and analysis time for the HR department
- Investigations reduced from months to minutes with deep research capabilities within ChatGPT
A cross-functional team partnered with OpenAI to implement ChatGPT Enterprise, leading to impactful use cases across multiple departments.
Empowering manufacturing productivity through secure AI adoption
In Japan, the manufacturing industry faces challenges such as labor shortages due to the declining birthrate and aging population, as well as rising raw material and energy costs. ENEOS Materials is no exception. Yoshirou Sakura, Manager at the Production Technology Department, notes, “Using digital tools to boost productivity is essential as our workforce shrinks. Improving efficiency and broadening what employees can handle is key to staying competitive.”
To address this, ENEOS Materials turned to ChatGPT Enterprise. A cross-departmental volunteer team aimed to “master the technology ourselves first, and then explore its potential in the manufacturing industry,” which led to adoption. Taku Ichibayashi, Manager at the Research & Development Department, explains, “To maximize our business results with AI, ensuring a secure environment for handling proprietary information was essential. ChatGPT Enterprise met our internal cyber security requirements and provided the output accuracy we required.”
Since adopting ChatGPT Enterprise, ENEOS Materials has experienced rapid adoption, creating over 1,000 custom GPTs. Across the company, more than 90% of employees used ChatGPT at least weekly, and over 80% reported significant workflow gains. Building on this momentum, ENEOS Materials has rolled out ChatGPT Enterprise across the organization, where it has become central to efforts to create new value. “ChatGPT has become a partner to each of our employees,” said Sakura.
Bridging language and expertise gaps with deep research
“Deep research lets us overcome language barriers,” says Kenichi Sakemi of the Process Development and Engineering Department at ENEOS Materials, which operates a plant in Hungary. “What once took months, scouring Hungarian sources, now takes tens of minutes because Deep Research can comprehensively search local materials.”
Committed to boosting productivity, elevating product quality, and reducing environmental impact, the department relies on rapid, precise research into cutting edge technologies to stay ahead. By deploying deep research, the team has translated that ambition into measurable outcomes:
- Investigations that took months now finish in minutes
- Hungarian content translated into precise Japanese to capture insights
- Calculations and analyses that once consumed half a day are completed in minutes
Deep research also shines in highly specialized domains like chemical engineering, where complex calculations and advanced inquiries can now be executed rapidly. “Sophisticated technical tasks that previously took half a day can be completed in minutes, simply by asking questions in Japanese,” Sakemi adds.
Enhancing efficiency and safety simultaneously
The Engineering department uses a custom GPT for plant design based on company standards. It rapidly generates optimized specifications from inputs such as fluid type, flow rate, pipe diameter, pressure loss, and material requirements.
“Until recently, confirming material corrosion risks and design baselines took considerable effort,” says Sakemi. “With the custom GPT, it now takes seconds.”
ChatGPT also improves safety by flagging material-selection risks during design, and continued use of the tool strengthens safeguards and overall reliability.
The tool not only accelerates design workflows but also improves safety standards and cost efficiency. By cross-referencing internal standards and leveraging ChatGPT’s computational power and domain knowledge, it enables optimal plant design, advancing ENEOS Materials’ production capabilities.
Raising the quality of employee training
The HR department conducts numerous employee training sessions annually, collecting post-training feedback to refine future programs. “Previously, resource limitations hindered detailed analytics of training effectiveness,” says Marie Takeda from HR.
Introducing a custom GPT for training analysis enabled HR to significantly streamline their processes:
- Tasks requiring 1-2 hours manually now complete in 20 seconds
- The AI-driven system evaluates and analyzes training based on established educational frameworks
- Data-driven insights continuously refine training content
Despite having no prior experience with coding, Takeda also independently built an internal tool to streamline data aggregation. “It was my first time trying coding,” she explains, “but with ChatGPT, I was able to create the tool myself without any coding knowledge.” As a result, the time required for data aggregation was reduced by approximately 90%.
Speed and simplicity that scale across operations
“ChatGPT creates value beyond simply optimizing work hours,” says Ichibayashi. The platform’s standout advantages at ENEOS Materials are speed and simplicity. Unlike tools with steep learning curves, ChatGPT lets any employee describe what they need in Japanese and immediately generate high-quality results without coding skills. As confidence grows, teams naturally branch into advanced workflows and uncover unexpected innovations.
Looking ahead, ENEOS Materials plans to extend AI beyond ChatGPT, weaving it across operations to help address manufacturing labor shortages driven by Japan’s aging, shrinking workforce while strengthening competitiveness at home and abroad. Sakura envisions integrating internally trained AI models directly into equipment and enabling natural language control on the shop floor: “I hope for a future where we can communicate with machines in everyday language, guiding and optimizing production as easily as we interact with ChatGPT.”
