One of the growing businesses of Fuji Electric Retail Systems (FRS) involves making eco-friendly project development proposals to clients based on the "Store Total Plan Produce" (STPP) concept. Total solutions to rationalize stores, optimize logistics or promote the 3Rs (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) address social and environmental demands to create more comfortable shopping environments for consumers.

The issue facing the retail industry

Varied shops and different retail formats, including department stores, supermarkets and convenience stores, have become an indispensable part of modern consumer life. By making lifestyles more pleasant and convenient, retail environments are arguably part of the social infrastructure.

  The retail industry is characterized by a plethora of competing companies, both large and small, opening and closing stores on a continual basis in a bid to expand in scale and boost profits. However, many of the measures adopted by the industry to promote sales, such as upgraded in-store facilities or longer opening hours, entail higher environmental burden. Expanding the commercial sphere while reducing environmental burden is thus a critical issue for the industry as a whole.

Ecolo Unit: a product that resulted from one customer comment

FRS manager Takao Teranishi recalls an important event that happened five or six years earlier: "A leading convenience store chain had just taken delivery of our frozen and chilled product showcases, when the manager asked me whether we could also do the in-store refurbishment. The manager expected that they would be able to rationalize store management by consolidating processes for arranging showcases and internal store constructions, which had been coordinated by separate suppliers until then. The question led us to think long and hard about how to combine the two activities into one business."

  The solution proposed by Akio Kato, Manager, Construction & Refurbishment Department, Sales Promotion Group of FRS was the Ecolo Unit, a modular system of store construction. Each unit in this system is pre-manufactured at the factory and then assembled on-site. A typical store can be created from seven units transported to the chosen location on a large truck.

 

Explaining the benefits of the system, Mr. Kato says, "The entire building can be assembled in a single day. This shortens the construction process by about a month compared with conventional methods. It also considerably reduces the noise and other objectionable aspects of theconstruction for the local community. In addition, the waste in terms of materials is cut by about 90%. All in all, stores built using the Ecolo Unit system are extremely eco-friendly." A final benefit is that the store can even be re-used because the design enables the store to be moved to another location.

  Besides the convenience store sector, FRS has since expanded the lineup of modular assembly products to include R-CUBE, a compact retail system. This design can be constructed overnight, making it ideal for retail outlets inside station complexes.

Rationalization of traditional store construction methods using centralized purchasing and pooled delivery systems

Another new service that FRS proposes to customers improves on traditional methods of store construction by providing centralized purchasing and pooled delivery systems of the materials used in construction. Previously, the materials for the roof, walls and interior would be ordered separately by individual product line from a specialist supplier and then transported to the site by a separate contractor. FRS arranges storage of all the materials needed for construction in the same warehouse and provides transport services to deliver the required materials in the necessary amounts to the site. The savings in terms of transportation costs and time translate into lower CO₂ emissions.

A creative conceptual approach to total
production of commercial environments

These are all examples of the STPP approach taken by FRS to provide all the services required in creating commercial environments in an integrated package, ranging from design and installation to logistics and store maintenance. Making the most of the benefits of one-stop ordering, FRS has succeeded in realizing significant added value in terms of both cost and environmental impact reduction by applying a creative conceptual approach to the production of retail spaces.

  Mr. Teranishi explains his vision for the business: "Our salespeople are all producers. Our dream is to create and implement proposals for the production of a whole single store." Another important aspect of this ambition is to provide services that contribute to the community. "I hope that we can bring together all the resources of the Fuji Electric Group to provide convenience stores with alternative energy generation solutions. Perhaps we could also look at the possibility of designing these stores in such a way that they can act as emergency supply points for provisions in the event of a disaster," concludes Mr. Kato.

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