We are pleased to share a milestone achievement from our partner, Kawasaki Heavy Industries (KHI). KHI has successfully participated in a project commissioned by Japan's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare under the FY2025 Health Promotion Program for the Elderly. The initiative utilizes the digital indoor positioning service, "mapxus Driven by Kawasaki," to reduce administrative workload and improve operational workflows for care facilities across Japan.
Addressing Demographic and Administrative Challenges
Japan faces an urgent need to secure approximately 570,000 care workers by 2040 due to a rapidly declining birthrate and aging population. To support improvements in working conditions through ICT and robotics, the government established the "Productivity Improvement Promotion System Addition" in FY2024. However, the preparation of application documents, particularly the detailed "Time Study Survey Sheet," has placed a significant administrative burden on frontline workers. To solve this, KHI proposed a solution leveraging its expertise in activity tracking through "mapxus Driven by Kawasaki" and joined the project in September 2025.
Project Implementation and Validation
The project ran from September 8, 2025 to March 31, 2026, collaborating with five care facilities in Japan, including special nursing homes and paid nursing homes. The methods were validated with the support of the Japan No-Lift Association, confirming a direct reduction in staff workload.
"mapxus Driven by Kawasaki" delivers seamless positioning information across indoor and outdoor spaces by combining Wi-Fi-based indoor location data with GPS-based outdoor location data.
Key Technical Achievements
- Automated Activity Recording: By simply wearing a locator device, the system automatically identifies specific caregiving actions, such as resident transfers, communication, and documentation. Verification confirmed that manual recording by staff was eliminated completely.
- Instant Document Generation: The system automatically reflects activity records into the required survey format. The time needed to prepare these documents was reduced from 30 minutes per instance to effectively zero.
- Data-driven Operational Improvement: The collected activity data quantitatively clarified workflow bottlenecks. Verification at care facilities confirmed that optimizing bathing schedules and role allocations increased the time residents spent in the bathing room by approximately 1.75 times while simultaneously reducing staff burden.
Driving Sustainable Care Reforms
Going forward, KHI plans to expand these efficiency methods nationwide to promote the adoption of the government subsidy system and contribute to reducing the burden on care facilities. We are proud that our core indoor positioning technology contributes to KHI's mission of creating a sustainable future for care operations.