Who we are

HQ : Kyoto
Established : 2015
Employees : 14
https://canbright.co.jp/

After 15 years of experience as an IT engineer, I started Canbright in 2015 to take on the challenge of local development projects through food.
We have been collaborating with food businesses all over Japan to develop and manufacture canned foods in small lots and sell them as high value-added products, which used to be the norm for large-scale production.
This initiative has attracted media attention: https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/ondemand/video/2042106/

To accelerate our business, we decided to launch a web service: CANBRIGHT, a cloud ERP that promotes DX in small-scale food manufacturing. Using our experience in the food industry, we are currently developing the system and will release it in April 2021.

Our vision

Provide future generations around the world
with abundant food from Japan

I founded Canbright with the desire to leave a rich and abundant food experience for children in the future. Due to Japan’s declining birthrate, aging population, and deflation, local food industries are becoming less profitable and thus declining.

To enter the global market, we are taking on the challenge of creating a system that allows us to develop, manufacture, and sell high value-added canned goods in small lots.

Based on our vision to “Provide future generations around the world with abundant food from Japan“,
we carry out our mission to “Make the food manufacturing industry smarter“.

To do so, we are currently working on the following three development projects:

  1. Recipe development for processed foods
  2. Planning and development of food manufacturing equipment
  3. Development of the cloud ERP CANBRIGHT

In particular, we wish to contribute to the digital transformation of the food industry, by focusing on the development of our cloud service CANBRIGHT.

Our services/products

What was the trigger that started this service?

As the gap between the rich and the poor continues to widen, food products are becoming polarized between mass-produced cheap food by major food manufacturers and high-added value expensive food.
Local businesses that produce excellent ingredients and processed food will not stand a chance if they do not compete in the market for high-added value food, but they are still using handwritten slips, inefficient management systems, and lack of sales know-how, leading them to a rapid decline.

In addition, it has been decided that HACCP, the global standard for food sanitation methods, will become mandatory, and unless all processes are recorded and managed, sales will become impossible, making the situation difficult for small-scale food businesses. The use of IT services is essential for this kind of operation, but it is necessary to link disparate services that specialize in specific functions. Currently, there are only expensive services for medium-sized businesses and above, and there are no highly functional, easy-to-use, and inexpensive services that can be used by small-scale food businesses.

Our company has been challenging the food industry since 2015, and we have experienced these issues ourselves and have struggled with them all along. Therefore, I decided to develop a web service in order to solve the problems we have experienced in the food industry, utilizing my 15 years of experience as an IT engineer.

Overview of the service

The web service we are developing is called CANBRIGHT, a cloud ERP for the food manufacturing industry.
Our goal is to provide all of the following functions required by the food industry players, including food manufacturers, food wholesalers, and food retailers, with this service alone.

  • Product management
  • Sales management
  • Inventory management
  • Order management
  • Production management
  • Hygiene management
  • Shift management
  • Chat function
  • Task management function
  • Checkout function
  • EC function
  • Online learning function
  • IoT device integration

etc.

Features of the service

  1. High functionality to support a wide range of tasks
  2. Ease of use with a focus on UX and UI
  3. Low price, for small businesses to be able to use it

It is a revolutionary web service that can contribute to the DX of small-scale food businesses in Japan.
Below are two explanation videos about our system (in Japanese), feel free to have a look.

https://vimeo.com/485345729/4322498593
https://vimeo.com/485345743/6848b9f669

Skills

Our engineering team

What projects/services is your engineering team working on?

Responsible for all development, operation, maintenance and support of CANBRIGHT.

  • Concept design
  • Outline design
  • UX, UI design
  • Detailed design
  • API and DB design
  • Coding
  • Testing
  • Support
  • Infrastructure operation

In addition to development, our members are also involved in marketing. As a start-up company, we are all core members of the development of a revolutionary web service that will change the world.

What technologies are you using?

Our product is a SaaS-type cloud service.
We also implement IoT using mobile devices.

Main technologies

  • Front-end : HTML, CSS, JavaScript (React.js, TypeScript)
  • Backend : Ruby, Ruby on Rails, MySQL, Nginx, (considering introducing Go language in the future)
    Infrastructure construction using AWS and Docker
  • Mobile app : Flutter
  • Other tools : Github, Slack, Backlog, CI, etc.

What type of engineers work at your company? What is their job content?

UX/UI Designer
Defines service requirements, designs customer experience and screens etc.. Also visits clients’ sites to identify issues.

Front-end engineer
Instead of using existing libraries, we create our own libraries and develop screens with a focus on user-friendliness.

Back-end engineer
Designs DBs, APIs, authentication, external links, coding, etc.

Mobile application engineer
Develops applications that run on iOS and Android mobile devices.

Infrastructure engineer
Builds, operates, monitors, and maintains AWS infrastructure.

Support Engineer
Provides support to users for installation, handles inquiries.

Do you plan on using any new technologies in the future?

  • Cooperation with IoT devices and robots
  • Automation of records at food production sites through the use of AI
  • Optimization of the entire food industry through large-volume data analysis
  • Global expansion by supporting multiple languages
  • Expansion into manufacturing industries other than food

This is a SaaS-type cloud service, but it will be necessary to link it with hardware such as IoT devices, so we work on device cooperation. In addition, since it is difficult to manually input data one by one at the manufacturing site, we will also develop functions for automatic recording using image recognition and sensors.

The data will be managed in a multi-tenancy model on AWS. Since the service will be linked throughout the entire food manufacturing industry, including food manufacturers, food wholesalers, food retailers, and food ingredient providers, a large volume of data will be accumulated. By analyzing this data, we would like to develop functions that can optimize the entire food value chain.

HACCP, a hygiene management method, has become a global standard, therefore our system could be used not only in Japan but all over the world. At first, our system will be available only in Japanese, but we would like to expand it to the rest of the world by making it available in multiple languages.
We designed the system so that it could be used in manufacturing industries other than food related, so we would like to expand it to other industries as well.

Career step up

We will continue to develop services with a large scale strategy, creating an environment in which each engineer can play a leading role, take on new challenges, and grow.

We want our members to have a wide range of technical expertise and be in charge of functions and services as their career progresses, instead of being expert in one area only, such as front-end or back-end.

Our booth during a professional fair

Our corporate culture

In order to solve social issues, we are a company that does not think in terms of extending the status quo, but always considers how it should be, and continues to take on challenges toward that goal without fear of failure.

Currently, we are a small start-up company, but with the release of our cloud service, we will grow significantly in the future. I believe this is an environment in which you can become a core member and grow together with the company.

In order to achieve this goal, we place importance on the following three values and action guidelines.

  1. Enjoy ingenuity
    Don’t be constrained by common sense, use your wisdom, and do trial and error while having fun!
  2. Face issues with sincerity
    We will face the issues, not the people, and respond in good faith without blaming others and without giving up on solving the issues!
  3. Respect each individual’s sense of fulfillment and comfortable working environment
    Change the company rules to create a rewarding and comfortable work environment, rather than conforming to the company rules.

Trying and failing will not get you yelled at or lower your evaluation.
In fact, if you continue to maintain the status quo without challenging yourself, your evaluation will not increase, so please keep challenging yourself to new things and grow.

As our CEO is a former IT engineer, we care about providing a comfortable working environment for engineers.
We aim to create a high performance and comfortable environment, with high spec PCs and large screen sub-displays.

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