Engineers who support the Inventors
An environment free from common obstacles empowers inventors to focus on bringing their ideas to life.
The path of innovation is lined with change and facing challenges along the way is inevitable. How does the Woven City mechanism support inventors and help them address these obstacles when they arise? Development is accelerated by experimentation in real-life situations. This approach significantly shortens the time between discovery, commercialization, and practical application of new ideas. Here we have interviewed two of our engineers to find out more about how the Woven by Toyota process incorporates problem solving.
Please tell us about your current project.
Suzuka: At Woven City, my role is to act as a bridge between inventors and the Woven by Toyota engineers. I learn about the problems faced by inventors, study them, and then work to develop Woven City solutions most suitable for addressing those needs. In short, I facilitate the inventors in their efforts to, “build the future fabric of life” and contribute to the "well-being for all.”
Marouane: Currently, we are developing an app to expedite every aspect of the process of bringing ideas to life within Woven City. The inventors and residents of Woven City will be able to interact with one another and access a wealth of useful information. The inventors will be able to share their projects, encourage participation in pilot programs, and get detailed and immediate feedback. We are also working on providing some supporting tools to distribute their testing directly through the app as well.
What brought you to work at Woven City?
Suzuka: My background is as a data scientist and my specialty is in mathematical optimization. This is a method where we formulate various real-world problems as mathematical models to help us troubleshoot and optimize decisions for ongoing improvement. In order to ensure that our solutions will be useful in actual situations, we continuously update the mathematical models based on the results of testing.
Woven City, the “ever-evolving city,” applies this same iterative process of creating new inventions and services through a cycle of problem identification and improvement. Knowing that this process aligns with my expertise and experience, I was drawn to the project.
Marouane: After graduating from university, I worked as a software engineer in my home country of Morocco. There I developed tools supporting major corporations integrating their apps without our services. It was at this early stage of my career that I learned the Kanban methodology for software development which originated from Toyota Motor Corporation. Suffice to say, when I heard about the “Woven City” project, I was very excited to join this challenging and unique project.
How does your work directly support the inventors?
Suzuka: We approach inventor issues as if they are our own. Whatever I’m working on I am always considering, “How can we make this process as seamless as possible?” and “What is the best way to provide useful feedback?” Every day I listen to the issues faced by inventors and expand and refine new ways that I can utilize data and our technology to solve those issues.
Marouane: I always keep an eye out for the little problems in everyday life. Even in my day-to-day work, I try to be helpful by supporting other teams and solving problems with technology. For example, I am considering creating an app that automates the administrative process of alerting us when employee letterboxes in the office are full. I believe that apps that take care of everyday needs within the company can be put to good use in Woven City.
How do you plan to support the Woven City inventors going forward?
Marouane: My goal is to create an environment where inventors can focus on turning their ideas into reality. The real advantage we can offer is to provide well designed tools for collecting useful feedback. We then manage and analyze the empirical data to proactively improve their technologies and services. Effective feedback from users is essential for inventors and I look forward to working with Suzuka and various teams to find better ways to accomplish this.
Suzuka: Some inventors have a vision for global distribution of a service but are unable to develop the app needed to make it a reality. Woven City provides support, tools, and a fertile environment for development that makes it much easier for inventors to create apps so inventors can just focus on their ideas and the development of their services.
We have already attracted a diverse lineup of advanced technologies and look forward to even more inventors taking advantage of our services so that they can quickly implement their projects and make a positive impact on society.
Ayami Suzuka
Ph.D. (Engineering). A data scientist specializing in mathematical optimization. She has been connecting inventors and engineers as a customer engineer at Woven by Toyota since 2022.
Marouane Boumeziane
After graduating university as an engineer, he started work in software development (both in Morocco). Since 2022, he has been designing and implementing software solutions for Woven City at Woven by Toyota.
Problem-solving for Inventors(Toyota Motor Kyushu)
Lacking In-house Resources for Software Development
We are trying to launch a new app on our own but we don’t currently have the right skill sets or adequate financial resources to begin development from scratch.
Support for App Development & Distribution
- Woven City offers a variety of ready-to-use apps with basic functionality, including the ability to make payments and book services within Woven City. Apps can also be easily customized by the inventors themselves.
- These apps also collect feedback from Woven City residents, which become the basis for quickly implementing the next batch of improvements.
which will be conducted in the city of Susono, Shizuoka Prefecture,
has not yet been decided.
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