English 
Ricoh Japan and NEXTA just locked in a capital and business alliance and the intent is pretty straightforward. Both companies want to push deeper into manufacturing DX and make it actually workable for the small and mid-sized players who keep feeling stuck between legacy workflows and rising pressure to modernize.
NEXTA’s SmartF sits at the center of this. It is a subscription cloud tool built for smaller manufacturers and it covers production management and core system needs. The appeal is simple. You pick only what you need and you start small instead of drowning in a giant digital overhaul.
The context here is familiar to anyone following Japan’s manufacturing scene. The talent pool keeps shrinking, operations get heavier, and owners know digitalization is no longer optional. The problem is the shop floor has years of customized routines stacked on each other. That makes new tools feel expensive, risky, and tough to land properly.
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The Ricoh Japan and NEXTA link up tries to punch through that. They plan to upgrade SmartF and plug it into other applications Ricoh Japan handles. The bigger idea sits under リコー Japan’s DX Ecosystem where data flows cleanly and fixes the business processes that keep slowing people down.
ネクスタ brings its own edge through a human resource development program that trains people who can guide manufacturers from introducing SmartF to stabilizing it on the ground. Ricoh Japan has been building its own Manufacturing Solution Evangelists since FY2025. Put the two together and the talent pipeline gets stronger and more in tune with what factory teams actually need.
With this partnership, both companies want to give small and mid-sized manufacturers a support system that actually sticks. From recommending the right setup to getting it running and keeping it steady, the goal is to make digital transformation in Japan’s manufacturing sector less buzzword and more reality.
日本語