Sumitomo Rubber Industries: Accelerating software development with Cloud Workstations and Gemini
Reduced development environment setup time from months to minutes with Cloud Workstations
Boosted developer productivity with Gemini Code Assist generative AI support
Achieved faster time-to-market and lowered development costs for new products
Sumitomo Rubber Industries significantly reduced software development time and cost with Google Cloud, using generative AI and cloud-based development environments to deliver innovative products faster.
Sumitomo Rubber Industries significantly reduced software development time and cost with Google Cloud, using generative AI and cloud-based development environments to deliver innovative products faster.
Supporting developers learning multiple coding languages with generative AI and education
As I was researching generative AI in particular, I felt that this had the potential to do something different than what had been done before. I thought I would try Google Cloud, which provides excellent services in this field, so I contacted them. We decided to consider Google Cloud, because they offered proactive support in the form of training and workshops.
Masaya Tsunoda
Director of Unit 1, Research and Development Department, Sumitomo Rubber
Sumitomo Rubber Industries, with their rich history spanning over a century, has long been recognized as a pioneer in rubber technology. From tires to golf balls, the company's commitment to innovation has driven its success. However, with increasing reliance on complex computer simulations to design and test its products, the company’s development team faced scaling challenges. The simulations, essential for predicting long-term performance and quality assurance, demanded a diverse set of programming languages like Fortran, Perl, and Java, as well as the creation of numerous specialized tools. This complexity created a bottleneck in the development process, as developers struggled to keep pace with the demand for custom software, often getting bogged down in time-consuming tasks and facing steep learning curves when trying to concurrently master multiple programming languages.
In order to help the development teams address these challenges, Sumitomo Rubber Industries considered the use of the cloud, and in particular, they wanted to verify the use of the cloud-based development environment and generative AI technology with the aim of increasing efficiency.
"As I was researching generative AI in particular, I felt that this had the potential to do something different than what had been done before. I thought I would try Google Cloud, which provides excellent services in this field, so I contacted them," says Mr. Masaya Tsunoda, Director of Unit 1, Research and Development Department, Sumitomo Rubber. "We decided to consider Google Cloud because they offered proactive support in the form of training and workshops."
Sumitomo Rubber Industries formed a cross-departmental study team and participated in Google Cloud’s Tech Acceleration Program, which offered rapid and efficient application development using Google Cloud’s cutting-edge products and technologies, including Gemini Code Assist, Cloud Workstations, and Cloud Run.
Streamline and speed up development process with Cloud Workstations
Sumitomo Rubber Industries successfully implemented Cloud Workstations to streamline their development process. Cloud Workstations offer fully-managed and secure development environments, built within their Virtual Private Cloud on Google Cloud, that enable developers to quickly and securely write applications using their familiar Visual Studio Code interface directly through a browser. The platform's GPU support also facilitated AI development.
The company drastically reduced the time required for environment setup and development. Tasks that previously took six months now completed in minutes using a single command in Cloud Workstations. In addition, with cloud-native platforms such as Cloud Run and Cloud Build, developers can automate the transformation of their code into web applications and deploy them seamlessly to the production environment.
Sumitomo Rubber has been having trouble building and distributing development environments for some time, so creating a system that allows machines with the same specs to be distributed together was very helpful in streamlining development.
Tomoya Shirai
Expert, DX Integration Unit, Digital Solution Department, Kyocera Communication Systems
Sumitomo Rubber Industries also used Cloud Run's serverless architecture to minimize development costs by activating resources only when a user accessed the application.
This comprehensive approach significantly improved the organization's development workflows while lowering overall cost. According to Mr. Shirai of Kyocera Communication Systems, a Google Cloud partner who assisted in implementing Cloud Workstations, the ability to distribute machines with identical specifications with Cloud Workstations streamlined development and addressed a long-standing challenge for the company. "Sumitomo Rubber has been having trouble building and distributing development environments for some time, so creating a system that allows machines with the same specs to be distributed together was very helpful in streamlining development,” says Mr. Shirai.
Boost developer productivity using Gemini Code Assist
We've found that generative AI can significantly reduce the time required for training, and is also effective as a tool to help programming novices. In the future, if all of our members develop applications using generative AI, we will be able to not only improve work efficiency, but also provide more new services to our customers.
Masaya Tsunoda
Director of Unit 1, Research and Development Department, Sumitomo Rubber
The arrival of Gemini Code Assist marked a turning point for Sumitomo Rubber’s development teams. Since Gemini Code Assist is natively available in Cloud Workstation, teams can streamline and accelerate their entire software development lifecycle. Generating code from simple instructions, auto-completing code snippets, and seamlessly converting code between languages was a revelation for developers long-accustomed to tedious manual coding and the frustration of language barriers.
Teams embraced these new capabilities, quickly recognizing the potential to not only boost productivity but also to democratize development, enabling individuals with varying levels of coding expertise to contribute more effectively. "We've found that generative AI can significantly reduce the time required for training, and is also effective as a tool to help programming novices. In the future, if all of our members develop applications using generative AI, we will be able to not only improve work efficiency, but also provide more new services to our customers," says Masaya Tsunoda from Sumitomo Rubber Development teams.
Development cycles are now shorter, time-to-market for new products is accelerated, and resources are used more strategically, leading to significant cost savings. Most importantly, Sumitomo Rubber Industries' developers are empowered to tackle more ambitious challenges, driving the company's legacy of innovation forward. Sumitomo Rubber Industry’s journey is not just a testament to the transformative power of generative AI in software development, it's a compelling case study for any business seeking to harness these technologies for a competitive edge.
Sumitomo Rubber Industries, Ltd. is a global tire and rubber company based in Japan. It is part of the Sumitomo Group. The company makes a wide range of rubber based products, including automobile tires, golf balls, and tennis balls.
Industries: Manufacturing
Location: Japan
Products: Gemini Code Assist, Cloud Workstations, Cloud Run
About Google Cloud partner- Kyocera Communication Systems
Kyocera Communication Systems Co. Ltd. is a creator of communications systems. The company provides information system integration and package development, network integration, Internet date center services, and security services.
