Blog
Organizational changes at Kyocera Technologies support cross-functional collaboration between teams and enable better on-time delivery
04.06.2025
Nothing is permanent except change. We have made some organizational changes to improve cross-functional collaboration and on-time delivery, and to support the development of our professionals’ skills. Read on to see what has changed.
Better conditions for creating new innovations
In early 2025, we launched a project to change our team structure and working methods to be more agile. This change was implemented in April 2025, so we have only been living with the new structures for a short time. So far, the changes feel positive, but continuous monitoring of the development and feedback is needed. But going back to the beginning, what were the main reasons for the new organizational structure?
These were the major objectives for the change:
- Better cross-functional collaboration
- Better execution and on-time delivery of the projects
- Better understanding of the ways of working
- Enable personal development of employees
- To reduce the layers of our organization
We have a lot of R&D projects on our desk and we wanted to make sure that the on-time delivery and execution of the projects improved. As we say, we work hard and long term, but always as a one team. The second thing was to improve the collaboration between different teams. So the interaction between different functions was also one of the key assets we wanted to improve.
Before the reorganization, we worked in three different teams: Design, Testing, and Processing. Now we have three different engineering teams that have their own R&D projects to develop. These teams are made up of people from each of the previous teams, and each team has its own engineering manager who owns the project portfolio and also works as a supervisor. We believe that mixing the teams allows for better interaction between different functions and better learning from each other. We still have our Operations team, which handles our key support functions such as IT, purchasing, maintenance, and operator services.
We also decided to use some parts of the Agile methodologies more intensively. Our teams work independently in two-week sprints. During each two week period, the teams can dedicate some of their time to develop their personal skills and improve the company’s capabilities. Each team is managed based on goals and our product roadmap shows where to focus product development. Each team knows its own goals and works toward them.
What’s next?
As we mentioned earlier, the new teams have only been working together for a short time, so the next step is to monitor feedback and how the new daily work life is going. We have weekly meetings with engineering managers so that we can make quick changes to the way we work if it’s needed. The change can always cause different feelings, so it’s important to monitor and manage it.
However, so far the self-managed teams have started to work well and we have seen a positive improvement in communication between different functions. We have also seen new innovations and invention disclosures.
So far, so good, and we will continue to develop in our new direction with great interest!