Measures for Preserving Quality
Quality policy
"We always satisfy the requests from clients, laws, regulations, and standards, and offer reliable, economical, safe, and worry-free products and services by each deadline."
Our corporate group set the above quality policy based on the ISO9001, a certification for quality assurance management systems, and conducts group-wide activities, including order receipt, design, purchase, production, construction, tests, inspection, after-sales services, and development, with the aim of living up to the trust of clients under the policy of putting importance on clients and satisfying them.
Quality/Environment assurance management
Chart of processes of the quality management system (QMS)
Responsibility
The management systems for quality assurance and the environment of our corporate group are managed by the quality/environment assurance department, which is directly controlled by the president as a secretariat, under the leadership and commitment of the president and the management.
We set group-wide policies for quality and the environment and performance indicators (KPIs) for each fiscal year, and each business division sets KPIs and concrete measures in management programs, with the aim of maximizing our performance. We adopted a system in which the secretariat and quality/environment managers monitor and evaluate our business performance on a quarterly basis. In addition, the president reviews the effectiveness of the quality/environment management systems regularly, and we are responsible for ensuring quality and environmental conservation.
Kakoki Standards
Our company has the Kakoki Standards (KS), which systematically specify necessary items and basic technological items for business execution. The KS is composed of "management standards," "operation standards," and "technological standards." These are reviewed regularly and revised when there emerge some non-conforming products or services, to improve business operations. When the standards are revised, we make the revision known to all employees by utilizing the Intranet, and make it possible to browse the latest version via the Intranet anytime. In our corporate group, the authority to browse the standards was set, to share the standards.
Quality/Environment Committee
For the purpose of promoting quality assurance and environment conservation activities continuously while involving all group companies, we hold a meeting of the Quality/Environment Committee with the president serving as general manager on a quarterly basis, to share the situation with respect to annual KPIs (quality: costs for dealing with non-conformity and the customer satisfaction level, environment: sales from orders related to SDGs and technological development), information on non-conformity, the customer satisfaction level, the evaluation of management programs, etc. and deliberate how to respond to serious accidents and complaints about products or services and improve quality. Group companies, too, attend the meeting, to share information and unify our measures.
As subordinate standing committees of the Quality/Environment Committee, we established a pipe quality assurance committee for the minister's certification for high-pressure gas and the KS council, and have newly established a sustainability committee.
Response to non-conformity of products
We take the following four measures to deal with the non-conformity of products.
- The management regulations stipulate that we shall recognize and manage products and services that do not meet the requests from clients and prevent them from being used by mistake.
- We make efforts to prevent non-conformity, and if non-conformity is found, we will not make it leaked to a client.
- If non-conformity is found, the quality/environment assurance department is involved with the discussion on its cause and measures for preventing recurrence as a secondary investigation division. Like this, we have a systematic approval system for surefire operation.
- If serious non-conformity is found, the information will be sent to the president and the management at the same time through the information transmission system called Q Flash.
[Conditions for using Q Flash]
- Our product or service would cause the halt of operation of a client or damage the business of a client.
- Our product or service has caused or may cause an accident, such as an accident causing injury, death, or property damage and a fire, or environmental pollution.
- A client's complaint that should be shared in our company
Management of the non-conformity database
The quality/environment assurance department collects information on defects, non-conformity, etc. and manages and utilizes the "non-conformity database."
The database includes a broad range of detailed cases of trouble and non-conformity for each product, each client, and each business section. The information on non-conformity of products and services is updated when necessary, and can be utilized by any employees as intellectual property of our company. This database is also used for educating successors to engineers.
Education of employees about quality
Our company conducts systematic education about the KS and documents for quality/environment management systems.
In November, which is the nationwide quality month, we hold an online session about management systems for all employees, contractors, temporary workers, and part-timers, to deepen their understanding of the importance of "observance of rules," "personnel development," "enhancement of verification," and "communication about risks" for fostering the risk-free climate and further enhancing the awareness of quality.
Risk assessment for products
Our company reforms our business portfolio under the management vision. Various risks can be assumed in new business domains and the development of new products.
Our company makes company-wide efforts to reduce and prevent risks through the strategy for rationalization before receiving orders and the management of serious risks based on the control of trial products and changes after receiving orders. In addition, we adopted the phase-gate process in development meetings in 2021. We carry out risk assessment to judge whether or not to release products and evaluate them, and support the realization of the management vision.