Quality

Putting the highest priority on preventing a recurrence of the quality misconduct, the KOBELCO Group is promoting initiatives to strengthen quality management and improve its quality control process.

From the perspective of our customers and business partners, we aim to achieve quality that is trusted by and brings satisfaction to customers and all stakeholders, while working to instill the Quality Charter, which constitutes a part of the Six Pledges of KOBELCO, among all employees and promoting KOBELCO TQM^* activities.

Quality Charter

The KOBELCO Group will comply with all laws, public standards, and customer specifications, and make continuous efforts to improve quality, with the goal of providing Trusted Quality in its products and services.

The Quality Management Committee was established in April 2019 as an advisory body to the Board of Directors, with its members consisting of three external experts and two internal directors. The committee met four times in fiscal 2021. The committee conducted continuous monitoring of measures to prevent recurrence of quality misconduct, as well as conducted monitoring, and offered recommendations on activities to strengthen quality management in our Group.

The Companywide Quality Management Review Meeting was held in November 2021, attended by top management, the heads of business divisions, and quality assurance managers. This meeting, which was first held in fiscal 2019, was established as a forum to discuss quality across the Group, and the 2021 meeting was the third annual meeting. At the meeting, we reviewed the status of quality management and initiatives conducted in the current fiscal year by the Group and discussed and built a consensus on the policy for quality initiatives for the following fiscal year.

KOBELCO TQM Promotion Meetings were set up under the Trust Improvement Project, led by the president, and promote Companywide quality management measures. It consists of the five task forces of Planning and Promotion, Human Resource Development and Training, Operational Quality Improvement, Quality Assurance Strengthening, and Monozukuri (Manufacturing) Support, the members of which are those from the Head Office and business divisions. At the meetings, which are held monthly, the director/executive officer who supervises quality matters gives instructions and conducts necessary checks for the maintenance and enhancement of proper quality management.

In fiscal 2021, the Quality Management Department conducted quality audits, including remote audits, at 46 business locations. In fiscal 2021, we began operating a system of certifying conformity to the KOBELCO Quality Guidelines, and as a result of implementing on-site audits for 23 locations that satisfied the certification requirements, eight locations were certified as conformant (a certification rate of 35%). We also began activities to encourage each location to independently enhance their level of quality assurance by means of self-diagnoses of their status of conformity to the guidelines.

In fiscal 2021, the team visited 70 locations (including remote visits), and identified 178 issues. It also completed its response to 66 issues identified in fiscal 2020 to which proposals had not been provided. On a cumulative basis, the team has responded to 86% of the issues identified.

We continued to promote automation in fiscal 2021 (and will continue to do so), and by the end of fiscal 2021 we had mostly achieved our plans formulated at the start of the year. Going forward, in order to improve the soundness of testing and inspection we will continue to promote automation by making use of DX, IT, and other technologies. We are also moving forward with the use of IT tools to understand and improve process capabilities, which has led to a reduction in quality defects.

In order to promote and instill KOBELCO TQM activities, we implemented basic TQM qualifications (equivalent to QC level 4) for all Company employees. We also implemented TQM management training for line managers and group managers. In addition, we have established specialist courses in such areas as reliability engineering (failure mode and effects analysis, etc.), with the aim of improving management technology, primarily among those working in design and management areas.