ESG

Product Quality Assurance

Our Basic Quality Assurance Approach

Fuji Electric established its Quality Assurance Policy in 1970, stipulating the Company's assurance of the industry's highest standard for quality in all of its products and services.

Every year, we formulate a High Reliability Activities Policy based upon the Quality Assurance Policy and work hard to improve quality at every stage of our business, from product planning through sales and service.

Quality Assurance Activities Promotion Framework

Fuji Electric recognizes that quality is an important factor in production technology. In November 2005, we established the Quality Assurance Working Group, as one of four cross-company subcommittees within the Production Technology Committee. This working group is tasked with advancing the Company’s production technology capabilities.

In April 2022, we took some additional initiatives to further enhance the robustness of our quality improvement activities that aim at achieving “100% Quality.” These included renaming the working group the “High Reliability Working Group” and strengthened the overall framework.

Quality improvement activities are promoted mainly by the High Reliability Working Group in coordination with other subcommittees. The activities aim to achieve stable, uniform levels of production technology as a means of enhancing customer satisfaction.

Range of Production Technologies

High Reliability Activities Policy

High reliability activities symbol tower

Every year, we formulate a High Reliability Activities Policy based upon the Quality Assurance Policy, and this policy is applied to business divisions and factories. Then, all business divisions and factories also formulate their own high reliability activities policies.

Based on the Quality Assurance Policy and High Reliability Activities Policy and using the PDCA (plan, do, check, act) cycle, we continuously improve quality.

In fiscal 2022, we implemented cross-factory diagnostics with the goal of inspecting and improving the robustness of quality data creation processes, strengthened and implemented a system to reliably evaluate and verify new technologies for plants and systems, verified an optimal way of evaluating reliability by extracting and quantifying risks associated with qualitative customer requirement specifications related to product use and environmental conditions, improved reliability design and evaluation technologies, promoted testing and inspection digitalization & SPC management, and undertook quality improvement activities at key locations (Suzuka, Kawasaki, Chiba, etc.).

Fuji Electric has acquired ISO 9001 international certification to maintain and enhance our QMS structure. As of the end of March 2023, 39 organizations at bases inside and outside of Japan and at subsidiaries, including 100% of production bases and companies, excluding sales companies, have been certified.

Human Resource Cultivation to Support Quality

Enhance the Training System

Fuji Electric conducts quality management training based on its Quality Assurance Policy to enhance employees’ techniques and skills.

Fuji Electric cultivates the human resources that support quality mainly at two places, the Human Resource Development Dept. in Hino City, Tokyo, which trains human resources Company-wide, and the Facility Technology Center in Konosu City, Saitama, which forms the core of strengthening production technology capabilities.Quality assurance training is given in groups under themes including managing quality and high reliability, statistical methods and problem-solving methods, etc. Holding regular training links to nurturing employees’ techniques and skills.

Increasing the Number of Successful QC Examination Applicants

To raise quality assurance awareness among all its employees, Fuji Electric encourages more people to pass the QC examination that is sponsored by the Japanese Standards Association and the Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers. As of March 31, 2022, a total of 2,570 employees had passed the level 3QC examination, 1,386 had passed the level 2QC examination, and 20 had passed the level 1QC examination.

We aim to increase the number of qualifications holding employees even further as a Company-wide activity going forward.

Holding Study Meetings to Learn from Failures

A seminar examining failures

To thoroughly absorb the lessons of past product defects and parlay them into preventative measures, we have held “Learn from Failure Study Meetings” on a continuous basis since fiscal 2006. In these meetings, a case study is presented, and the true cause of the failure concerned is illuminated, along with the background and chain of events leading up to the failure. This case study is then used to elicit reflections and draw out lessons, which are shared with the meeting participants. Finally, the lessons are converted into higher-order concepts and knowledge to enable them to be utilized in business processes.

In fiscal 2022, a total of 592 employees participated in a total of three types of training sessions, including two factory case study presentations that consisted of three themes each session on various topics such as new technologies, installation environments and the effects of customer usage environments, failures due to on-site work, and developments that leveraged past failure studies, as well as one lecture by an outside lecturer on the theme of “Quality and Compliance – Examples of Quality Scandals and Preventive Measures for Organizations”.