Guided by a Company-wide Quality Policy that puts customers first, the NGK Group considers the provision of products that contribute to a better quality of life to be one of its most important missions. In addition to the pursuit of quality that satisfies customers (in terms of product quality, cost and delivery), the NGK Group carries out activities aimed at improving a comprehensive conception of corporate quality that includes the creation of products that appeal to customers, recognizing this as one of its social responsibilities as a corporation.
With foremost emphasis on quality, the NGK Group is striving with customers to provide reliable and useful products and services to the public.
Eliminate quality defects through stronger DR < Extensive DR after product alterations/changes >
Quality control-related indicators at the NGK Group in fiscal 2010 moved toward improvement, both for customer complaints and defects arising from the manufacturing process. Going forward, we will continue to enhance risk prediction and DR from the initial design stage and improve and strengthen quality control with the aim of eliminating quality defects.
New standards with regard to quality activities will be formulated in fiscal 2011, along with the development of new quality activity rules for Group Companies in Japan and overseas.
The NGK Group promotes quality education through manufacturing training and position-based training conducted by the Human Resources Department and on-site training and group training conducted by the Quality Management Department.
The subjects taught in manufacturing training include methods for improving quality, while position-based training provides education related to quality assurance and methods for improving quality commensurate with each job position level.
On-site training was conducted along the theme of how to promote quality improvement activities and pointers for making proposals, while DR Level Up Seminars and lectures on attitude improvement among other subjects comprised the group training sessions.
The Company-wide presentation for fiscal 2010 QuiC activities
(July 2010)
QuiC (Quality up innovation Challenge) activities, in which all employees take part, form the basis of the NGK Group’s quality improvement activities on the manufacturing fl oor. These QuiC activities, which as an outcome include proposal activities, are conducted in small groups throughout the company and challenge all employees to be innovative in their pursuit of quality.
Participation in NGK proposal activities was about 100% for the manufacturing divisions and around 75% for the non-manufacturing divisions in fiscal 2010. Approximately 41,000 proposals were submitted, a 10% increase over the previous year. Even a team from a Group Company in China participated to present examples of their success in a Company-wide presentation, held in July 2010, featuring teams selected from each division. Going forward, these various examples of improvement will be compiled as a database on the Company’s information sharing system for employees to utilize in raising the level of QuiC activities.
