Quality Assurance

Mission to create value

We supply products and services that are safe and provide peace of mind through our quality assurance activities based on relationships of trust with our various stakeholders including our customers and suppliers.

Policies

In keeping with our quality policy of “providing global top-level quality to contribute to the sustainable development of society,” Resonac’s mission throughout the entire product cycle from development and design to marketing, manufacturing, sales and post-marketing follow-up via our quality assurance activities is to provide safe and reliable products and services to our customers. In addition, we aim to maximize the value we provide through co-creation based on the trust we have earned from our various stakeholders, including customers and business partners, thereby contributing to the sustainable development of society.

Promotion system

Quality assurance activities at Resonac are carried out on a day-to-day basis under the leadership of the quality assurance departments located at our plants, which are at the forefront of our manufacturing operations, with cooperation from all related departments. We have also established a head office organization under the supervision of the Chief Operations, Manufacturing and Engineering Officer (CMEO) / Chief Quality Officer (CQO). Known as the Quality Assurance Headquarters, this organization is charged with establishing comprehensive strategies and systems for quality assurance (the Plan & Action function of the PDCA cycle); managing the systems (the Do function); and auditing and monitoring quality across the Resonac Group (the Check function). By building a collaboration system to allow the head office to share information and work closely with each plant, we are thus executing the Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle for quality assurance across the Group, thereby improving our quality assurance system on a continual basis. To further strengthen the PDCA cycle, a group responsible for stepping up global governance and promoting IT systematization has been established as a head office organization to reinforce quality assurance functions throughout the Resonac Group and pursue more efficient and sophisticated operations.
Activities related to quality assurance will be reported to management through the Sustainability Promotion Council, while the Quality Assurance Managers’ Council, which meets annually with the participation of quality assurance managers from our manufacturing plants, promotes the sharing of policies, priority issues and others between the plants and the head office.

Ensuring quality-related compliance

Resonac ensures quality-related compliance through its Quality Assurance and Quality Control Regulations and also has detailed rules on the implementation of quality compliance measures to ensure that all necessary measures will be implemented at the head office and plants.
The Quality Assurance Department at the head office leads quality compliance education, including e-learning on quality issues, to help raise the quality awareness of employees. The Department is also building inspection systems that leave no room for falsification or fabrication to eliminate related risk factors, promoting quality risk diagnosis by the dedicated department and carrying out product compliance audits. In 2023, we conducted a quality compliance awareness survey targeting all Resonac organizations including Group companies in Japan as part of our effort to build a system to nurture the development of an organizational culture that values the fulfillment of related commitments to stakeholders.
Learning lessons from the issue of inappropriate product testing detected at the former Hitachi Chemical in 2018, Resonac has been continuing the implementation of measures to prevent the reoccurrence of similar incidents and is further enhancing its quality assurance system.

Roadmap for 2030

Targets and rseults of non-financial KPIs

We have set “zero product accidents” and “zero quality compliance violations” as indicators and goals, and we aim to have the entire Resonac Group operating under a globally unified quality assurance framework by 2030, thereby building trust with customers through quality and maximizing the value provided through our business activities.

• ※ Defined according to Resonac’s accident criteria

Product safety management 

We have established our own Quality Assurance and Quality Control Regulations as basic rules for post-integration efforts to ensure product safety as well as to comply with our legal obligations. Under these regulations, with the aim of maximizing customer experience (CX) while ensuring that our customers can use our products safely and with peace of mind, we conduct quality-related risk assessments as part of our product life cycle assessments. Moreover, we have established a screening system to determine whether to ship or market products based on a risk-based approach for “sample shipments” and “product launches” that provide new products to customers. Going forward, we aim to provide even safer and more secure products, services and solutions above and beyond our customers’ expectations.

Quality risk diagnoses and audits

Our head office quality assurance personnel visit individual organizations to conduct quality risk diagnoses in a planned manner in order to strengthen governance across the entire group and to clarify and share the strengths and weaknesses of specific business units, plants and Group companies. These diagnoses illustrate how quality management systems (QMSs) are operated as part of the Group’s business activities and help us identify and reduce quality risks posed to the activities. We also conduct product compliance audits with a focus on compliance with contracts concluded and arrangements made with customers as a response to the instance of inappropriate testing revealed in 2018 at the former Hitachi Chemical.

Enhancement of on-site capabilities

To raise the level of our quality assurance and quality control, we have set forth the goal of “bolstering on-site capabilities” (the competence and awareness of people working on-site) and we are working to establish a job level-based education system (providing high-quality education curricula matched to specific job levels) on a global basis to develop quality assurance personnel of the caliber required of a global top-level functional chemical company. We are also building a system to share and promote good practices at each plant across the Group for greater efficiency and standardization in our operations, while implementing measures to foster co-creation through joint meetings and interactive events between plants. Moreover, we are pushing ahead with the automation of inspection systems to prevent quality irregularities and human error.

Aiming for fewer quality-related complaints

Resonac is working to increase customer satisfaction and maximize customer experience (CX) and thereby achieve fewer quality-related complaints. By implementing measures to prevent recurrence based on the essential causes of issues that lead to complaints and utilizing lessons learned from complaints that have been received to date, we aim to reduce the number of complaints by 20% each year.

Quality management system

Related link

• List of Declarations and Certifications

TOPICS

Automated inspection system

To prevent quality compliance violations, Resonac is introducing a system that automatically issues shipment inspection reports based on inspection instructions, quality standards, inspection result information, and the results of their judgments. The system is being rolled out sequentially to each business site. Until now, depending on the inspection item, the measured inspection data was recorded on a handwritten document and then manually entered into the system. At one business site, an average of 40,000 pieces of data were being entered manually each month. This situation meant that transcription or data entry errors could arise, as could improper work. To improve this, inspection equipment was connected directly to the system, enabling inspection data to be automatically transferred. This minimizes human involvement in the judgments of inspection results and all other data, preventing human error and misconduct while saving labor.

 

Implementation of quality compliance awareness survey

In August 2023, we conducted a quality compliance awareness survey of over 13,300 all employees of the Resonac Group in Japan. Through questions about the Company as a whole, employees’ own workplaces, and individuals, the survey examined employees’ attitudes to and psychological states about quality compliance. Questions included whether the climate, system, and resources were adequate for ensuring quality and attitudes to learning without hiding mistakes, communication, and open discussion, etc. Although there were many positive responses noting the thorough status and culture of quality compliance at an individual or department level, the overall result was a call for improvements in enterprise-wide system development and resource allocation. With our two companies having merged and expanded in scale, we have identified the need to promote integrated Group measures, and will further strengthen these efforts.

Launch of the “Good Practices Portal”

Resonac has established a working group composed of members of its plants and has launched a website named the “Good Practices Portal” to encourage the sharing of good practices promoted at each plant. It is expected that plants will further enhance their on-site capabilities in reference to the good practices and measures to prevent incidents adopted at other plants.