Quality

Quality Assurance and Improvement Activities

System for Quality Assurance and Improvement Activities

Based on the Four Basic Quality Assurance Principles, we ensure compliance with quality assurance legislation and standards, and we have established a system for quality assurance and improvement throughout the entire Group, including the appointment of a quality assurance manager at all business group headquarters. We have also formulated quality assurance guidelines and are further developing our quality improvement activities. Moreover, at the Executive Officers Meetings, we regularly report our quality status to senior executives.

diagram: Promotion of Quality Assurance and Improvement Activities (Mitsubishi Electric)

Promotion of Quality Assurance and Improvement Activities (Mitsubishi Electric)

Worldwide manufacturing bases take responsibility for the quality assurance of each product and are implementing concrete improvement initiatives in relation to quality assurance measures for business processes, from market surveys through to development and design, manufacturing, distribution, maintenance and servicing after shipping and product disposal.

In addition, in operating our Quality Management System (QMS), we regularly check our PDCA cycle with reference to ISO and other international certification standards, seeking to realize ever higher quality by process improvement.

Quality Improvement Activities

photo: "Learning from Failure" (Database of past incidents and lessons)

"Learning from Failure" (Database of past incidents and lessons)
This program is set up so that users can systematically browse and utilize lessons, precautions, improvement case studies, and countermeasures from a managerial perspective and the perspective of their technological field.

The Mitsubishi Electric Group incorporates the promotion of quality into products from the design and development stage, promotes activities to improve quality in all business processes—including manufacturing as well as maintenance and servicing after shipping—and works to improve product quality, safety and reliability.

We are achieving effective quality improvements by visualizing quality, ensuring prompt response to malfunctions and preventing them from occurring, and providing feedback on these initiatives to the development, design, manufacturing, and service departments.

With regard to development and design in particular, we have developed human resources (key persons who incorporate customer feedback into product quality) who are capable of assessing customer requests and basic product functions as well as executing and driving designs that ensure and guarantee functionality, stability, safety and reliability (the process of incorporating and designing quality), and we have assigned them to relevant departments in Japan. These human resources improve our development and design quality by ensuring all parties involved are familiar with the elemental technology guidelines necessary for ensuring quality.

As for procured products, we have been working to improve quality in collaboration with our suppliers, who are important partners of the Mitsubishi Electric Group, by asking them to understand our policy that gives top priority to quality.

In order to ensure the realization of a culture that gives top priority to quality, we have been repeatedly providing education on Mitsubishi Electric’s basic policy (mission) through e-learning. We review the educational content every year in light of changes in the Mitsubishi Electric Group’s situation. Furthermore, we have been improving quality awareness by efforts such as continuing to provide level-specific training and lectures during company-wide meetings.

We conduct DQ small group activities,* which are a means to solve problems in the workplace, tackle challenges, and provide education and training in all business processes within the Group, including those of affiliates inside and outside Japan, in order to improve the quality of products and services, management, culture, and so on.

With regard to product defects, we have also built a database for sharing quality-related information. It consists of detailed information provided by employees on past problems, lessons learned, explanations, and examples of improvements that have been made. We have also added content summarizing the rules and principles regarding common factors of defects as an attention reminder and use it across the entire Group along with the database, which have been used for helping to build quality into products, implement quality improvement measures, prevent the occurrence or recurrence of problems, and train young engineers.

Furthermore, we have installed a "quality room" in each office for the display of actual quality defects found in products in the past to supplement our employee education.

  • * The designation of a quality circle within the Mitsubishi Electric Group which has been formed by adding DQ, the initial letters of "Diamond Quality," to "small group activities."

"Quality room"

  • photo: Entrance

    Entrance

  • photo: Inside the room

    Inside the room

Response to Inappropriate Conduct Related to Quality

1. Information concerning Mitsubishi Electric’s car audio for the European Union market

Mitsubishi Electric found that a part of its car audio products manufactured at the company’s Sanda Works and a Mitsubishi Electric subsidiary were shipped to the EU market with specifications that did not comply with the European Radio Equipment Directive (RED). The products in question are only sold to certain car manufacturers, not consumers, and Mitsubishi Electric has already reported the situation to the car manufacturers who purchased the affected products. Although the receivers may cause noise when receiving AM radio in Europe, Mitsubishi Electric has confirmed that there is no safety problem and the receivers will not cause any peripheral equipment to malfunction. Mitsubishi Electric took this matter of shipping non-conforming products seriously and investigated the cause and announced recurrence prevention measures. At Sanda Works, where the products are designed, the Quality Assurance Department now manages declarations of compliance and compliance assessment tests, and multiple departments now participate in joint reviews whenever relevant laws or regulations are enacted or revised.

2. Recurrence prevention measures for inappropriate conduct, etc. in quality control

In addition to item 1 above, in order to realize a culture that gives top priority to quality and that does not cause or allow inappropriate conduct, we continue to provide ethics education for engineers to all employees and managers as well as to provide quality lectures at Quality Assurance Managers’ Committee meetings as recurrence prevention measures for the inappropriate conduct in quality control that has been identified. We have also strengthened the quality control system at each site, and on-site inspections of quality data are conducted during internal audits to ensure effective checks and balances.