Quality of Products and Services

We conduct highly effective quality audits and enhance the human resource development programs to improve quality management levels.

We implement a variety of quality training programs. For example, as a human resource development program, we conduct product quality training for each level of employees from new hires to management, hold product quality lectures on the topic of "creating value that satisfies customers," and utilize teaching materials that prevent human error. There are 20 e-learning courses on quality that are available not only for domestic companies but also for overseas affiliates in multiple languages. Moreover, we have been implementing frontline measures to prevent quality issues on the shop floor (QRG activities) with the aim of identifying and eliminating risks that could lead to quality issues. We are implementing these measures in our subsidiaries and affiliates.

We run the Award for Quality Management Activity in the Mitsui Chemicals Group scheme each November, which is an industry-designated quality promotion month. We award efforts to revitalize Responsible Care (RC) activities to improve our chemical substances management level and quality management at Mitsui Chemicals and its domestic and overseas affiliates. We give awards to those who have achieved outstanding results across our workplaces to support and stimulate RC activities.

We collect customer complaints about Mitsui Chemicals products and services in the internal workflow system so that we can monitor the type of complaint, the cause and the customer’s response. The data is analyzed each month to review the situation for that year and KPIs are identified for our quality management targets for the following fiscal year.

Whenever we receive a complaint about our products or services from one of our customers, the Business, Manufacturing and Logistics Divisions work together with the Quality Assurance Division to identify the cause of the complaint and to take corrective action. In this way, every effort is made to implement preventive measures across the organization as a whole. In one such initiative, all members of the Quality Assurance Division reassess the root cause of each complaint, consider appropriate countermeasures and monitor progress every week. At the same time, we endeavor to extract important case studies, particularly where there is a substantial risk of inconveniencing our customers, or where the potential exists for similar cases to arise. These case studies are then shared across the relevant departments in the monthly quality management report.

In the face of the demand for a higher level of chemical management (for chemical substances in products), we support product stewardship and implement chemical substance management throughout the entire supply chain. We respond swiftly and accurately to enquiries from customers about chemical substances in our products by organizing the information in a database and designating a department to manage it.