Safety and Prevention

The Mitsui Chemicals Group is implementing various initiatives, including training and drills, toward nurturing human resources with a high awareness of dangerous situations and the ingraining of a safety culture throughout the Group.

Mitsui Chemicals’ Ichihara Works, Osaka Works, Iwakuni-Ohtake Works, and Omuta Works are equipped with self-defense firefighting units. The unit members are regularly trained in preparation for an emergency.

In recognition of the results of daily training, the Osaka Works received the Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications Award (Excellence Award) and the Ichihara Works and Iwakuni-Ohtake Works received the Director-General of the Fire Defense Agency Award (Encouragement Award) in the “Skill Contest for Self-Defense and Disaster Prevention Organizations in Petroleum Industrial Complexes” held in fiscal 2022 by the Fire Defense Agency, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. This skills contest has been held since fiscal 2014 to inspire self-defense firefighters, as well as motivating them to continue to improve their skills. The participants complete safety, reliability, and promptness of their performance by conducting a procedure of releasing foam water from a height onto a simulated fire at a hazardous facilities. This is our ninth consecutive year to receive an award since the beginning of the contest. We continue improving our firefighting skills through determined training to contribute to the safe and stable operations of our Works.

The Mitsui Chemicals Group continues to implement risk prediction training at each of its Works based on the belief that it is important to develop human resources capable of recognizing hazards as dangers and taking safety actions to prevent them.
In addition, with regard to risk prediction and Pointing-and-Calling training for domestic and overseas affiliates, the Safety & Environment Technology Division provides training support on an ongoing basis. Through this support, we are working to ensure that all of our affiliates understand the significance and necessity of risk prediction activities and Pointing-and-Calling so that they can use and entrench them in their actual work situations. The training is also held online and incorporates exercises, presentations, and team discussions that are appropriate to actual work situations. It looks back on their daily tasks and raises awareness so that safer actions can be taken. Key men are of necessity to entrench risk prediction and Pointing-and-Calling, and the Company is encouraging their development through training.

Mitsui Chemicals is actively engaged in various measures to foster engineers with specialized knowledge, technology, and skills, as well as to steadily pass on technology to the next generation, as part of its human resource development system based on the personnel system.
Specifically, the systematic passing of technology and development of human resources are stipulated in job descriptions and job classification tables for skilled employees, and the system clarifies the passing of technology as part of the job and holds employees accountable for their efforts.
In addition, we have defined our development plan up to the point where they assume key roles in Works under the “Production Engineering Human Resource Development Plan” to clarify the abilities and skills required to carry out their respective duties. We have also established an education system and the curriculum necessary for acquiring these abilities and skills as an “Annual Education Plan,” and provide step-by-step education through company-wide and plant collective education, e-learning, and various other off-the-job training programs, as well as through rotations and on-the-job training.
In our training, we place particular emphasis on problem-solving and accident case study education. Through factor analyses and accident case study discussions based on actual trouble cases that have occurred at production sites, we cultivate the sensitivity to identify potential sources of danger.

Each Mitsui Chemicals Works implements small-group activities to promote problem solving and operational improvement, and provides training to the leaders of these activities. Through training by external instructors twice a year, we strive to understand our role as facilitators of activities and how to proceed, and to acquire problem-solving techniques such as QC stories and the seven QC tools, which we use in actual small-group activities, in order to improve quality.

The purpose of the Best Plants Award is to revitalize Works by honoring the excellent production sections for their activities related to safety, environment, quality and production technologies. Having started this system in fiscal 2004, Mitsui Chemicals has been focusing since fiscal 2013 on not only safety performance but also on the process of safety efforts, and evaluates the efforts made by the production sections and the hardships that they face.
In fiscal 2022, 12 applications were submitted from domestic and overseas production sites, one of which was selected for the President's Awards and six for Production & Technology Center Executive’s Awards. The Company’s global expansion is advancing due not only to the Mitsui Chemicals but also to award-winning domestic and overseas affiliates.