Quality Control for Safety and Reliability

Toshiba Group aims to contribute to society by providing safe, reliable and high-quality products and services that satisfy our customers. In this endeavor, we adhere to the Basic Commitment of the Toshiba Group, which is based on respect for people, observe relevant laws and regulations, and focus on our customers first and foremost. We are striving company-wide to verify and improve safety and reliability throughout the product lifecycle and are focusing on the development of human resources who can contribute to these activities. Moving forward, as we strengthen production and procurement in China and other Asian countries, we will enhance our development of personnel by expanding our training programs related to quality awareness on a global scale.

Based on Toshiba Group Quality Control Policy, our biggest mission is to provide our customers with safe and reliable products, services and systems, and we are working to improve the quality from our customers’ point of view. By increasing our sensitivity to potential risks and dealing with them swiftly, we strive to eliminate product accidents and improve customer satisfaction.

The executive in charge of Corporate Production Planning Division and the Quality Promotion Division manage the quality assurance activities of Toshiba Group as a whole, while presidents of Group companies are in charge of individual products and operations. To enhance the quality level throughout product life cycles, from planning, development, and production to final disposal and recycling, Chief Quality Executives of Group companies provide guidance and conduct audits for factories, suppliers, maintenance and service companies, as well as for manufacturing outsourcees worldwide.

Toshiba Group is working to strengthen our capabilities to ensure quality centered on the four main pillars of the quality enhancement initiatives listed below.
We focus on improving the Quality Management System (QMS) based on ISO 9001 to raise the quality of design and procurement, which are the root cause of defects, as well as to enhance the training of personnel who can support the development of the QMS. We regard compliance as the foundation for all these activities.

Toshiba Group obtains certifications including ISO 9001, which is the basis of quality management systems; IATF 16949, a more advanced system and for in-vehicle equipment. Rather than merely assessing whether products meet the requirements of these standards, we also endeavor to improve their effectiveness. Therefore, we evaluate the products’ maturity annually, based on the seven principles of QMS and other guidelines. By comparing the results with those of previous assessments, we identify issues, and devise and implement appropriate measures.

Status of QMS (ISO 9001 and Others) Certified at Manufacturing Sites as of October 1, 2022

We established the Toshiba Quality Training System to foster personnel who can contribute to quality improvement at all concerned divisions. We develop and promote education programs to improve awareness on quality management depending upon the requirements of each division, as well as to improve skills on reliability techniques and quality control methods.
In order to foster personnel that are capable of taking charge of quality assurance, we develop and implement quality training programs, including methods of analyzing the causes of product accidents and preventing them, for employees in all divisions related to product life cycles. In FY2022, a total of 1,103 employees participated in the training programs from Japan and overseas countries. We also provided compliance training and e-learning on the Electrical Appliance and Material Safety Law for 75,246 related employees in Japan in FY2022 and the participation rate was 100%.

In order to enhance our capabilities to ensure product quality at the design stage, Toshiba Group is promoting FMEA (Failure Mode and Effects Analysis) mainly for design work as part of our Design for Quality (DFQ) initiatives. We are working to provide practical education to broaden the base of FMEA activities as part of our efforts to prevent defects from upstream and prioritize product safety and compliance.

In recent years, alongside increasingly complex procurement routes and globalization, the issue of product failure and accidents has come to the fore due to “silent changes” in which the specifications of a product are changed without informing the ordering manufacturer. At the same time, suppliers are the indispensable business partners of a manufacturer and ensuring the quality of procurement items is becoming increasingly important in the business operations of Toshiba Group. In order to ensure the quality of procurement items, we distribute “Toshiba Quality Assurance Guidelines for Suppliers” and “Toshiba Software Quality Assurance Guidelines for Suppliers” summarizing Toshiba Group's quality assurance policy and supplier expectations. By mutually implementing these guidelines, we are working to maintain and improve the quality of procured products. Toshiba Group's divisions that handle procurement, quality assurance, and engineering operations cooperate depending on the types and importance of the procurement items and perform audits of suppliers at appropriate intervals in order to ensure quality of these items.

In the event that incidents related to quality occur, information is disclosed on the Toshiba website in order to notify customers of such incidents as quickly as possible.

• Important announcement for customers (Japanese)

The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) has been announcing serious product accidents since the revised Consumer Product Safety Act came into force on May 14, 2007. On our website, Toshiba Group actively discloses all serious product accidents announced by METI, even those in which METI has not made our company name public, because it has not yet been determined whether the accidents were caused by the use of our products.

•  Accident report based on the Consumer Product Safety Act (Japanese)