Customer Satisfaction and Product Safety

Achieving Top-Tier Quality and Reliability

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Konica Minolta's Approach

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Improving the Quality Assurance System

Taking various steps to improve the quality assurance system

Konica Minolta has established a quality assurance system. It is striving to improve its ability to resolve market quality problems that are related to the safety of products and services and is working to avoid serious accidents and reduce quality problems.

Investigating Quality Problems via Regular Meetings

Konica Minolta regularly holds quality meetings across the Group to discuss product safety and other quality-related issues and work to continuously improve quality by thoroughly implementing the PDCA cycle.

Addressing Market Quality Issues

Whenever a problem related to product and service quality occurs, sales sites around the world are required to register information in a Group-wide critical accident report database immediately. Registered information is instantly sent to the appropriate supervisor and shared with relevant departments. Using this system, the Group takes action to prevent a recurrence by thoroughly investigating all registered incidents, analyzing the causes, implementing countermeasures, and reflecting these in technical and assessment standards. In the unlikely event of a safety-related incident, a report will be immediately filed with the supervisor of the individual business and shared with the Chief Quality Officer, as well as with the departments in charge of quality assurance, corporate communications, and legal affairs, regardless of the cause of the problem. When a quality problem with a potentially serious risk arises, a Quality Problem Countermeasure Conference is convened based on the Group Market Quality Management Rules in order to promptly deal with the issue and ensure thorough information disclosure.

Strengthening Quality Fraud Prevention Activities

With the recent rash of quality fraud cases at other companies, one of Konica Minolta's top priorities is to strengthen and expand its prevention efforts. To minimize the risk of quality fraud cases, in addition to conducting periodic diagnoses and audits based on the Quality Fraud Prevention Guidelines, which cover the entire Konica Minolta Group, including all production sites and development divisions, as well as those overseas, we are also educating and raising awareness to foster a mindset that quality fraud must never occur. Recognizing that the potential risk of quality fraud occurring does exist, in fiscal 2023, Konica Minolta has created a system which it operates to prevent the occurrence of quality fraud by introducing quality fraud awareness assessment, continuous corporate culture reforms, and automation of inspection processes and records.

Enhancing Product Safety Standards

MFPs and printers used in offices must be designed so that misusage and break-downs do not cause electric shocks, smoking, or injuries to users. For this reason, Konica Minolta has established independent product safety standards that exceed the requirements of the legal standards and have rules requiring the detailed check of every aspect of its products. Past quality problems are thoroughly analyzed, the causes are identified, and measures to deal with the problems are investigated. The results of this process are reflected in updated product safety standards.
Continuous implementation of this process prevents the recurrence of quality-related problems and prevents new problems from arising.

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Taking Steps to Ensure Safety

Expanding efforts to ensure product safety throughout the entire Group

Product Safety Training

Konica Minolta has developed a Group-wide product safety education system for technicians involved in design and development, manufacturing technology, procurement, and quality assurance. The courses are designed to increase technicians' knowledge of product safety issues and increase their awareness of potential problems. We have also created refresher courses for those who wish to continue to acquire knowledge and stay aware of the latest developments and they can be repeatedly taken. A questionnaire was given to trainees after the course was finished to verify that it is benefiting them in their actual work. The results have been fed back to the training planners to help improve the content of the program. Going forward, Konica Minolta will continue to improve employees’ product safety awareness and raise the level of their skills by providing continuing education.

Application of Risk Maps

Konica Minolta utilizes risk maps as a way to assess product safety. These maps describe the degree of risk by the severity and frequency of aftermarket accidents. Using these maps, the Group undertakes objective assessments of the risk of product quality problems in the market and evaluates the effect of countermeasures. The Group pursues high safety levels by using the risk maps as risk assessment tools in the development process as well.
Specifically, the Business Technologies Business and the Healthcare Business consolidate, scrutinize, and identify, in accordance with stated rules, information provided by customers worldwide. With respect to information involved in product safety, they apply risk management techniques. By clarifying its criteria, the Group can respond quickly to the market, determine essential causes, and improve procedures.

Safe Product Design Based on Combustion Test Data from a Laboratory

Konica Minolta designs its products to eliminate any chance of them catching fire or emitting smoke. However, in the event that such an incident or a building fire should occur, products must have a fire-resistant design to prevent the spread of fire. Therefore, fire-retardant plastics are selected when designing products. In order to get accurate data on fire safety, products need to be subjected to combustion testing.

Konica Minolta has set up a reliability testing laboratory at its Tokyo Site Hachioji. This is where tests can be conducted to obtain detailed information on product combustibility using cutting-edge analysis techniques. The laboratory is also equipped with advanced equipment to treat smoke exhaust, enabling combustion testing to be performed without any impact on the local environment.

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Taking Steps to Improve Quality

Improving quality awareness in the workplace and promoting the horizontal rollout of effective approaches

Sharing Information about Quality Problems and Cross-deploying Countermeasures within the Group

Konica Minolta is accelerating its Group-wide effort to disclose information regarding quality problems and cross-deploy countermeasures as a policy “One Konica Minolta.” The goal is to increase sensitivity to quality issues, thereby resolving problems early on and ensuring better response.
As a specific measure of the cross-deploying efforts, the Group conducts Production Capability Assessments at production sites, including sites outside Japan. Members of each site serve as assessors in this effort to perform mutual cross-assessments of businesses. Assessments are designed to visualize issues at each site by quantifying different aspects, such as the 5S's (Sort, Straighten, Shine, Standardize, and Sustain), visualization, elimination of inefficiencies, and factory management. The 5S's and visualization are intended to encourage proactive improvements on the production floor by presenting ideals as guidelines. Additionally, good practices are cross-deployed by sharing assessment results and examples of initiatives from each site on the company intranet.

Initiative for the Development of Quiet Products

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ISO/IEC 17025: General requirements for the competence of testing and calibration laboratories.

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