Asahi Glass | Quality and Customer Satisfaction (CS)

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Quality and Customer Satisfaction (CS)

The AGC Group is committed to improving quality in every aspect of its business operations by implementing process reform to improve the quality of its products and services in order to increase customer satisfaction and by changing employees' ways of thinking based on the idea of incorporating the concept of CS into each employee's daily work processes.

CS Guideline for AGC Group (Revised on October 9, 2009)

In order to materialize our objective of “building the foundation of growth” in Grow Beyond management policy, we, all employees at AGC Group, will act in accordance with this guideline of actions and behaviors (= AGC Group's DNA) to win the trust of our customers and other stakeholders including the society as a whole:

We will provide products and services that conform to the requirements of laws, regulations, and customers.
We will ensure and improve the quality of our products and services including their safety and environmental consideration.
We will incorporate the concept of CS into each employee's daily work processes and pursue our AGC Group Vision “Look Beyond” — innovation and operational excellence. We will work diligently and attentively in order to grow consistently as a top global enterprise with highest trust accredited by our stakeholders.
We all will participate in the continual improvement of effectiveness and efficiency of our quality management, and each of us will individually strive to increase the value of our work.
In order to ensure that the above points are materialized, we will do our utmost to enhance customer satisfaction by establishing and deploying a policy in accordance with this Guideline, setting in consistence with the policy realistic targets of which the achievement level is measurable, and cooperating with our business partners.

Improvement of the Quality of Products and Services

In the AGC Group, each department formulates and operates a quality management system built in compliance with quality standards, including ISO 9001. The departments continuously improve the effectiveness and efficiency of their systems in order to ensure the development of high-quality products and services while paying due consideration to safety and the environment, and to win customers' trust and satisfaction. Each In-house Company/SBU independently carries out internal audits and examinations in a manner suitable for their business and executes a Plan, Do, Check, and Act (PDCA) cycle for continuous quality improvement.
The CSR Office also conducts quality monitoring across the Group to ensure the effectiveness of the management systems.

Quality Promotion System

Each In-house Company/SBU of the AGC Group has established a system to promote quality management in an independent manner in compliance with the AGC Group Quality Management Principle.

■ Click the image to see its detail.

Acquisition of ISO 9001 and ISO/TS 16949*4 Certification by the AGC Group (as of the end of December 2010)

Location	Number of certified organizations
Japan	29
Asia (not including Japan)	23
Europe	62
North America	14
Total	128

* Percentage of AGC Group employees at the certified organizations: 85.4%
*4 Standards for quality management systems to be applied in the automobile industry, which requires compliance with the global procurement criteria for automobile parts

Voice
Conducting Product Quality Audits from the Viewpoints of Manufacturing Sites in the Automotive Glass Business.

Kazuya Kono
Quality Assurance Office, Japan/Asia Business
Division
AGC Glass Company
(Japan/Asia Pacific)

I believe it important to conduct product quality audits from the viewpoints of those who are to be audited. If we make product quality audits of our manufacturing sites to simply point out problems from the viewpoint of the head office, we cannot persuade the workers, who are busy carrying out their daily tasks, to make strenuous efforts to solve any identified problems . Our auditing team therefore makes it its rule to conduct the audits keeping the following points always in mind as "DNA" of the team:

(1)Use the audits to provide the manufacturing sites with useful opportunities to become aware of a problem, instead of simply pointing out problems to them

(2)Encourage them to make improvements voluntarily instead of forcing them to do so

(3)Make improvements for open and frank communications with the manufacturing sites

By auditing our manufacturing sites from the workers' viewpoints, we have been able to encourage them to proactively make improvements, which in turn helps reduce the number of complaints about the products.
We will continue to foster communication with the manufacturing sites and improve our product quality audits keeping the aforementioned tips in mind.

Quality Complia

Ensuring Compliance with Product-Related Laws and Regulations

The AGC Group clarifies the legal and regulatory requirements to be met by its products, by creating a list of these requirements for each of the In-house Companies/SBUs, thereby ensuring compliance with the related laws and regulations. Moreover, in January 2011, we identified the laws and regulations that provide for product inspection methods and have since been promoting efforts to "visualize" them.

Compliance with the Consumer Product Safety Act

Asahi Glass has its own in-house rules to ensure compliance with the Consumer Product Safety Act of Japan, and has established a system to promptly report any serious product accidents to the Consumer Affairs Agency and prevent the spread of any resultant damage (Fig. 2). Moreover, we annually hold a study meeting for employees in charge to foster their quality awareness. In fiscal 2010, participants in the meeting learned about the Consumer Affairs Agency and the Consumer Safety Act. In addition, we collect and sort information on product accidents released by the Consumer Affairs Agency and National Institute of Technology and Evaluation (NITE) when it relates to AGC Group products, and are sharing the information internally.
In fiscal 2010, there were no serious product accident reports.

Reporting Flow for Serious Product Accidents under the Consumer Product Safety Act

Education on Product Quality

AGC Group provides education on product quality at each of its In-house Companies/SBUs in consideration of their business features. In addition, we provide education on quality compliance using the actual examples of product-related problems. In fiscal 2010 we began collecting information about the quality-related problems other companies faced, analyzing the collected information and informing the results within the Group. Moreover at two sites of the Group, we provided training to prevent human error on an experimental basis and launched preventive measures against quality defects attributable to human error. In addition, the AGC Glass Company provided education on both internal and external quality-related problems at each of its plants in Japan.

Encouraging Employees to Acquire the Quality Control (QC) Certificate

AGC Group (Japan) is encouraging employees to acquire a certificate on quality control (QC) issued by the Japanese Society for Quality Control, with a view to increasing their awareness of quality control and improving product quality. The society issues certificates on knowledge of quality control. In fiscal 2010, a total of 173 employees passed the certification examination.

Number of employees who passed the QC certification examination

Measures to Increase Customer Satisfaction (CS)

The AGC Group is encouraging all employees to participate through their day-to-day work in the enhancement of customer satisfaction under the slogan "incorporating the concept of CS into each employee's daily work processes."
CS is an abbreviation for customer satisfaction, but we do not limit "customers" to our customers in the market. We include "people and organizations who receive work-in-process within the Group" in our definition of customers. In our CS activities, every employee is encouraged to regard all those related to their work as "customers" and add value in the course of various processes with the ultimate goal of providing products and services of higher value and reliability to our customers in the market.
In fiscal 2010, we developed a simplified self-evaluation program to assess the culture of performance excellence to firmly incorporate, among other things, customer-focused approach in the "DNA" of the AGC Group.

Topic
Improving the Traceability of Double-Glazing and Triple-Glazing Glass (Europe)

The image of identification code

Asahi Glass Europe (AGEU) offers the Glass Identity service through a dedicated website,*4 which provides easy access to information about the glass products manufactured by the company in and after 2008. In Europe, double-glazing and triple-glazing glass products are used widely in houses and offices. At the website, people can obtain information about the official name, performance, glass composition and warranty period of a specific product by entering the identification code printed on the "spacer" (the inside frame of the glass). The service was initially started in Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg and has been expanded to include countries in Central Europe. By providing such a service, the AGC Group has been increasing the reliability of its products for general consumers.

*4 service provided in Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxemburg, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland.

Improving CS Activity Based on Voices of Customers

AGC Customer Center AGC Glass Company (Japan/Asia Pacific) AGC Glass Products

AGC Customer Center
AGC Glass Products
AGC Glass Company (Japan/Asia Pacific)

The AGC Customer Center is managed jointly by the Building Division of the AGC Glass Company (Japan/Asia Pacific) and AGC Glass Products which manufactures and sells architectural glass. This center responded to about 40,000 inquiries from customers in fiscal 2010. The opinions of customers received through the center are all recorded to be referred to in the AGC Group's product development/improvement, sales promotion, sales, distribution support, market development, and quality assurance activities and are also disclosed online to the public as "frequently asked questions and answers."
In order for the center to collect useful information from customers and provide them with appropriate answers, the members of the center need to improve their product-related knowledge and ability in a continuous manner. In the Corporate Call-Handling Contest 2010 held by the Japan Telecom Users Association, the center received a prize of excellence (ranked as second place among 153 participating companies in Japan) in the Industry and Public Service Division, being evaluated even higher than in the previous contest, in which it was ranked as No. 11. In this contest, specialized examiners of the association who pretend to be customers make unannounced calls to participants in the contest to evaluate and score their customer response skills.
The members of the center will make even greater efforts with the aim of increasing customer satisfaction at the frontline.

Promptly and Effectively Responding to Various Inquiries from Customers

Members of AGC Chemicals Company's Customer Service Team

AGC Chemicals Company receives various inquiries from a range of customers. In order to make prompt and effective responses to these inquiries, the In-house Company established its Customer Service Team in 2007 to deal with all the inquiries made to the company. At present, this team responds to more than 3,000 inquiries a year, which include inquiries about quality, the environment, chemical substances used in the company's products, and CSR as well as about its products. Moreover, the company has built up a database of past inquiries, which is accessible through the intranet for employees not only to make more prompt and effective responses to customers but also to identify the potential needs of customers for the development of new products.
AGC Chemicals Company will continue to make improvements to increase customer satisfaction and implement its vision, "Chemistry for a Blue Planet."

Eight steps for incorporating the concept of CS into each employee's daily work processes

Learn about your customers.
Clarify the value that you believe you are providing to your customers.
Take the viewpoint of your customers, and consider the value that they require. It is important to also directly ask your customers.
Based on 2 and 3, in a candid manner, ascertain the areas in which the value that you provide differs from the value sought by your customers.
Based on 4, offer your customers the best value that you think you can provide.
Ask your customers to evaluate the results.
Based on that evaluation (the concept of CS), change your daily work.
Develop these into policies and targets. It is important that you change your daily work on an ongoing basis and with everyone's participation.

* Handbook on the idea of “incorporating the concept of CS into each employee's daily work processes” published in seven languages (Japanese, English, simplified Chinese, traditional Chinese, Korean, Thai, and Indonesian).

Support Process for “Incorporating the Concept of CS into Each Employee's Daily Work Processes”

Voice
Increasing Process Efficiency and Product Quality through Improvement in Customer Satisfaction of Quality Assurance Business

Quality Assurance Department
AGC Display Glass Taiwan

At the Quality Assurance Department of AGC Display Glass Taiwan, which manufactures glass substrates for LCDs, each employee has been committed to incorporating the concept of CS into their daily work processes.
Specifically, employees of the department directly interviewed internal customers to ask for their evaluation and to give feedback on the services and the value they received. Based on the interview results, the employees have been conducting improvement activities, including changing the communication procedures to be followed in the event of quality problems. These activities have contributed to improving the work efficiency and product quality of the entire company. They will continue to conduct the activities, believing that these activities will eventually help them increase the satisfaction of their external customers.

Business Operation from the Viewpoint of Customers (South Korea)

Members of Hanwook Techno Glass incorporating the concept of CS in their daily work

Hanwook Techno Glass (HTG), which manufactures glass substrates for flat panel displays, has been participating in the CS seminars and dialogues held by Asahi Glass and conducting activities to “incorporate the concept of CS into each employee's daily work processes” to further expand its business. As a result, HTG has improved the quality of its business operations and its technological capabilities and forged new cooperative relationships with customers. Moreover, it has received commendations from a customer in recognition of improvements in services offered in terms of quality, cost, delivery, and safety. HTG will continue to pursue CS for its further growth.

CS Education

The AGC Group provides employees with CS education to encourage them to incorporate the concept of CS into their daily work processes and offer more value to their customers. This education is given in consideration of the features of each organization and department of the Group, specifically through the CS Dialogue and the CS Seminar. In the CS Dialogue, those in managerial positions learn about self-assessment and business coaching while in the CS seminar participants are trained for improvement activities to be conducted at plants and other sites. Over the period from the launch of the CS Seminar in 2005 to the end of fiscal 2010, a total of 331 seminars were held, in which a total of 6,367 employees participated.

CS Education and Training Given in Fiscal 2010 (AGC Group [Asia including Japan])

Name	Target	Theme	Number of participants
CS Dialogue	Mainly managers	Business administration incorporating the concept of CS	358 participants in 21 meetings (218 participants in seven meetings overseas)
CS Seminar	Managers and general employees	Basics and tips for CS	1,173 participants in 69 meetings (339 participants in 21 meetings overseas)

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