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Ensuring Quality and Safety

Basic Policy

NEC has established the following Quality and Safety Philosophy, and Action Guidelines, and strives to rigorously enforce them.

Quality and Safety Philosophy

NEC will continuously provide high-quality and safe products based on the motto of "Providing Better Products, Better Services; Putting Customer Satisfaction First."

Action Guidelines

  1. Quality management
    1) Take action from the customer's perspective.
    2) Maintain and develop the NEC brand
    3) Strive to improve quality on an individual basis
    4) Ensure compliance with laws and regulations concerning products
  2. Safety management
    1) Recognize the importance of product safety on an individual basis
    2) Strive to ensure product safety
    3) Respond sincerely to problems concerning product safety

Framework and Systems

Quality and Safety Risk Management System

NEC views its readiness to address quality and safety risks associated with products, systems and services as a　key issue. In October 2000, NEC reconstructed its company-wide quality and safety risk management system and constantly enhances the operation of this system.

Specifically, to clarify the management framework for this area, NEC has established company-wide rules and standards and has appointed managers responsible for safety and quality management at each business division to ensure that the mechanisms and systems for legal compliance, especially those related to product quality and safety, have been properly established and are being operated appropriately. Based on quality and safety risk management action policies, NEC has instituted programs to prevent serious quality issues, and their reoccurrence. These efforts include improving safety and reliability technologies, standardizing critical components and conducting programs to share expertise.

NEC is prepared to respond to serious systems disruptions and serious product incidents that have a large societal impact. In these cases, NEC will issue an urgent risk management report (via rapid escalation to management) along with holding Emergency Action Meetings to formulate responses in terms of communication with customers and regulators, the mass media and the general public, and so forth. These meetings will be attended by not just the relevant business divisions, but also the principal corporate staff divisions. In this way, NEC has established a framework for determining company-wide policy in response to such serious issues by promptly deliberating responses. Furthermore, quality and safety management systems are monitored and audited internally by the internal auditing division based on company-wide rules and standards.

In October 2010, NEC revised its rules for responding to serious systems disruptions and serious product incidents at customers’ sites by requiring the relevant business divisions to ensure the direct escalation of information to management. The goal is to strengthen the escalation of critical quality issues that have occurred at customers' sites. With this step, we have begun operating a system that assures a rapid response as "One NEC."

Quality and Safety Risk Management System

Safety Education (HR development for realizing safety and security)

Skills training programs and other types of human resource development are a vital part of our ongoing efforts to raise the quality and safety of NEC products. Therefore, in-house training in this area is organized in 16 courses by role and by field of specialization, with the aim of helping participants acquire basic and specialist knowledge of quality/safety management standards and related technical standards, and to improve practical skills in the fields of design and manufacturing. In particular, NEC managers responsible for safety and quality management are crucial to quality and safety risk management. Accordingly, all of these managers receive specialized training courses.
NEC also nurtures a large number of safety technology experts by providing safety technology training using actual devices.

Award Systems

NEC has held an in-house essay contest since the 1960s for the purpose of presenting essays on quality control (QC) circle initiatives and various production process innovation activities. From fiscal 2006, the contest has been reestablished as the "Monozukuri Essay Contest." The contest is held to present essays on daily manufacturing process innovation activities, or essays on activities and results in such fields as product technology or production technology development, and to present awards for these essays. Participants include employees from not only NEC Corporation (Business Divisions and Corporate Staff Divisions) but also many employees from NEC Group companies (33 companies in fiscal 2012), including overseas subsidiaries. Through this program, we aim to enhance the sharing and accumulation of know-how, bolster problem solving skills, and improve documentation capabilities within the NEC Group.

Ensuring Safety and Compliance with International Standard, Relevant Laws and Regulations

From the standpoint of customer safety, the NEC Group strives to ensure the safety of hardware products based on the IEC 60950 international standard of safety. IEC 60950 is an international safety technology standard that is broadly recognized as the global standard for IT equipment. We also add any necessary voluntary safety measures to the IEC 60950 standard and apply them to products as the NEC Group’s safety standard. Through these measures, we strive to prevent product safety incidents.
Compliance with relevant laws and regulations is essential to our business. NEC ensures detailed compliance of products with various domestic laws and regulations, including the Electrical Appliance and Materials Safety Act, Voluntary Control Council for Interference by Information Technology Equipment (VCCI) regulations, the Radio Law and the Telecommunications Business Act. Products for overseas markets must also comply with the detailed laws and regulations of each overseas country.
To this end, we have established a framework within NEC for ensuring compliance with technical laws and regulations, as we work to prevent the breach of such laws and regulations.