Our group has defined its basic stance on quality as "In order to ensure product safety and minimize the impact on people and the environment, we shall promote quality assurance activities that take into account the entire life cycle of our products and services, from development to consumption or disposal, and strive to improve customer satisfaction and protect consumers." In addition, the "basic quality assurance guidelines" which is the highest-level internal regulation on quality, sets forth the following quality assurance policy as the basic concept of quality.
The Quality Assurance Headquarters has been established as a corporate quality assurance organization to strengthen governance of quality throughout our group.The Quality Assurance Headquarters is headed by the executive in charge of quality assurance (director) appointed by the Board of Directors, and is headed by the heads of quality-related business divisions and the presidents of affiliated companies. The Quality Assurance Department of the Health, Safety, Security and Environment(HSSE) serves as its secretariat. The Quality Assurance Headquarters formulates policies for company-wide quality assurance activities and promotes the important issues such as maintenance, review and improvementof the quality assurance management system.Each business division follows its own PDCA cycle(Idemitsu Sustainability Report 2019 p.42) in accordancewith these policies. As a general rule, the Quality Assurance Headquarters meets once a year to monitor progress and determine our group's basic policies for the next fiscal year. We also conduct regular quality audits to improve the activities of each division.
