Relationships with Customers

Create the quality to improve customer satisfaction

As efforts accelerate to achieve carbon neutrality, customer needs for lower torque, which lead to the reduction of energy loss, longer product life, etc. are increasing over time. In order to ensure that our customers are satisfied with and continue to use our products, it is important to respond swiftly to their demands and to build relationships of trust with them. We strive to maintain and improve product quality globally in accordance with our Quality Policy, which serves as the basic philosophy for all of our manufacturing activities, in order to create quality that satisfies our customers.
We also conduct customer satisfaction surveys as an opportunity to hear directly from our customers about their satisfaction level and requirements. In the survey for the fiscal year ended March 2023, a total of 113 customers responded and 88% of the overall evaluations were “Excellent” or “Good,” as well as the results from the previous year. Going forward, we will continue to provide quality that is responsive to customer needs in order to further improve satisfaction.

Quality Policy

■Pursuing right quality to meet functions and specifications requested by our customers.

• Applicable quality
  Our quality should immediately respond to the change of our customers’ requirements.
• Competitive quality
  We have to win quality competition.
• Quality for economy
  Quality should benefit our company.

Quality slogan

Quality management system

In order to improve customer satisfaction and provide products/services in a consistent manner, the Group’s domestic and overseas manufacturing sites have acquired ISO9001 certification, which is an international management system standard. We are steadily working to acquire certification for new businesses and newly launched plants. 100% of our domestic and overseas consolidated subsidiaries related to manufacturing have acquired certification for their quality management systems.
We have also acquired IATF16949 certification, a standard for the automotive industry, and JIS Q 9100 and Nadcap, standards for the aerospace industry, as well as CRCC (China) certification for the railway industry.

Develop quality awareness of human resources

In order to enhance knowledge and awareness of quality among employees, we provide specialized quality education such as basic and advanced QC courses. In the fiscal year 2022, 145 employees took part in these courses. In our training, we use examples of actual claim cases that have occurred in the past to show specifically how customers have been affected so that participants can be reminded of the importance of quality.
Also for managers and supervisors in departments other than quality assurance, we aim to have them acquire basic knowledge of quality control, increase their quality awareness, and strengthen their ability to respond to quality problems.
In March 2023, we issued the third edition of our “Quality Control Handbook: Quality Guidelines”, which describes our approach to quality and the basic actions that are essential to maintain quality. This handbook is not only used to train new employees, but is also carried by employees for reference at all times, helping increase their quality awareness.
In this revision, the illustrations and descriptions have been refined to make it easier for everyone to understand. In the future, we will translate it into English and other languages, and distribute it as a reference for suppliers, making it widely available on a global basis.

■Third edition of our Quality Control Handbook

Ensure stable quality

When new product developments or process changes are made, we increase the level of control by using our risk management analysis sheet.
Risk analysis involves all related departments for confirmation and evaluation from their respective viewpoints. We promote early detection and prevention of quality risks to realize “built-in quality” that ensures stable quality.
We also promote quality audits at production sites (including suppliers) and globally use our check sheet, which summarizes the key points of quality control to obtain inspection results and confirm the risks of quality problems and the effectiveness of preventive measures.
To manage quality information, we use the Global Quality Information Control Network (G-QUICK), which centrally manages information on customer complaints and claims on a global basis and immediately provides information to relevant departments to resolve problems at an early stage.

Quality month activities

To further promote quality awareness among all employees, we have designated November as our “Quality Month” and are participating in various activities throughout the month. NTN’s theme for the fiscal year 2022 was “Facing new challenges as our basics remain the same, Every one of us creates NTN Quality”. We promoted activities to improve three types of “Quality”, Quality of Products, Work, and Personnel, in order to create NTN Quality trusted by our customers, while reconfirming the basics of quality control and the importance of quality. Each department promoted priority measures to improve quality at NTN globally.

In August 2020, we have implemented our new core systems such as SAP in the supply chain management area. Following the start of new systems for production, sales, logistics, supply and demand control, inventory planning, etc. of finished products, we are expanding into procurement, production process, work-in-process, and cost management at each plant. While each department utilizes new systems, we are improving them and updating the related master data.
We provide the future demand information to plants by using statistical prediction based on the latest demand, inventory data and sales results. And then we will realize an efficient production system for domestic plants to ensure a stable supply for customers and a flexible respond to demand fluctuations.

Stabilize new core system

As a company-wide project, we are rebuilding our mission-critical systems by standardizing business processes and systems using ERP^＊ and other new packaged systems. This will serve as an IT foundation to support future DX promotions, and we are promoting business speed and service levels as well as more efficient operations. Following the start of operations of new systems in the areas of financial accounting, human resources and salaries, and technology, a new system for sales, logistics, supply and demand adjustment, inventory management, etc. of finished products in the SCM field began full-scale operations in August 2020. Thereafter, we are promoting activities to introduce new systems into the production, procurement, process, work-in-process, and cost domains at each plant. For example, new systems started operations in January 2022 at Iwata Works and Okayama Works, in May 2022 at NTN NOTO CORP. and NTN AKAIWA CORP., in October 2022 at NTN MIE CORP., and in January 2023 at NTN KAMIINA CORP. We will continue to promote introduction of new systems to other plants.
The new systems have enabled us to improve the efficiency of drawing and prototype control through the digitization of sales activities and the introduction of a project management system, to speed up price and delivery deadline response, to strengthen inventory management, and to enhance cost management. Furthermore, in addition to receiving information of demands and orders from customers via EDI and e-commerce, we aim to ensure a stable supply for customers and respond flexibly to fluctuations in demand by linking future demand plans to plants, not only based on fresh demand information, inventory information, and sales results, but also using statistical prediction.

＊ERP is an abbreviation of Enterprise Resource Planning, which is packaged software that oversees the company’s core operations, including sales, logistics, production, accounting, and human resources.

■Overview of NTN core systems using ERP and other package systems (as of June 2022)

Build the CSIRT system

In response to increasing risks of cyber attacks and information leakage, we newly established as an NTN Group’s Basic Policy to be set forth under our Management Policy, in addition to our existing “CSR Policy,” “Environmental Policy,” “Human Rights Policy,” “Safety and Health Basic Policy,” and “Procurement Policy,” in view of the importance of information security in recent years. (Check here for The Basic Policy of Information Security)
As cyber attacks are becoming more complicated and sophisticated every day, other companies have also suffered similar damage such as information leakage quite often. In case of an information security incident, a quick response against information security risks is required, from detection to reporting and handling. Therefore, we have been developing a cross-department emergency system for handling information security risks (NTN-CSIRT: NTN Computer Security Incident Response Team).
[Purposes of developing the information security emergency response system (NTN-CSIRT)]
(1) Detect information security risks and accelerate communication, reporting, handling, and recovery in case of risk occurrence
(2) Reduce risk of and prevent information security incidents
(3) Strengthen governance to enhance information security