Mazda recognizes that enhancing customer satisfaction requires meeting customer needs and providing the industry's top-level quality in products, sales and service. To achieve this goal, the Company formulates a wide variety of quality improvement measures and implements them on a group-wide basis under its quality policy.
We will do our work faithfully and unceasingly, so that we may offer products and services that will please our customers.
In 1994, Mazda became the first Japanese automaker to receive ISO 9002 certification.*1 In 1996, the Company received ISO 9001 certification,*2 which covers design to R&D, production and after-sales service.
This entails steady improvement of procedures in every sector, with internal quality inspections held every year (conducted 176 times in FY2010) to ensure compliance and effectiveness of procedures. The Company's quality management system is thus administered steadily and effectively.
- *1ISO9002: International standard for product and service quality assurance
- *2ISO9001: International standard for quality maintenance and assurance
Mazda launched its first QC (quality control) circle activities in 1962 with quality improvement measures, and in 1978 the Company broadened these initiatives as "Mazda Quality Activities" to encompass the quality of all products and services as well as business processes throughout the Company.
Mazda is engaged in ongoing activities to improve the five categories of Mazda quality based on the Mazda Way, which include quality of human actions, work, management, work environment, and everything that is provided to customers.
Specific Measures
- Proactive adoption of quality improvement activities: By proactively incorporating world-renowned methods and approaches in quality improvement activities, including quality engineering, and by retooling its business processes, Mazda has achieved improvements in product quality, service quality, and costs.
- Quality education and quality awareness-raising activities: A message from the president is transmitted company-wide during Quality Month (November), and quarterly quality meetings are held in each workplace.
- The Mazda QC Circle Competition is held annually. In the first half of FY2010, two initiatives were awarded the Quality Control Circle Kaoru Ishikawa Prize at the National QC Circle Convention.
Mazda deploys QC circle activities at its affiliated plants in the United States and Thailand to raise quality worldwide.
To improve quality among suppliers in Japan, Mazda formed the Mazda Group QC Circle Committee for Hiroshima Prefecture and the surrounding area, and the Mazda Group QC Circle Liaison Group for the Hofu City area. These organizations hold workshops dealing with issues such as problem-solving and process management techniques, factory tours of member companies, and meetings to share best practices.
AAT (AutoAlliance Thailand) deploys SGAs (small-group activities)
- Participants:
- Each circle consists of about 10 onsite members who take part in QC activities. In FY2010, about 2,300 people (327 groups), more than half of AAT's employees, took part in QC activities.
- Content:
- Each team identifies a particular issue at its worksite and makes relevant quality improvements. At in-house assemblies, circles compete to achieve the best results in terms of quality and teamwork, and the ones that achieve outstanding results present them at a TPA QC Convention in Thailand hosted by the Technology Promotion Association (Thailand-Japan) (TPA).
- In-house training for QC promoters
AAT carries out in-house training for QC promoters (executives) as well as circle members (on-site employees), raising quality throughout the AAT organization. - Annual commendations are presented to outstanding QC circles and promoters
Annual commendations for outstanding QC circles and promoters are given by AAT independently, contributing to the promotion of higher levels of quality.
AutoAlliance International (AAI)
Deployment of VQTs (Vehicle Quality Teams) as small-group circle activities
- Participants:
- Each circle consists of about eight onsite members who take part in QC activities. In FY2010, about 70 people took part in QC activities.
- Content:
- Each circle develops activities to solve specific issues given beforehand, on the basis of Six Sigma, a well-known process improvement approach to reducing product and service irregularities based on the define, measure, analyze, improve, control (DMAIC) work methodology.
- Participation in Ford quality training
Because AAI handles the production of Ford as well as Mazda vehicles, staff members attend Ford Motor Company training as well, further elevating their skill levels.
In the late 1980s, Mazda began introducing TPM*3 activities, and in 1991 the Hofu Plant's Nakanoseki district introduced TPM in earnest. Since that time, the plant has consistently pressed forward with the development of high-efficiency production lines, developing and deploying technologies that reduce losses in all processes from materials to assembly. In FY2007, the plant earned the Award for World Class TPM Achievement in the TPM Excellence Awards for TPM results at business locations in Japan and overseas. Only 14 production facilities worldwide have attained this honor—two of which, the Nakanoseki district of the Hofu Plant and Powertrain Production Department No. 2 of the Hiroshima Plant, are Mazda facilities.
- *3TPM: Total Productive Maintenance. TPM is a series of activities in which production plants strive to prevent production line losses of every type, achieving zero accidents, zero defects, zero failures, etc., throughout the production system lifecycle, advocated by the Japan Institute of Plant Maintenance.
Mazda implements a quality management system in connection with the establishment of business facilities overseas as well as for newly introduced products at overseas production sites.
In the interim between establishment and full-scale production:
Mazda participates in building local quality management systems. Additionally, through education and training, the Company helps staff to improve their quality assessment abilities by supporting skills training related to production technologies, quality assurance, and product quality evaluation.
After full-scale local production begins:
Mazda makes proposals on how to address quality issues and provides support for the swift resolution of quality problems so as to ensure the effective administration of a local staff-led quality management system.
Mazda thoroughly examines its design drawings at the development stage, reviewing all aspects of each design from individual parts to entire systems. This review process includes identifying and solving problems, thereby achieving steady improvements in quality.
