To respond to the growing societal demand for CSR procurement, OMRON originally planned to conduct CSR surveys for two sites in Japan, one site in Europe, two sites in Greater China and one site in Asia Pacific in fiscal 2008, in order to assess the status of CSR practices at its production sites. To conduct the monitoring, OMRON prepared self-assessment checksheets based on the checklist issued by the Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition (EICC). Checklist items included policies and procedures regarding labor practices and ethics, freely chosen employment, child labor avoidance, working hours, wages and benefits, humane treatment, freedom of association, elements comprising management systems for labor practices and ethics, emergency preparedness, occupational injury/illness and physically demanding work, occupational safety and machine safeguarding, industrial hygiene, environmental permits and reporting, hazardous substances, wastewater and solid waste, air emissions, employee housing environment, and business ethics and information security, among others. Due to the rapidly worsening economic situation in the second half of fiscal 2008, OMRON ended up carrying out CSR surveys at only two sites in Japan and one site in Europe. Although limited, this experience helped the company to establish criteria for future monitoring of global production sites.

In China, OMRON (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. was audited for the CSR certification system recently established by Shanghai’s Pudong government. The certification was acquired, indicating that the company meets the required level of CSR performance.

In fiscal 2009, monitoring is planned for two production sites, each in Greater China and Asia Pacific, using self-assessment checksheets upgraded in reference to the checklist prepared by the Pudong government. Surveys is also planned for suppliers in Greater China, chosen to be sources of OMRON’s centralized purchasing system.