With the aim of quickly detecting and responding to a serious claim and preventing the recurrence of a similar claim, OMRON manages quality information at the corporate level by gathering inquiries and other customer feedback on defects on a daily basis.

Well-established procedures are in place to quickly relay accurate and complete information to top executives in the event of a serious claim. A serious claim reporting system has also been established to minimize damage to customers and quickly implement necessary actions to improve quality. OMRON defines the following claims as serious claims, with these definitions further segmented at each business division.

• Claims related to bodily injury, death or fire
• Claims with high social impact and related media attention
• Claims with sizable impact on client companies
• Claims in which the company's loss exceeds a specified amount
• Claims involving product recall

OMRON also organizes rank-specific training courses so as to help employees acquire the necessary knowledge regarding quality control and assurance.

Should a serious claim occur, quality audits are conducted to not only seek the source of the claim, but to investigate it from various angles. This includes design, production processes, management of suppliers/subcontractors, quality control personnel, and also the way to handle claims, so as to seek causes of the problem and prevent its recurrence. As for issues discovered through audits, action for improvement is required within a specified period of time according to the formulated improvement plan. The results of action are then confirmed while reviewing the entire quality assurance system if necessary.

As in previous years, various training programs were organized for quality personnel in fiscal 2008. From the perspective of ongoing personnel development, the focus was on quality education for new and recently promoted employees, as part of the company’s drive to promote nurturing of people engaged in quality control and assurance. Since OMRON has many production sites in China, quality training was also performed targeting mangers of local production sites.

* FMEA (Failure Modes and Effects Analysis)：

is a methodology for analyzing potential failure modes within a system. Failures are classified by the materiality according to the seriousness of their consequences, frequency of occurrence and ease of detection so that effective measures can be drafted in the design stage to avoid future failures.

Quality Training Programs and Participants