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The Nikon Group supplies products and services with an emphasis on its customers and giving priority to Nikon quality, which includes safety, environmental protection, functionality, performance, and reliability. This inclusive concept pervades daily production activities and related business operations and is key to Nikon's efforts to make products of ever better quality.
Based on the Nikon Group's traditional priority on quality, the Nikon Code of Conduct declares that the Group will supply products and services that excel in quality and safety and are useful to society. To achieve this, the Quality Control Directive (QCD) has been established as a set of basic regulations for quality control; information on basic policies and practical operations is conveyed throughout the entire Group. At the local level, every Group company has set up a Quality Assurance Department to conduct reliability tests and process inspection for the verification of product quality.
In the Nikon Group, quality control audits are conducted by the Chairman of the Quality Control Committee based on the QCD. Specifically, the chairman inspects, checks, and evaluates the quality control activities conducted at Nikon Group companies to help them improve the quality of both their products/services and business operations. The audited companies are required to make corrections and improvement to any shortcomings found in the audits, and the QCD is revised as required. Important findings are reported to the Executive Committee and are also used to improve internal controls. In the year ending March 31, 2010, we will further increase the frequency of quality control audits, focusing more on audits of sales departments, where quality-control awareness tends to diminish over time, and audits of basic business operations conducted in common by all departments, thereby further improving quality throughout the Nikon Group.
The Nikon Group is conducting business operations in line with its ISO 9001 Quality Manual created based on the QCD, and all the business segments of Nikon Corporation and major Group companies have acquired ISO 9001 certification. We also conclude quality assurance agreements with our business partners based on their understanding of the Nikon Group's "quality first" policy. At the request of our partners, we send Nikon Corporation's qualified ISO 9001 auditors to them to help them acquire ISO 9001 certification. Moreover every November, which is designated as "Quality Month" in Japan, we hold lectures inviting external experts so that employees of both Nikon Group companies and their partner companies can improve their quality-related skills.
Internal Auditor Development Training