Country/Region:GLOBAL | Overseas

Relationships With Stakeholders : Relationship With Customers

Quality Assurance and Product Safety

Measures to Ensure Product Safety

Based on a strong belief that product safety takes priority over everything else, Fuji Xerox is making the utmost effort to provide the market with only the products that customers can use with confidence. If a product-related accident should occur, we will respond in good faith, take measures to prevent recurrence, and make efforts to maintain and enhance confidence in our products.

Following a monochromatic laser printer fire incident in September 2002, Fuji Xerox, as part of its Product Safety Reform initiative, has promoted the reconstruction of companywide product safety management systems from the four perspectives of systems and policies, processes, human resources and technology, and awareness while incorporating into the systems the many lessons learned from that incident.

In February 2008, we implemented “Basic Policy on Products Safety” comprising six points. This policy aims to comply with the items on the revised Consumer Product Safety Law, as well as to communicate to our customers worldwide Fuji Xerox's initiatives in product safety so that they will understand our commitment to providing safe products. We will embed this Basic Policy as corporate standard in our business activities.

For more details, please see Fuji Xerox “Fundamental policy about products safety[external site]”.

Structure to Promote Quality Assurance and Product Safty

The Consumer Products Safety Law was revised in May 2007 to require that manufacturers establish product incident risk management structures, gather and disclose information on product incidents, create product recall structures, notify the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry within 10 days of the occurrence of fires and other product incidents, and so forth. All Fuji Xerox products except products for professionals (such as continuous form products) are subject to this law, and we are developing systems for complying with the provisions of the law with respect to these products.
Along with the development of policies and regulations, we also made efforts to prevent all product-related incidents. Twice a year, we review our product safety activities and evaluate them from a variety of perspectives. Through these evaluations, we designate which departments will be in charge of the activities deemed insufficient for the coming year. In addition, “safety manager” was installed in every organization and department, including at our affiliates. A total of 157 people in charge of Product Safety Department product safety joined the activity in corporation with Environment.

Achievements In FY2007

In FY2007, we tackled the issues not completed among six policies, such as improvement in safety awareness and culture, incident prevention techniques, more solid chemical substance management structure.
As a part of improvement in product safety awareness and culture, we introduced production methods with which no incidents occur even if employees are inattentive. In addition, the production procedures have been amended so that a uniform method can be established based on quality personnel's interviews with the actual line staff. For example, we have introduced a machine that churns out only three bolts at a time so that a staff will be aware once the bolt accidentally falls; in this way, a fallen bolt will not be in the products. We also introduced a procedure to maintain both safety and productivity.

Inspection Implementation Related With Product Safety

we conduct “product safety incident audir ” and “Product Safety internal audit” twice a year, respectively, or products, as well as on novelty goods. Our immediate reaction to product incidents should be compleated within a month, but we also review the incident on a monthly basis.
Average timeframe it takes to address the product incidents is less than one month, but for large-scale incidents, the reaction periods tend to get longer as it becomes difficult to identify the root causes. As for the ratio of the incidents, fire-related ones (with smoke) are the majority, and accident-related ones (with minor injuries) are the minority. Environment and Product Safety Department reviews all the incidents every six months and identify the incident trends. Fuji Xerox has no serious product incidents that required notification to the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry under the revised Consumer Products Safety Law. However, we feel that safety awareness at each production bases is not enough, and its improvement is one of our challenges.

Please also see the “Self-Evaluation on Progress of Our CSR Performance”

International Certification Center for Proving Safety From the Perspective of a Third Party

The International Certification Center, located in the Ebina Center in Kanagawa, a leading manufacturing site, is an international certification agency that can fairly, promptly, and accurately assess all safety areas (electrical machinery and equipment safety, laser safety, EMC*, and wireless, noise and chemical emissions) required for electrical and electronic equipment such as digital multifunction devices and printers. The center uses advanced facilities and systems that can anticipate European and international standards to establish safety-related assessment systems capable of responding to global product distribution. This certification makes our test data as the impartial third-party test data necessary for permits by the government authorities to which we ship our products, in accordance with mutual accreditation agreements between the Belgian government and the respective countries. The Certification Center has been building evaluation structure to meet global product distribution by keeping up with the latest European/international standards, as well as establishing necessary facilities and quality system. In FY2007, we expanded the scope of certification testing to provide safer products.
*EMC: electromagnetic compatibility

Obtaining Expanded Certification As a Testing Facility Related With Product Safety Evaluation

The products that Fuji Xerox offers are mainly electrical and electronic devices. For global product distribution, we must obtain evidence or permits regarding safety-related regulations of each country, and the test results for these permits require the third-party certification to prove its impartiality and appropriateness. The International Certification Center at Fuji Xerox has established its functions as the third-party testing facility by acquiring EMC testing equipments, which addresses the latest European/international standards and has the capabilities at the highest level in the world. It has also acquired the BELAC certification regarding EMC, noise, and wireless transmission by FY2005.
Furthermore, Fuji Xerox has established “ Fuji Xerox International Certification Center ” in October 2006, completely separated from our product development departments. Its main purpose is to improve the internal audit function, and maintain and guarantee impartiality as the third-party organization.
In addition, the Certification Center has become the ISO/IEC17025 certified facility, the first of its kind as the Japanese manufacturer to be able to conduct safety-related evaluation testing for information equipments all in one place. We have taken audit for expansion of certification testing scope in the areas of electronic and mechanical safety, laser safety, and chemical emission, and received certification from BELAC in FY2006 (February 2007).

10m Semi-Anechoic Chamber

Expansion of Certification Range and Items and Challenge of Obtaining Local Certification

Providing environmentally sound and safe products globally is a never-ending task as a manufacturer. At the International Certification Center, we strive daily to establish and expand our evaluation and certification system for a more accurate and speedy product evaluation. In FY2007, the center has expanded its certification testing facility and items in the areas of laser safety and chemical emission.
Firstly, in the chemical emission area, in July 2007, we received the Blue Angel (BA) mark, an environmental label issued and managed by German Federal Environmental Agency. The BA mark, introduced in 1978, is the pioneering label in this area and is in high demands from our customers with its high credibility particularly in European countries. With this certification, Fuji Xerox has established an internal structure to acquire impartially and speedily evaluation testing data (on noises and chemical emissions) required for BA application of copy devices/multifunctional devices/printers. As a result, time needed for the BA certification has dramatically been reduced.
Secondly, also in the area of chemical emissions, the Certification Center tried to receive the expanded certification regarding aldehydes measurements and succeeded in acquiring BELAC certification in February 2008. As a result, the Center now can issue a report based on measurement data as the third-party organization with assured compliance in response to customer requests on aldehydes.
Thirdly, in the laser safety area, the Certification Center in FY 2007 tried to receive the expanded certification regarding wavelength and release time of laser and received the BELAC certification in February 2008. In the past, there has been no internationally established evaluation methods regarding the measurement equipments used in this area. Fuji Xerox has evaluated the validity of its measurement equipments based on its unique methods and acquired the BELAC certification in laser safety area as the first Japanese manufacturer to do so.

“Fuji Xerox International Certification Center” will continue to improve our engineers' skills, maintain and extend our certification system, and improve our Product quality and safety initiatives.

For more details about the International Certification Center, please see the below.

http://www.fujixerox.com/eng/company/icc/

Please also see the news release about “Blue Angel mark[external site]”

Chemical Emissions Measuring Environment Room / Laser test operation

Future Direction

Fuji Xerox will roll out our Basic Policy on Product Safety to its affiliates. We will also promote incident prevention in a cross-functional development based on a companywide committee. For employees, we will provide product safety education based on their roles and responsibilities.
Safety also as, an effort to improve awareness for safety a companywide safety forum is scheduled to take place in FY2008. It will be a one-day forum with participation, including exeuctives from overseas affiliates. We also plan to roll out compliance education on chemical substances and product safety.
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