This paper looks back on quality control activities in Japan and discusses issues related to reliability assurance. The concept of statistical quality control (SQC) was introduced into Japan in the late 1940's with the aim of reviving Japanese production, which had been destroyed during the Second World War. Later, in the 1960's, Japan developed a new quality control concept : total quality control (TQC). It has aimed at helping Japan challenge the issues posed by trade liberalization, and in the middle of 1960's, quality assurance systems based on TQC were constructed that helped manufacturers assure the quality for customers and society. After explaining in some detail the history of quality control in Japan, this paper looks at issues related to reliability assurance and proposes an approach to meeting the growing requirements for assuring the safety of complex industrial products and systems.

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The Process capability study in Japan originated with DENSO Corporation when they awarded Deming Prize in 1961. Because they introduced and developed it companywide, they got significant improvement in both quality and cost. Process capability study is an activity to analyze causal relation between quality characteristic and 4M(Man, Machine, Material, Method) by comparing and investigating data in manufacturing processes with time series change and stratification. And, it is an activity to contribute to quality assurance and preventive maintenance by reflecting the results in standardization and process control in manufacturing processes. Moreover, process capability index, which is an evaluation standard of process capability, was developed in order to efficiently promote process capability study, since the use of SQC and instrumentation technology was indispensable. In this paper, I will explain the progress of how process capability study activities have significantly contributed to improving product quality in the automotive industry.

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TPM is an effective management technology which has been implemented in domestic and foreign many companies and/or plants in order to get remarkable effects. TPM (Total Production Management) as a more company-wide management innovation has been evolved from the Japanese style Total Productive Maintenance which the origin is Preventive Maintenance, the American style maintenance technology. This article shows key activities and roles of pioneers and organizations such as JIPM and the TPM Excellent Award Committee which have contributed enormously to the evolution and/or development processes of the TPM, and then clarifies core concepts and backgrounds for basic ways of thinking such as definitions on TPM, organizational deployment such as step approach and overlap small group activity, and methodology and techniques such as PM analysis and approach to minor stoppage loss. Further the future subjects and prospects are mentioned for realizing the more effective TPM which could adapt proactively the changing environment.

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When we investigate troubles or accidents that occurred in various fields, it is found that most of them are caused by human beings. Error Proof is a technology essential for preventing troubles or accidents due to human error. Although it was originally called "Fool Proof" and mainly a concern of equipment designers, it became used as countermeasures against defectives like missing parts or wrong parts, and has been developed as a technology that can be widely used to improve work operations. In this article, the history of error proof and researches on its application is reviewed, and the current status of the technology is identified.

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The use of QC stories by QC Circles as a means of implementing improvement activities on the shop floor has resulted in substantial achievements. However, the sales, service, and administration (SSA) sector's QC Circles involve a comparatively large number of new business practices of which there is no accumulated experience in the field of QC, so it was rather difficult for QC Circles in this sector to apply conventional QC stories in considering such business practices in advance and getting these activities on track properly. Having many QC Circles in the SSA sector, the Keihin (Tokyo and Yokohama) Region of the Kanto Branch of the QC Circle Headquarters has developed the Task Achieving QC Story in order to resolve such difficulties in that sector.

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The Marketing Group in TRG (TQC Research Group) of the Union of Japanese scientists and engineers (JUSE) proposed "The Seven Tools for Product Planning (7PP)" in 1994. It was the most systematic approach for product planning. We revised the 7PP in 2000 and 2013. The latest version "The Neo 7PP" is made with a viewpoint to create many excellent hypotheses at the first step of product planning. The 7PP (revised in 2000) consists of the following methods. 1. Interview Survey 2. Questionnaire Survey 3. Positioning Analysis 4. Conceptualization Method 5. Idea Screening Method 6. Conjoint Analysis 7. Quality Table The Neo 7PP (revised in 2013) consists of the following methods. 1. Hypotheses Finding Survey 2. Conceptualization Method 3. Interview Survey 4. Questionnaire Survey 5. Positioning Analysis 6. Conjoint Analysis 7. Quality Table

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The origins of the "Food Hygiene 7S" was described. Food Hygiene 7S was developed by Food Safety Network organized by Dr. Komemushi, and is used frequently in Food Industry. The goals of the Food Hygiene 7S are obtaining and maintaining cleanliness of microbial level on food industry, and it is composed by seiri (Sorting out), seiton (Systematic arrangement), seisou (Sweep), senjyou (Scrub), sakkin (Sanitation), shituke (Self-discipline), and seiketu (Cleanliness). The cleanliness on Food Hygiene 7S is given when 5 means (that is sorting out, systematic arrangement, sweep, scrub and sanitation) as operation by procedure are worked well by self-discipline (making motivation). Then Food Hygiene 7S is basic activities of food safety management system (HACCP, ISO22000, FSSC 22000).

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The author introduced Societal Quality Promotion Programs in Hungary, USA and India. Based on his experience, three elements that are necessary for successful introduction have been identified. First is readiness of recipient country for introduction. Three types of readiness are crucial (1) Strong need of society and a sense of urgency amongst leaders (2) Existence of two types of people- connector and salesman-described in "Tipping Point". (3) Favorable and positive image of outsider who will introduce the new ideas and methods. Second is mindset change/unlearning of the outsider, who plays a key role in introduction. Two types of mindset change are necessary (1) unlearn past experiences (2) not teach but create an innovative learning environment. In summary, transformation starts from own mindset change and ends with own mindset change. Third crucial element is wisdom of recipient country to utilize the outsider's strength. Outsider is usually in an already unlearnt condition, so he can see a fresh breakthrough view. In addition, if he has a noble mindset, he will be considered a neutral person by stakeholders, giving him the power to overcome internal conflicts.

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Education by Simulated Experience (ESE) is very effective to nourish the ability to solve problems and achieve challenges. ESE programs developed by Takahashi such as Pendulum manufacturing, Golf putting, Table golf putting, Coin shooting, Paper glider and Twin-rotor paper helicopter are introduced and discussed in this paper. Each should be used separately based on the purpose of education. Paper helicopters are often used for teaching Statistical Quality Control (SQC) or robust parameter design recently. Those paper helicopters have a single rotor. The paper helicopter with twin rotors is developed by Takahashi. It has the design factor of 20 and more. ESE by using twin-rotor paper helicopter is very easy to do for every person. Even beginners can enjoy this program. However, it is enough to educate the essential points of SQC within not so long time.

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Strategic Management by Policy (SMBP) that aimed at the integration of strategic planning of business and policy management was developed in the latter half of the 1990's. Seven methods as environmental analysis, product analysis, and marketing analysis etc needed for making reasonable and logical plan of the business strategy were developed in SMBP which are called S7 (Strategic Seven Tools). The strategy factor analysis in S7 is an original and most important method to progress business strategy to policy management. SMBP has been widely utilized to domestic and foreign academic societies and the industrial world now. A further research and development of SMBP like the research of the business model and the business system is expected.

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In this serial, the customer value provision management of Yuki Precision co, Ltd. in this age of change is presented through the interviews with Mr. Masato OTSUBO who is the executive managing director. Yuki Precision is established in 1950 that is celebrating its 60^<th> year in 2010, and provides machined parts on to aircraft makers, medical device makers, automobile parts makers and so on. First of all, the history and the profile are explained. Then, the business environment surrounding Yuki Precision in the aircraft field that is one of its own core markets is described. And finally, the specialty skills to survive this age of change are presented.

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Now, price competition has become a serious problem in a variety of industries. In order to get rid of this situation, it is necessary for companies to create new compelling and unique values continuously. However, the successful experience of the catch-up style in the 80s, seems to make companies difficult to create new compelling and unique values. This paper as the first of the series, tries to clarify the current situation and challenges about the development of new products and services, using survey on actual situation of organizations. The differentiation strategy in the future should aim not to "differentiation of the product specifications". The most important thing is "differentiation of value dimension". This idea requests a new methodology to TQM. TQM has greatly improved and enhanced "the ability to understand current situations" and "the ability to pursue causes". However, in order to create new value dimensions, only these two abilities are not sufficient. So, this paper considers the following two points. One is, what values we have to change in order to create new value dimension. And theother is, what ability we should enhance in the future.

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In robust parameter design, the compound noise experiment is often used in place of the traditional product array experiment in order to reduce the number of experimental runs. However, the precision of the estimation of the response mean and the response variance in the compound noise experiment may be worse than that in the traditional product array experiment, and hence, in some cases, the optimal control-factor setting estimated by the compound noise experiment will differ significantly from the actual optimal control-factor setting. This paper compares these precisions between the two experimental designs, and shows that the estimator of the response variance in the compound noise experiment has a good property under the condition that the main effects of the noise factors and the control-by-noise-interaction effects satisfy a certain equation. Numerical examples also show that the precision of the estimation in the compound noise experiment is not inferior to that in the traditional product array experiment when the condition holds, but it may be worse than that in the traditional product array experiment when the condition does not hold.

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In transportation service, especially road transportation service, operations are easily affected by external factors like customers' behaviors and road traffic conditions, and error proofing methods have not been well utilized. This lets people rely on individual's attentiveness and makes it difficult to reduce traffic accidents due to human errors. In this paper, errors and error proofing methods in a bus company were collected and summarized, and a method by which persons working in bus companies can easily generate many error proofing solutions based on the information of accident/incident or results of risk assessment was developed. As the results, it was found that about 8 error proofing solutions can be generated in about 15 minutes using the 41 error proofing principles and the supporting tools based on the principles. Although the effectiveness of these principles and application support tools should be verified more deeply, they were highly expected to be useful for promoting error proofing activities in bus companies.

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