Japan’s school lunch system demands absolute safety and strict hygiene. As the industry leader,Toyo Foods integrates scientific cooking, multilayered hygiene management that surpasses ISO 22000 requirements, and QC circle-based organizational learning to sustain high quality, achieving zero foodborne illness incidents over 59 years since its founding. With its unique quality culture, the company advances customer satisfaction through value-added food education and local and social contribution. Human capital is central: employees are trained to combine technical knowledge with hypothesis-oriented judgment to exceed customer expectations and protect quality. This culture enables Toyo Foods to serve as essential social food infrastructure and contribute to children’s health, growth, and wellbeing.

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　Problem solving is positioned as an important method in corporate activities and is widely adopted and practiced. On the other hand, although problem solving is positioned as part of organizational activities, it is often said that it yields few significant results and provides little sense of accomplishment to those involved. Therefore, in response to such a situation, we must consider how problem solving should be learned and practiced, and how it should be guided and promoted in order to truly be effective. This instructs that when problem solving becomes an exciting and well-mastered activity, it can serve as a driving force for living.
　Furthermore, this paper argues that Japan’s declining international competitiveness stems largely from a lack of practical problem solving in organizations. It identifies Toyota’s strength in its company-wide kaizen culture and robust SDCA cycle, which stabilize daily operations while enabling flexible response to change. We emphasize teaching simple, universal problem-solving thinking and building open, communicative organizational cultures. We conclude that Japan’s revival requires integrating problem-solving education into schools and establishing low-barrier processes for SDCA-based improvement across all organizations.

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　This paper reports on the objectives of the third Special Lecture held in August 2025 and the results of a participant questionnaire. For industry members, free lectures on the theme of problem solving were offered and received high satisfaction. The survey revealed key issues such as a narrow understanding of quality as merely defect reduction, the hollowing out of systems and awareness, and delays in human resource development. There is a strong need for practical QC methods and data utilization at the workplace, education and human resource development, hands-on support, and a culture of participation by all. Accordingly, the paper proposes redefining quality with a focus on customer value and strengthening educational systems and mechanisms for sharing and recognizing achievements.

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　The construction industry in Japan is known to have a higher incidence of overtime work compared to other sectors. One proposed remedy involves opting for Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) for shiftwork, a practice already employed in construction. However, improving the overall operational efficiency of the construction industry solely through BPO is quite difficult. Effective improvement often requires standardizing operations beforehand.
　However, BPO partner companies have not standardized their workflows, leading to varying approaches in document handling from one request to another. Thus, the efficiency of the construction industry as a whole has not yet been improved. To achieve standardization, it is first necessary to understand the current work practices.
　This study focuses on documentary work, specifically outputs such as photo albums and minutes that reflect the results of labor. Analyzing these documents is an effective method for identifying operational disparities and promoting standardization. Therefore, this study aims to propose a method for analyzing differences in outputs to facilitate standardization.

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　In this study, based on RCA analysis of 50 accident cases and KJ method classification of safety management activities conducted in 252 companies, a hypothesis was formulated on how to realize prevention of accidents with the participation of all employees. In addition, a survey of 16 companies based on a certain format was conducted to examine the validity of the hypothesis. Then, based on these results, it was examined how to get employees to participate in the activities and promote the prevention of accidents caused by inappropriate human behavior in a more effective manner. As a result, it was found that it is necessary to promote organizational activities to improve the related local factors in order to prevent inappropriate human behaviors that cause accidents, that it is advisable to promote activities that encourage employee participation in order to successfully carry out these organizational activities, and that employee participation also affects the promotion of these activities.

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　In the aerospace manufacturing, the diversity of parts and the complexity of the manufacturing process present challenges, particularly in terms of efficiency and the utilization of past audit results. In response, this research proposes the quality audit based on medical examination practices, utilizing data and building electronic medical records in the manufacturing environment to set audit items.In M companies case, audit personnel acting as “primary care doctors” used shared factory layouts and tablet devices for real-time data reflection, demonstrating improved efficiency and superiority over traditional audits. The quality audit based on medical examination practices facilitated increased dialogue with the manufacturing site by incorporating location information into audit items, making it easier to identify and address factors affecting quality. The validation of card audit’s effectiveness in real manufacturing environments shows its potential as a valuable method for future audits in the aerospace manufacturing field.

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