Safety and Quality of Products and Services

The Yamaha Group has formulated the Group Quality Management Policies & Rules to guide quality management oriented toward the ongoing provision of satisfying customer experiences through products and services, and a quality management system has been implemented based on these policies and rules to drive improvements in quality.

Groupwide quality policies and objectives as well as important quality-related measures are deliberated on by the Quality Strategy Committee, which is chaired by an operating officer. Based on these deliberations, the president will issue instructions that will be relayed to business divisions and Group companies via the head of the Yamaha Corporation Quality Assurance Division. Business divisions and Group companies set their own targets based on Groupwide quality policies and objectives. The Quality Assurance Division of Yamaha Corporation conducts monitoring to confirm the degree to which these targets are met and to perform quality audits, and reports on these matters are issued to the Quality Strategy Committee.

In addition, we have established regulations stating that serious quality issues and their responses are to be managed in a concentrated manner by the head of the Quality Assurance Division of Yamaha Corporation in order to strengthen Groupwide quality assurance governance.

Auditors of the Yamaha Corporation Quality Assurance Division conduct quality audits of business divisions and Group companies to check whether or not their quality management systems and the resulting product and service quality are of a level that is sufficient to ensure customer satisfaction. Quality audits go beyond confirming the levels of compliance and effectiveness of quality management systems to inspect the safety, effectiveness, and labeling appropriateness of principal products sold by the Yamaha Group (approximately 20 products a year). The issues and best practices identified through quality audits are shared with business divisions and Group companies to refine and improve the effectiveness of quality management systems and ultimately to heighten customer satisfaction. Quality audits are not only instituted in product businesses, as we also conduct quality audits targeting resort and other service businesses from the perspective of customer safety. Based on the results of these audits, improvements are implemented to Companywide quality management systems as deemed necessary.

At the same time, business product business divisions issue instructions to and perform audits of the factories they oversee, both inside and outside Japan, in pursuit of higher product quality.

The Yamaha Group practices safety-conscious product design, and its efforts include incorporating a risk assessment process into design reviews at the development phase. Through the risk assessment process, we identify and project potential risks related to products and their use. We are thereby able to examine methods for the minimization or removal of these risks during the product design process.

To facilitate these efforts, we are entrenching the R-Map risk assessment method^* as we move ahead with activities to further enhance the effectiveness of our risk assessments.

• * The R-Map risk assessment method proposed by the Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers entails mapping risks on a 6 x 5 matrix. This method is utilized for reducing risks during design processes and for evaluating product risks. The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry and the National Institute of Technology and Evaluation also evaluate risks using the R-Map method.

The Yamaha Group has constructed a testing building equipped with safeguards against fires and explosions for the purpose of testing the safety of lithium-ion batteries and other components and products. This full range of in-house safety testing facilities has been installed in this building. In addition, the building is also used to advance development of safety verification methods and research projects for predicting deterioration patterns.

The Yamaha Group monitors trends regarding regulations, formulates internal policies, and implements systems to guarantee full compliance with the regulations and standards of relevant countries pertaining to product quality and safety as well as environmental protection.

Internal standards are established and revised in reflection of regulatory expansions and revisions and the introduction of new voluntary standards. In addition, information is shared among overseas subsidiaries to facilitate swift and accurate response to changes in the regulatory environments of countries of operation while frameworks for managing regulatory information are reinforced.

In response to the recent international tightening of regulations applying to electromagnetic waves and energy conservation, Yamaha Corporation has installed electromagnetic wave measurement equipment and various other kinds of measurement, analysis, and evaluation equipment at its facilities. This equipment is used to evaluate product and component prototypes for compliance with the regulations of relevant countries. Regulations for chemical substances have also become more stringent around the world, and in response to this trend the Company has implemented a management system for chemical substances contained in products and established its own Standards for Chemical Content in Products. These standards have been used to manage chemical substances across the supply chain during the product design and development phases and have helped facilitate legal compliance while reducing environmental impacts.

The Yamaha Group has put in place a system to ensure that it places top priority on the safety of customers. In the event of a safety issue involving a commercially sold product, the employee who learned of the incident shall immediately report it to the responsible department and to the Quality Assurance Department. The department that receives the report immediately notifies the quality assurance division for the respective business of the issue, and steps are taken to respond to the affected customers, notify the appropriate government authorities, and initiate measures aimed at preventing recurrence. Should the relevant quality assurance division determine that the issue is particularly serious, a report will be submitted to senior management and the head of the Quality Assurance Department shall assemble representatives from the relevant departments from across the Company.

Human resource development programs are implemented to foster compliance understanding among relevant personnel and ensure good legal compliance. As one facet of these efforts, e-learning programs on regulations pertaining to products and Yamaha’s response frameworks were launched in fiscal 2022.

In fiscal 2023, there were no market response incidents involving product safety defects and no legal violations resulting in punishment.

In fiscal 2023, there were two incidents of legal violations regarding product labeling overseas. These cases involved failures to list an in-border address on products or packaging and failures to label products in accordance with local requirements. The necessary measures were taken to address these issues.