On July 28, the Stainless and Specialty Steel Department in Osaka held its fourth "*QA/QC Convention," which was attended by 40 people, including General Manager Iino. This initiative was started in 2020 to raise awareness of QA/QC and to improve the level of the entire department by continuing the activity. It is a unique project within the department in which department members, including new employees, are divided into several teams to work on themes of business improvement and efficiency.

*Quality Assurance (QA): Activities to control and improve the entire process to ensure that products and services meet certain quality standards. The objective is to prevent problems before they occur.

Quality Control (QC): Activities to inspect products and services to check their quality. The objective is to detect and eliminate defective products.

In this activity, each team announces its theme in July and reports on its activities in December. Each team is given 25 minutes to present its theme, followed by a lively discussion, including reviews from other teams and a question-and-answer session. Over the past three years, a total of 16 themes have been tackled, including themes for improving business processes such as "Sharing and passing on sales know-how" and "Standardization of cabinet storage rules," as well as themes for utilizing technology such as "Improving business efficiency and labor saving by using Chat GPT" in conjunction with the in-house introduction of corporate AI.

This year, innovative themes such as "RPA utilization analysis" and "QAQC improvement using small techniques such as macro" were presented and attracted participants' attention. at the activity report to be held in December, each team will present the results of their efforts and share best practices and points for reflection to promote growth of the entire organization.
After the convention, members of the common divisions of the Osaka branch office and new employees joined together for a lively joint summer BBQ. Over delicious food, participants deepened their friendship and had a great time.

The Osaka/Stainless Steel & Specialty Steel Department will continue to engage in friendly competition with the goal of becoming a workplace where people learn and challenge themselves to perform at a high level.