Providing Quality Products and Enhancing Customer Satisfaction

ST Initiatives to Improve Product Quality

To serve customers by meeting their quality requirements and delivering products that boast the world’s highest quality, JFE Steel has established a quality assurance system with advanced sensors for process monitoring, in addition to its ongoing efforts to develop new products and advanced manufacturing technologies.

We are conducting activities across the company in line with the Guidelines for Enhancing Quality Assurance Systems formulated by the Japan Iron and Steel Federation (JISF) to strengthen our quality assurance system. In addition to conducting product tests using high-precision testing and inspection equipment, we are striving to thoroughly prevent errors in identification tasks and data tampering by promoting automation in every process, from issuing test instructions and collating specimens to reporting results.

Moreover, the company intends to provide customers with innovative value by operating its quality management system based on ISO 9001 and by advancing the acquisition of various assurance certifications required for steel products, including the JIS mark and approvals from ship classification bodies. We are also actively promoting the formation and standardization of international rules in conjunction with future DX promotion and the social implementation of technologies obtained through research and development.

ST Initiatives to Supply High-Quality Products

JFE Steel is working to improve its manufacturing capabilities by actively utilizing digital technologies in its manufacturing processes.

While strengthening its manufacturing base by introducing a cyber-physical system (CPS) for all manufacturing processes, JFE Steel is also striving to improve quality and yield through the full-scale introduction of quality prediction technology that uses integrated data from steelmaking to final processing, and to enhance reliability by increasing the frequency of automated testing and inspections. These activities will stabilize facility operations as well as production and quality to safeguard the consistent delivery of high-quality products to customers.

EN Promoting Quality Activities Based on the Companywide Quality Policy

JFE Engineering has established a companywide quality policy stating that “products and services that JFE Engineering designs, procures, manufactures, or constructs must comply with all required rules, regulations, and standards, and quality must satisfy the needs of our customers” and that we will continually undertake improvements. Under this corporate policy, the company continually strives to improve the quality of its products and services.

Specifically, our certified inspectors conduct on-site inspections at each phase of a plant construction project, including procurement, manufacturing, construction, and pilot operations. We also conduct witness inspections by customers during critical processes and at the time of equipment delivery to ensure quality.

In addition, JFE Engineering has published quality-assurance manuals based on the specific characteristics of each product and obtained ISO 9001 certification for each product category.

To further strengthen its quality assurance system, JFE Engineering uses an electronic document processing system in its quality inspections to prevent omissions in inspection data and data tampering, and all inspection data is electronically stored to further ensure traceability.

EN Securing Construction Business Operators

JFE Engineering have been designated as a special construction business operator under the Construction Business Act to undertake mechanical, civil engineering, and building construction work, and assign dedicated managing engineers at construction sites to oversee the technical aspects of construction work. The smooth implementation of plant construction projects depends on licensed specialists. The company is always striving to secure the necessary human resources by encouraging employees to acquire qualifications by granting allowances and through mid-career hiring of licensed personnel.

SH Maintaining and Improving Quality Assurance Level Based on Quality Philosophy

Guided by its quality philosophy of continuing to provide products that satisfy the required quality to ensure that we are always trusted by our customers, JFE Shoji is constantly striving to enhance the level of its quality assurance for customer confidence and satisfaction. Its processing centers in Japan and abroad are systematizing and automating operations to eliminate human errors. Raising employee awareness is essential for preventing human error at every stage, from receiving orders to processing, inspecting and shipping. The company provides quality education for employees by introducing case studies of nonconformance at other companies as well as at Group companies in Japan and abroad. Moreover, we conduct periodic quality audits at all relevant Group companies in and outside of Japan to identify quality assurance risks, and we provide follow-up toward improvement. When follow-up is necessary, individual responses are carried out to maintain and enhance the level of quality assurance.

ST Enhancing Our Response to Customer Needs

In an effort to strengthen the company’s total capabilities for better responding to customer needs, its sales department emphasizes enhanced sales education for sales personnel by position at the headquarters and branch offices. Specifically, we develop abilities in areas such as engaging in technical conversations, picking up clues from customer relations and using them in product development, offering suggestions to improve logistics and distribution, and analyzing financial indicators and costs. We also constantly strive to improve our systems so that customer product specifications are accurately reflected in manufacturing, and we will continue to work on improvements.

ST Unified Customer Care

JFE Steel regularly conducts customer questionnaires and interviews to draft strategies for greater customer satisfaction. Business strategies are shared among the sales divisions, the business planning functions and steelworks to facilitate unified customer care and proposals that leverage the collective strengths of the JFE Group

ST Promoting Technological Development to Meet the Needs of Customers and Society at Large

JFE Steel is advancing research and development of innovative technologies in the steelmaking process to contribute to achieving carbon neutrality by 2050. These include CO₂ reduction technology, carbon-recycling blast furnaces with CCU, and hydrogen-based ironmaking (direct reduction). The company is also actively applying data science and robotics to drive technological development that meets the evolving needs of customers and society at large.

In addition, JFE Steel is accelerating the introduction of new products and solutions for each field, with automobiles including EVs and new energy as key areas of R&D.

EN Promoting Research and Development Based on the Long-Term Vision

Guided by its long-term vision, JFE Engineering is prioritizing research and development in two key areas: green transformation (GX) for carbon neutrality and digital transformation (DX) for business sophistication and efficiency. In GX, the company conducts R&D to achieve its FY2035 target of reducing 30 million tonnes of CO₂ emissions. Key initiatives include developing manufacturing technologies for monopile foundations for offshore wind power generation, low-energy CO₂ separation and capture technology that uses a hybrid of membrane separation and physical adsorption methods, and waste-to-chemical technologies that convert waste into chemical raw materials.