ESG Voice 2015

QTell us about your employee education system for product quality control.

Employees must study the quality control manuals used by our current customers. This is done by all employees within their first year at the company. Additionally, we have added a basic course on quality to new employee training—an effort unique to the TS TECH Group. Employees also receive position-specific training from the fifth year on to allow a more thorough study of quality control. These educational opportunities are regularly provided at the Head Office as well as at the Technical Center and plants in Saitama, Hamamatsu, and Suzuka.

QTell us about your strategies for winning new customers by expanding sales to customers other than Honda.

For orders from Volkswagen, for example, we have acquired VDA 6.3 auditor certification for quality management process auditing as established by Germany’s Verband der Automobilindustrie (VDA). Making further progress in expanding sales to customers other than Honda will require having people who can quickly absorb and act in line with these new manuals. As some production processes involve manual labor, developing highly-capable people will greatly contribute to quality stability and improvement. In addition to expanding these initiatives in the Corporate Quality Control Department, we will also be looking at further enhancing our functions for supervising quality control at our offices around the world.

QWhen making investment decisions, what parts of information disclosed by a company should investors give weight to?

To make investment decisions, investors develop projections based on things such as past results and business trends. The information you share with stakeholders—information such as medium- to long-term goals and level of orders received—covers all information needed to perform analyses. I therefore feel you are doing a good job concerning information disclosure.

QThis TS TECH Report provides both financial as well as non-financial data. Does non-financial data affect investment decision-making?

I believe non-financial data is also very important. It is not enough that a company simply has good business performance. Because of this, investors are recently very focused on ESG issues.^* Companies that ignore the environment or corporate governance are increasingly finding it difficult to get investments.

• Environmental, Social, Governance

QPlease tell us your expectations for TS TECH concerning information disclosure

It is important for executives to disseminate information—in their own words—to as many investors as possible concerning how they are looking to manage the company as well as specific goals and policies. Through financial results briefings and one-on-one interviews, investors continue to hear about information from your medium-term plans and new technologies directly from TS TECH executives. If, in addition to this, there were more opportunities to speak directly with investors, it would make TS TECH’s management vision and overall direction even easier to see.

QTell us about your work history and what type of work you do now.

I’m originally from Taiwan, and when I first joined TS TECH back in 1995 I was assigned to the Foreign Operations Department (at the time). After gaining experience with various aspects of international business, I was transferred in 2003 to the International Business Department, which was the predecessor of the Sales Administration Section. Today, as manager, I supervise 10 employees while also negotiating and signing procurement contracts with the overseas offices of existing customers to use TS TECH products. I support the launch of new models as well.

QAs a female manager, how do you define the term employee-friendly?

Female employees face a number of different living environments, whether it be having a spouse that also works full time, or dealing with pregnancy, child care or nursing care. I experienced each of these in this same order after joining the company. At the same time, the company has improved working conditions, establishing paid leave and leave of absence programs for employees before and after childbirth, childcare, illness care, or nursing care.

In addition to these programs, I believe that a positive workplace environment is one of the conditions necessary for attaining women-friendly workplaces. For example, if supervisors and colleagues can create an atmosphere where it is easy to say “I’d like to go home early today to take care of my child,” this will make the workplace kinder and more considerate of female employees. Moving forward, if we can expand the creation of such positive workplaces, I believe that we can expect to see even greater commitment and contributions from all employees, including managers.

QHow did you get involved with TS TECH’s Suzuka Plant?

The Council holds six youth baseball tournaments a year, one of which is the TS TECH Cup. With a nearly 30-year history, this tournament for newcomers allows students up to grade 5 to participate. About six years ago, the Suzuka Plant expressed a desire to become more deeply involved with the community and became a sponsor of the tournament.

In addition to providing support for the activities of the Council, plant members have also held positions as officers of the Council and have become coaches of teams from various regions in the city of Suzuka.

QHow are players on the baseball team viewed by the children?

The plant manager gives opening and closing comments at tournaments, which are attended by the team’s manager and more than a dozen players. The players from the Suzuka Plant baseball team are all veterans of various nanshiki (rubber) baseball tournaments, and the children really admire them in their uniforms. Suzuka Plant team members also tell students that with more practice they, too, can someday wear cool uniforms—words that have a profound effect. One might say that the TS TECH Cup gives young baseball players an opportunity to clearly picture themselves in the future. So it is also for the sake of helping these children grow up healthy and strong that I hope TS TECH will continue to remain closely involved with us.

QWhat efforts are being made to preserve the environment and live in harmony with local communities?

One philosophy of Honda founder Soichiro Honda was that the company should not "build concrete walls that block off Honda sites from the surrounding communities." Since 1976, we have followed this idea and engaged in Community Forest initiatives that plant trees indigenous to each area around business sites. We later launched "Honda Woods" as an extension of this idea in 2014 to manage and develop forests under the "Satoyama Approach." Currently, we aim to live in harmony with the community and create forests that will bring happiness to people, with efforts underway at eight business sites around the country.

QWhat do you expect from your business partner TS TECH?

The company is doing a wonderful with its "TS TECH afforestation" efforts. An initiative aimed at preserving green ecosystems, these efforts involve tree planting, tree thinning, and other activities primarily in areas around the company’s business sites in Japan and overseas.

But companies still have too few opportunities to interact with people in the community. This is why we do things such as offer the use of company land for local festivals (led by our Kumamoto Factory) and incorporate "Honda Woods" into factory tour courses (led by our Suzuka Factory).

It would be fantastic to see TS TECH continue to expand its initiatives through measures such as leveraging the unique characteristics of each of its business sites and build more open relationships with people in the community.