Our Approach

LIXIL firmly believes that product quality is the key to earning the trust of our customers and society. We have stipulated improving the quality and safety of our products as one of our material issues. We have published the LIXIL Quality Principles in 14 languages to ensure the continuous pursuit of highest-quality manufacturing and services in various countries around the world. Serious product-related problems make customers anxious and adversely affect our reputation. That is why we pursue product quality management initiatives such as confirming legislative compliance based on the LIXIL Product Safety Principles.

Our System

LIXIL works to develop robust company-wide product quality management systems and resolve any quality-related issues at the initiative of our Safety and Quality Management Division overseen by the Chief Technology Officer (CTO), who reports directly to the company CEO. LIXIL International oversees product quality outside Japan, with product-specific Chief Operations Officers (COOs) managing product quality directly.

The company-wide quality management conference, which conducts regular management reviews, has been working to strengthen quality control by increasing the number of reviews conducted to once a quarter starting in FYE2021.

Enhancing Quality across Product Lifecycle

To ensure customer safety, LIXIL is focused on enhancing quality across the full lifecycle of all products, from development through to design, procurement, manufacturing, distribution, and after-sales support.

1) Design and Development

During the development stage, we aim to strengthen our ability to pinpoint fresh customer value by introducing techniques such as fault tree analysis (FTA), failure mode and effect analysis (FMEA), and design review based on failure mode (DRBFM), which are used globally to assess risks that may arise when using products.
Furthermore, in addition to customer comfort and ease of maintenance, we promote product design and development that achieves both environmental consciousness and universal design that is easy for everyone to use. We are also seeking to ensure accurate recognition of and compliance with local and international laws and regulations as we continue to pursue collaborative development projects globally.

2) Materials & Parts Procurement

We set quality standards to which our business partners must adhere. We also design joint activity themes to help resolve quality-related issues whenever necessary.

3) Commercialization, Production & Sales

We only commercialize products that have passed rigorous stress tests and quality checks for durability, weather resistance, and other properties. Products that require specific labeling to indicate conformance with safety and quality standards are clearly marked in our catalogues and other sales materials as meeting required criteria.
We also strive to provide better, readily understandable product explanations, including experience-based showroom displays and online videos, to ensure that customers select appropriate products.

4) Responding to Product Defects & Issues

We have a system in place for incorporating customer opinions with regard to product-related accidents and defects. We thoroughly investigate the cause of any problem via the system and implement improvements, not only in product design, but across all processes from manufacturing to distribution. To prevent product defects and problems, the process covers not only pursuing organizational management to ensure improvements are fully integrated, but also developing governance frameworks to promote better management.

Stage Gate System

In product development, LIXIL categorizes the various processes from research and development to commercialization and merchandising into “stages” and places “gates” between transitions to subsequent stages. Under this system, we ensure evaluations are carried out and management decisions are made properly. To raise the level of completion in design, quality, and production, the development, manufacturing, and sales departments collaborate with each other at each stage of the development process. The criteria for gate evaluation are also re-examined on an ongoing basis to promote the development of even higher-quality products.

Nurturing a Culture That Strives for Superior Quality Product Manufacturing

LIXIL works to build a culture that focuses on enhancing quality through training and awareness-raising activities. We measure the level of awareness of quality via a survey of all employees in Japan and work to generate further improvements.

Responding to Serious Product-Related Accidents

At LIXIL in Japan, whenever a product-related accident occurs, the product quality department collects information within 24 hours of receiving notification, and sends an emergency notice to relevant departments. If an accident that could have a serious impact occurs, the customer service center reports it directly to senior management to ensure a swift response. The center also cooperates with other departments to formulate on-site responses and thoroughly investigate accidents. We submit a report to relevant government authorities within 10 days of an accident occurring as stipulated in Japan’s Consumer Product Safety Act. We also seek to prevent a recurrence by reflecting any lessons learned from accidents in product design, and proactively developing technologies that help ensure accident prevention and safety. Regarding suspected legal infringements, our technology or other relevant departments will ascertain if an infringement has actually occurred, and submit a report to the authorities concerned. We follow a similar process for suspected legal infringements as we do for product-related accidents, namely, we conduct a thorough investigation of the cause and implement appropriate countermeasures to prevent a recurrence.

Long-Term Guarantee to Facilitate Long, Safe Customer Use

Today, houses are designed to last much longer than in the past. In recognition of these changing trends, we offer a maximum 10-year LIXIL Long-term Guarantee Service that enables customers to use products safely over a longer period of time.

Offering Information on How to Use Products Safely

We publish product-specific instructions for all major products on the website to ensure safe product use, along with videos illustrating how to look after and clean products to ensure appropriate use.

External Awareness-Building Activities

Safety Education Program: Think about Safety in the Home

As part of our product safety-related activities, we have developed a safety training program in cooperation with NPO the Association of Corporation and Education (ACE) for elementary school students, and provided this program free of charge to educators. The program encourages children to learn about hidden dangers in the home, such as accidents in the bathroom or stumbling on the stairs, and to think about and implement ways to prevent accidents.

We also conducted outreach classes on the theme “Think about Safety in the Home,” which attracted roughly 5,500 participants over a total of 181 sessions. In FYE2022, we conducted nine classes at four school for 326 participants.

The program won an Award of Excellence at the 9th Commendation on Instructional Materials for Consumer Education in 2014 conducted by the National Institute on Consumer Education (NICE).