Quality: Automotive Business

The SUBARU Group has established a quality improvement system with the Quality Assurance Division at the heart of efforts in order to analyze after-sales quality defects and customer requests to realize higher-quality development and production. Based on customers’ opinions collected from around the world, SUBARU works with the relevant in-house departments and suppliers in identifying quality issues, investigating their cause, and planning countermeasures.
In January 2021, we established FAST (Fast Action & Solution Team), a North American quality improvement team where quality assurance and development units at local affiliated companies in the U.S. work together with service units at dealerships in the U.S. and Canada. By strengthening cooperation between departments, immediate decisions can be made on-site, and market demands can be met more speedily.

Quality Improvement System

Structure of the FAST North American Quality Improvement Team

Quality Control Training

Since quality enhancement is one of the priority initiatives in our mid-term management vision, we provide in-house education on quality to all employees. Quality education is provided on an ongoing and regular basis tailored to employee knowledge and experience levels, including their year of entry into the Company and their position. This instills a customer-centric, quality-first awareness, educating each and every employee so that they put quality first in their actions.

Our quality improvement initiatives are also generating steady results. In the February 2022 issue of the U.S.-based “Consumer Reports” magazine, SUBARU ranked No. 1 among other brands, up from No. 3 the previous year, and the Forester was ranked No. 1 in the small SUV category. In the 2021 Axios Harris Poll 100, a ranking of U.S. brands, SUBARU received a number of very highly favorable ratings. It was ranked No. 14 out of 100 companies, and especially among the millennial generation, aged 25–34, it was ranked No. 2. When only compared to automobile manufacturers, it was ranked No. 1.

All SUBARU models have received extremely high evaluations in Japan and overseas for their safety performance, which is a particular focus for us. One example is the Legacy Outback, which won the JNCAP Five Star Vehicle Safety Performance 2021 Award, and the Levorg, which won the JNCAP Five Star Vehicle Safety Performance 2020 Award the year prior.

*1

Japan New Car Assessment Program (JNCAP): An automotive assessment program operated by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism and the National Agency for Automotive Safety and Victims’ Aid (NASVA) to compare and evaluate automobile safety performance.

*2

IIHS: Insurance Institute for Highway Safety

*3

Acquired for U.S.-specification models.

*4

Name in Japan: SUBARU XV

Global Quality Meeting

At the SUBARU Group, in order to instill a quality-first awareness, we attach great importance to dialogue with dealerships, as they are responsible for dealing with customers across the globe. We participate in technical liaison meetings held twice a year for the Japanese market, while in overseas markets, we take part in twice-yearly main dealerships (G8) service meetings and block conferences held in six regions.^* We take in the views of dealerships expressed at these meetings to make decisions on the optimum means of addressing quality problems that inconvenience our customers. (In FYE March 2022, these were once again held as web conferences both for Japan and overseas.)
In addition, in order to listen to the voice of the market and speed up quality improvement, the Quality Improvement Committee, chaired by the Chief Quality Officer (CQO) and Chief General Manager of the Quality Assurance Division, holds monthly meetings to discuss quality at the executive level in all departments. Furthermore, the North America Quality Improvement Committee, which is comprised of the North America CQO and heads of North American subsidiaries, focuses on quality in the North American market and is held several times a year.

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Block conferences are held in a country in each of the six regions—the CIS, Central Europe, Northern Europe, Southern Europe, Oceania, and Central and South America. Their participants include representatives from dealerships and expatriates working in the region.

Quality Caravan

Since FYE March 2019, we have been holding an annual event called the Quality Caravan at all our business sites to inform participants of customer feedback and the quality status of SUBARU products. Our aim in doing so is to provide all employees with an accurate understanding of the current state of SUBARU and create an environment in which they are conscious of putting quality first at all times and approach their work in that mindset. In FYE March 2022, the caravan was held for all employees and Group company employees, revising content so as to take into account the most recent information and to prevent them from losing alertness about quality problems that inconvenienced our customers. This helps them to be constantly aware that their work is ultimately connected to the customer, and to instill a customer-centric, quality-first awareness. Not only are we engaging more business partners in these events, but Subaru of Indiana Automotive, Inc., SUBARU’s production base in the U.S., has also been organizing events to raise global awareness of quality across the entire SUBARU Group.
Going forward, we will continue to engage in awareness activities, while enhancing the program and extending the duration, among other improvements.

Initiatives with Business Partners

In order to maintain and improve the quality of SUBARU vehicles, we consider it extremely important to ensure the quality of all externally purchased parts. To this end, SUBARU has been carrying out various activities to promote voluntary improvements by business partners and to maintain and improve quality together with all business partners.
As part of its regular activities, SUBARU has taken a number of actions to build a foundation on which SUBARU and its business partners can work together based on a common awareness of concepts regarding quality maintenance and improvement. This includes developing a manual for all business partners that summarizes the standards and rules for built-in quality and ensuring stable quality.
In addition, in order to address the ever-changing environment, we hold briefing sessions on our Quality Policy for all business partners at the beginning of each fiscal year to share information about a range of quality-related situations. KPIs are set for quality targets and key quality indicators to be achieved in the short and medium term, and we present quality improvement measures, key points for enhancing quality, and other information as concretely as possible. Through direct communication from SUBARU, we deepen business partners’ understanding and build a system that can flexibly respond to changes in the environment. This common awareness of our Quality Policy enables close cooperation between business partners and SUBARU at all stages, from development to mass production, promoting integrated quality assurance activities.
As an example of our activities, we support regular voluntary audits of quality assurance systems and quality management systems at our business partners and provide advice from a third-party perspective. In addition to regular audits, SUBARU directly observes business partners’ manufacturing processes and production sites. Here, we conduct audits and process checkups on an ad-hoc basis, offer proposals for productivity improvement, and otherwise engage collaboratively to further improve quality. Furthermore, by following the Advanced Product Quality Planning (APQP) process, our activities also help our business partners improve their own capabilities, contributing to overall quality improvement. These unified efforts between SUBARU and its business partners ensure the quality of externally manufactured parts.
In recent years, where the external environment has become extremely uncertain, parts supplies issues have arisen due to large-scale natural disasters and shifting world affairs. Amid this situation, we have also established support systems for our business partners in order to help quickly restore parts supplies in the event of an emergency.

Response to Recalls

The SUBARU Group takes measures to cope with recalls in order to prevent accidents, in accordance with our highest priority placed on customer safety.
We have established the Recall Committee to determine specific measures to be taken in the event of product defects that can infringe on safety or laws and regulations. This committee is chaired by the CQO and Chief General Manager of the Quality Assurance Division, and was established based on customer suggestions and defect information from around the world and in accordance with internal regulations. Regional representatives from our customers also participate in this decision-making process to determine what action we will take so as to incorporate not only legal and regulatory aspects in each country, but also the mindset of placing the highest priority on customer safety. Once determined, we promptly notify the relevant authorities of the recall. Affected customers are contacted by direct mail and other methods from our dealerships to encourage them to promptly have their car repaired free of charge, with their safety and peace of mind as our top priority. This information is also posted on our website on the recall notification date. The ratio of the number of vehicles for which improvement measures have been completed to the number of vehicles subject to recall is aggregated and reported to government agencies.
As of April 2022, SUBARU had no cases of violating laws and in-house regulations in regard to information provision on quality and safety.

Recalls of SUBARU Cars

Number of Recalls and Improvements

*1

Corrective action implemented by automobile manufacturers, etc., for a specific range of automobiles, or tires or child car seats, of a similar type to bring the product in question into compliance with the Safety Regulations for Road Vehicles when vehicles, etc., are in a condition that suggests that they may cease to conform or do not conform to those safety regulations, and when the cause for such non-conformity lies in the design of the vehicles, etc., or their manufacturing process.

*2

Corrective action implemented by automobile manufacturers, etc., in respect of matters which, although not specified in the Safety Regulations for Road Vehicles, cannot be overlooked from a safety or environmental conservation perspective in the event that a defect should arise, where the cause lies in the design or manufacturing process.

*3

Corrective action relating to merchantability/quality in respect of a defect that is not subject to a notification of recall or corrective action.

*4

The figure includes one recall relating to Takata airbags, in which a recall notification was submitted on the basis of individual model.

Recalls in FYE March 2022 (Global)^*1

*1

Information presented is internal data and may differ from data published by the respective authorities.

*2

Identical recalls conducted across multiple countries/regions are combined to count as one recall. Therefore, the global total number of recalls from all countries/regions may not equal the total number of recalls from each country/region.

Takata Airbag Recall Progress

SUBARU’s progress in responding to the Takata airbag recall in the U.S. (as of May 2022) is among the highest in the industry, as shown in the table below.

Takata airbag recall progress in the U.S.

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From National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) data published May 2022