About us > CSR Activities > Social Responsibility > Together with Business Partners > Chemical Substance Management
Chemical Substance Management
To realize our management philosophy―"living with society, the world and nature"―KYOCERA Document Solutions has established a chemical substance management system covering the entire supply chain, in accordance with the "Chemical Substance Management Standards," established in 2003.
In order to produce products that do not contain any substances prohibited by laws and regulations, it is essential to ensure that parts, materials and subsidiary materials used in the manufacturing process do not contain any prohibited substances. KYOCERA Document Solutions conducts chemical substance surveys on all parts, materials and subsidiary materials procured from its suppliers. In addition, we have also installed fluorescent X-ray analysis machines in all plants to perform screening tests on supplied parts/materials/subsidiary materials, to confirm that they do not contain any of the six hazardous substances* specified in EU RoHS Directive.
We also conduct regular audits on our suppliers to check whether they have adequate chemical substance management systems or not, and purchase parts/materials/subsidiary materials only from certified suppliers.
*RoHS Directive prohibited substances: The EU prohibited the sale of electronic and electrical equipment containing the following six hazardous materials, from July 2006 onwards: (1) Lead, (2) Mercury, (3) Cadmium, (4) Hexavalent chrome, (5) Polybrominated biphenyl (PBB), (6) Polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE)
KYOCERA Document Solutions Green Procurement Efforts
In order to conduct efficient and accurate chemical substance surveys, since fiscal 2007, KYOCERA Document Solutions has introduced and operated a chemical substance database system, The chemical substance database system operates in conjunction with the main technical and production/materials database systems.
As of March 2011, more than 230,000 chemical substance surveys have been conducted, with the cooperation of our suppliers. The future plan is to improve the chemical substance database system so as to enable response to the EU REACH Directive*.
> Improving the Shared System with Suppliers
*REACH Directive: European Union's regulations regarding registration, evaluation, authorization and restrictions of chemicals.
Green Procurement system
In December 2003, KYOCERA Document Solutions established the "Standards on the Management of Certain Chemical Substances," to ensure that all KYOCERA Document Solutions products are in compliance with all applicable chemical substances-related laws and regulations, and environmental labels of the countries in which our products are marketed. In response to amendments and additions to relevant chemical substances-related laws and regulations, the Standards on the Management of Certain Chemical Substances were modified accordingly. Last year, we revised the Standards in response to additions made to the SVHC* list in the EU REACH Regulation and changes made to exempted substances in the EU RoHS Directive.
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Standards on the Management of Certain Chemical Substances
(Revised date: March 1, 2012)
(Ver.6.02) (PDF:309KB)
Since fiscal 2009, KYOCERA Document Solutions has conducted surveys to determine whether any of the EU-REACH listed substances of very high concern (SVHC)* are present in its products. To date we have completed surveys on 46 substances, including eight substances added to the 4th SVHC List released in December 2010. We will conduct surveys on new SVHC substances to ensure continued compliance with the REACH Regulation.
*SVHC: Chemicals identified as hazardous to human health in the European Union's REACH Regulation (Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals), e.g., carcinogenic, toxic to reproduction.
To ensure thorough chemical substance management, before initiating transactions with new suppliers, we conduct audits regarding their chemical substance management systems and practices. In principle, we only do business with suppliers that pass our audits and are certified as KYOCERA Document Solutions suppliers.
Every year we send Check Sheets for Self-Evaluation of Chemical Substance Management ("Self-Evaluation Check Sheets") to certified suppliers, to have them self-assess their chemical substance management systems and daily practices. Self-Evaluation Check Sheets returned from suppliers are carefully examined to determine whether their chemical substance management systems and practices are implemented in strict accordance with our requirements.
As part of efforts to improve and upgrade our chemical substance management, we plan to revise the Self-Evaluation Check Sheets.
In 2004, as a tool for facilitating chemical substance surveys, KYOCERA Document Solutions installed an EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) system to be operated in conjunction with the Green Procurement System. EDI provides computer links between us and our suppliers not only in Japan but also in Hong Kong and China, enabling the following tasks to be executed online:
- Placing purchase orders to suppliers and receiving delivery information from them
- Providing daily receiving inspection reports and monthly accounts payable reports
- Sending requests for chemical substance surveys to suppliers and receiving survey forms
- Sending primary judging results to suppliers who returned survey forms
EDI has helped streamline our operations and achieve greater efficiency. With rapidly increasing demand for new parts, the need to increase operational efficiency and speed became more urgent. In response to such growing need and requests from suppliers, in fiscal 2010 we launched improvements of the EDI system. One of the improvements made was to shorten transmission/reception intervals from once an hour to once every twenty minutes. This has enabled more real-time information exchange (sending survey requests, submission of survey forms, etc.), and more real-time feedback to suppliers about judging results, leading to reduction in the time spent from initial survey request to sending judging results. We plan to implement several other improvements in the future, to further enhance the system, thereby enabling both ourselves and our suppliers to achieve greater operational efficiency and speed.
About us > CSR Activities > Social Responsibility > Together with Business Partners > Chemical Substance Management
