Toray Advanced Materials Korea, a Korean affiliate of Toray Industrial Co. of Japan, won the Korea National Quality Award in the sector of Six Sigma reform with its main lines of business being felt, yarn, film, IT, and carbon textile, among others.

The Korean affiliate of the Japanese company has been engaged in the Six Sigma quality reform program and to achieve customer satisfaction for its products and services since 2005.

Under the leadership of President Lee Young-kwan, the company’s 1,200 officers and staff have all been doing their part to push the program in such areas as production, technology, and development engineering under the tailor-made Six Sigma activities.

The education about the Six Sigma program for its employees starts when an employee begins working with the company. Toray Advanced Materials Korea has been operating the Six Sigma program for new employees, a supplementary program before a project is launched, the green belt process, and the black belt process, among the programs for new employees. The programs also include the master black belt program.

The company also has programs to train various reform leaders through meetings with champions and guidance committee members and the secretariat of the Six Sigma training program.

“Toray Advanced Materials Korea exits because of its customers,” is the catchphrase the company created as a base for its Signal Lamp for Taking Care of Customer Complaints System.

Various management systems and methods from the Six Sigma program are being used by the company’s operation in a natural manner. Within the company, the Six Sigma program is being utilized to boost the satisfactory levels between various production processes.

Core strategies for the company have been built around Customer, Competitor, and Company and the Six Sigma program has been divided up and implemented according to the various sectors of the company. It also surveys the satisfaction levels among various units of the company to boost the quality of its products. A variety of awards are presented as an incentive to spur the management of the Six Sigma program including the Six Sigma Award for excellence and others based on the different levels of achievement and contribution. 

Extra points are given to an employee who excels in the implementation of the Six Sigma program so that his achievements can be benchmarked at the company’s operational units at home and overseas to strengthen the tailor-made program and boost its synergy effects.

Under such management, the company was able to record 1.3 trillion won in sales revenue last year and is expected to post around 5 trillion won in sales revenue in 2020 with operating profit of 500 billion won under its operational target.

Officials of the company said the participation of all of the officers and staff of the company in the practicable reform activities, the reform activities tailor-made to the rank and role of each participant, the control system based on real time, and the knowledge management system have all contributed to the company’s reform activities becoming a model for all management reform activities.