Concept of Procurement

Purpose

Kitagawa Industries addresses product development and production activities that satisfy customers based on the Environmental Policy and Quality Policy. As part of the activities, this KGS Procurement Standard provides our standard in purchasing products, parts, raw materials, and sub-materials from Suppliers while giving priority to those who are actively working on environment conservation and quality assurance.

Scope of Application

This Standard applies to all products, parts, materials, and indirect materials we purchase. It also applies to chemicals used in the manufacturing processes of the above items.

Application of the Standard

It goes without saying that this Standard has been established in compliance with laws. Should a customer wish to apply its own standard, however, we may apply the customer standard separately from usual cases for other customers. As for our suppliers, we request them to ensure that the KGS standard is applied for the operations of their consignee companies or those from which they purchase goods and materials for manufacturing products which are delivered to our company.

Definition of Terms

  1. Supplier and Customer “Supplier” refers to a company or a group from whom we purchase goods.
    “Customer” refers to a company or a group to whom we sell goods.
  2. Indirect material It refers to packaging materials (carton, plastic bag, cushioning material, tape, label, ink, adhesive, etc.) and chemicals (mold lubricant, solvent, cleaning agent, etc.).

  3. Environmental hazardous substance It refers to a substance contained in products and materials or used during manufacture and with a significantly adverse impact (aspect) on human body and/or global environment. In accordance with laws and regulations as well as customer requests, we specify the substance to manage it by planning its elimination or reduction. We manage environmental hazardous substances by classifying them into the following three categories.

    A Banned
    Substance    		 Must not be contained in products, packaging materials, etc.
    Must not be used in manufacturing processes
    B Controlled
    Substance    		 To avoid that containment in products and packaging materials and use in manufacturing processes is preferably understood.
    Containing and not containing the substance (if containing, the amount of use) must be recognized in a product.

    Refer to

  4. Containment It refers to a condition in which the substance is mixed in or added and attached to a product, or fills the product regardless of whether it is intentional or not.
  5. Impurity It refers to a substance that is naturally and unintentionally contained in a material and/or formed during production and cannot be removed completely by technical means. For the substances that have Maximum Content Value (MCV) defined in the Procurement Standard must not be contained more than the quantity of MCV even if the substances are impurities.
  6. Content rate It refers to a value that the mass of the designated substance in one component (in homogeneous material) divided by the mass of the component (the homogeneous material).
  7. Homogeneous material A homogeneous material refers to a material that cannot be mechanically disjointed into different materials. The term “mechanically disjointed” means that the materials can be, in principle, separated by mechanical actions such as unscrewing, cutting, crushing, grinding and abrasive processes. (Example: plastics, ceramics, glass, metals, alloys, paper, board, resins, ink, coat, etc.)

  8. Evidence Evidence is the result of quantitative and qualitative analysis of a specified substance. For the substances with the specific MCV, its evidence must be obtained by quantitative analysis method with adequate accuracy.

    Refer to KGS Procurement Standard Annex Environmental Hazardous Substance Management Standard Inquiry reports