Committed to always offering products that are safe and reliable, the Isetan Mitsukoshi Group has been working to ensure quality throughout its long history. Guaranteeing product quality and safety and accurate labeling is consistently one of the top customer requests in questionnaires, but we have also earned high acclaim among many customers in this regard. Department stores carry a wide variety of products, but there are not always laws for all of them. We believe that the role of quality control is to create a foundation so customers can shop without anxiety by not only complying with laws, but also creating and adhering to our own standards and rules for products that are not regulated by law to ensure the quality of products. Besides establishing standards and rules, we also carry out independent inspections to ensure that they are followed, use a variety of tools to educate employees, and collaborate with business partners to continue improving quality control. One of the Group’s key policies is “The Isetan Mitsukoshi Procurement Policy.” This policy includes guidelines on quality control, but we have also established separate more specific quality control principles to ensure quality control is part of day-to-day business operations. In addition to following our Procurement Policy, we will also align our actions with the Basic Policy on Sustainability, which encompasses the Procurement Policy, to contribute to the betterment of society.
Products and services are becoming increasingly diverse in line with customer needs. Always placing top priority on safety and reliability, the Isetan Mitsukoshi Group will pursue quality to ensure customers remain satisfied and live up to the trust they place in us.
● We will comply with relevant laws and create our own standards and rules needed for providing quality that satisfies customers, and instill them in all corporate insiders and business partners.
● In order to provide safe and reliable products to customers, all Group employees will work together to inspect product labels, appearance, cleanliness, and more.
● We will establish and maintain an inspection system needed for quality control
● We will provide total support in terms of quality control, which includes consideration of the environment and resources, and proper product procurement
In addition to complying with laws, the Group has also established its own quality control standards and rules to ensure that customers receive safe and reliable products. These standards and rules vary by scope and detail depending on the product category, such as food and restaurants, cosmetics, jewelry, and clothing, to ensure that customer expectations are met. For many of the standards and rules on quality, collaboration with business partners is essential. Sales floor staff, business partners, and quality control personnel engage in day-to-day efforts as a team to ensure the standards and rules are followed properly so that customers receive safe and reliable products.
We have drawn up our plan for sanitation control based on the HACCP concept which has become mandatory since June 2021. Our sanitation control plan can be used as a comprehensive guidebook for employees in charge of food and restaurants to ensure food safety, as it includes the Group’s own rules on food handling standards, delivery services, and other matters, in addition to basic concepts. We also made the sanitation control plan easier to use by compiling it into an app that can be used on business smartphones so employees can access the plan anytime and anywhere.
*HACCP stands for Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point, an international standard for food sanitation management systems
Food allergies are prior matter as they might lead to life-threatening incidents. The manual covers the Group’s rules on allergies to provide accurate allergy information, so that customers can buy and eat our food without worrying
In addition to indicating the efficacy and effects that can be expressed with terminology relating to cosmetics, we have created rules covering words which we believe are unacceptable for use in describing for cosmetics and esthetic products, thereby promoting the use of appropriate expressions
Our department stores routinely conduct product inspections.
● Independent inspections conducted as a preventative measure against key risks while exercising the company’s defense line function
● Routine inspections to confirm the safety of products before they are sold
Each store is taking the initiative in both of these inspections, led by staff on shop floors, and is making a significant contribution to ensuring the safety of products.
We verify that laws are being complied with and mitigate the risk of food poisoning by carrying out inspections to check that records based on the HACCP concept (such as health management and temperature control records) are being kept properly and that the plan for sanitation control that forms the bases of prevention is maintained. In addition to this biannual independent inspection, day-to-day food sanitation control is an important theme for us.
Food Poisoning Prevention inspection flow Allergy
Independent inspections are carried out twice a year to ensure that a system is in place to enable accurate allergy information to be provided to customers, which includes checking that all shops keep allergy record books and that the information in allergy record books and in-store POP materials match. Staff departments (such as General Affairs) carry out inspections from a third-party perspective that differs from that of food and restaurant employees to discover problems efficiently. If a problem is found, it is corrected without delay to prevent allergy accidents.
Allergy information reinforcement month inspection flow
Products on display are inspected in all shopping areas (sales floors) at all stores on a monthly basis based on themes communicated by the quality control manager. These product inspections enable us to eliminate unsuitable products before they are sold. At the same time, they help stylists (sales staff) improve their skills, playing an important role as a final inspection before handing over products to customers.
Knowledge of product-related quality control is very important for stylists (sales staff) to be able to provide customers with the necessary product information, as well as to give customers peace of mind and satisfaction. In addition to the department store sector, quality control is an equally essential aspect of knowledge in new businesses. Every year, staff in charge of quality control prepare Quality Control Tests 101, an original textbook designed to enable any employee working for the Isetan Mitsukoshi Group to acquire knowledge of quality control. In FY2023, a total of more than 12,000 people took this training. Through such measures, we are working to enhance our educational materials so that employees can obtain the necessary knowledge of quality control. We will continue working to provide programs and tools and create an environment in which anyone working for the Group can obtain quality control knowledge without exception, thereby helping to build the foundations of our business.
Quality control is a key challenge in supply chain management. To meet this challenge, we are promoting further cooperation with our business partners based on the Code of Conduct for Suppliers, which we established in June 2023. The quality of products sold by the Isetan Mitsukoshi Group is directly passed on from primary producers, raw material processing companies, and others. Therefore, it is very important to not only inspect products before sale, but also to monitor whether production is being conducted properly upstream. This is surely the very essence of quality control in supply chain management. To this end, we believe that ensuring proper supply chain management is our responsibility, and that by living up to this responsibility, we will be able to continue providing safe products to our customers.
We share the Isetan Mitsukoshi Group’s quality control standards, which are necessary to ensure that our business partners deliver appropriate products
Isetan Mitsukoshi Group Quality Control Standards
*Comprehensive standards for clothing, general merchandise, and living room products
Isetan Mitsukoshi Group Plans for food sanitation control
Isetan Mitsukoshi Group Allergy Information Manual (for business partners)
List of Unacceptable Words for Cosmetics and Esthetic Products
We anticipate various changes in the external environment in the future, such as the need to engage in efforts to reduce our environmental footprint and to increase the speed of business by undertaking a digital transformation. In response to such changes, we will continue to brush up the content and add necessary criteria so that our business partners will feel that their products are of high utility, and we will work together to resolve issues related to products
The Isetan Mitsukoshi Group confirms the quality management system of each new business partner before commencing dealings with them.
(1) Confirmation of the quality control system of the business partner
(2) Confirmation that labeling and other information complies with laws and regulations
(3) Confirmation through data and other means that the quality of products, etc. has been ensured
(4) Sharing the Isetan Mitsukoshi Group Quality Control Standards
As our business partners vary in size, we first inform them of the necessary laws, regulations, and knowledge so that we can start proper business dealings at a certain level. In addition to improving the knowledge of our business partners, this scheme plays a major role in deepening mutual understanding from the very beginning of the project.
Every Isetan Mitsukoshi Group department store checks and manages chemical substances in accordance with the Isetan Mitsukoshi Group Quality Control Standards to ensure that products and in-store environments are safe and worry-free. Chemical management efforts are also aligned with part “7. Eliminating chemical substances” of the Procurement Policy
Formaldehyde is a chemical substance regulated by the Act on Control of Household Products Containing Harmful Substances. Managing it is crucial, particularly in the baby goods department. The Group ensures that baby products are safe from harmful substances by properly managing products, sales, and the environment. 1) We inspect every item and every color of baby textile products (which are regulated by law) that are directly imported by the Group and from private brands for formaldehyde, and confirm that it is below regulatory levels. 2) We voluntarily carry out random inspections with business partners to confirm “formaldehyde inspection certificates” of around 50 baby textile products sold in baby goods departments per year to confirm that proper product management systems are being continuously maintained. 3) Shelves and fixtures used in baby goods departments are inspected for formaldehyde once per year in accordance with an internal manual to ensure that an environment that does not contaminate baby products with formaldehyde is maintained and managed.
In addition to products that fall under regulations for “azo dyes that easily produce specific aromatic amines” regulated by the Act on Control of Household Products Containing Harmful Substances, the Isetan Mitsukoshi Group Quality Control Standards specify additional products such as traditional Japanese clothing and futons. In line with these standards, since April 2016 we have asked all business partners except for food companies to submit a “Harmful Substance Non-Use Declaration” when we start doing business with them (if they do not carry applicable products, we ask them to submit a “Certificate on Carrying Applicable Products”).