The Nissha Group procures the materials, equipment, and services necessary for production and a wide range of business activities from suppliers in various regions. We work fairly and equally with all suppliers to promote sustainable procurement based on our Purchasing Principles in order to share awareness of our social responsibility and enhance mutual enterprise value.

We request all of our suppliers to comply with the Purchasing Principles and the CSR Procurement Guidelines. These Guidelines are based on the Responsible Business Alliance (RBA), a code of conduct mainly for the electronics and automotive industries, and on other codes of conduct that our customers request we follow. The items are listed below.

We at the Nissha Group collaborate with various suppliers through our business activities, and our supply chain is expanding globally. The global supply chain has been severely affected recently by the pandemic, regional conflict, the sharp rise in raw material and fuel prices due to dramatic foreign exchange shifts, supply shortages and price hikes due to labor shortages, as well as natural disasters. However, thanks to the cooperation of our suppliers, the Nissha Group is continuing sound business activities.

At the same time as accepting CSR audits from customers, the Nissha Group carries out annual inspections using our own unique Self Assessment Questionnaire (SAQ) so that we can ascertain the status of suppliers as we build a safe, reliable supply chain.

Carrying on from the previous year, in the fiscal year ended December 2023 the Industrial Materials Business Unit and the Devices Business Unit carried out surveys to suppliers in Europe and Asia, including China, in addition to Japan. The results showed no points of concern.

In the fiscal year ended December 2023, the ESG Task Force took the lead in conducting a survey on labor and human rights. The survey found no points of concern at any of the targeted suppliers (131 companies). Additionally, we conducted onsite audits for 9 of these companies. We followed up on the issues identified during the onsite audits and confirmed the completion of corrective actions.

Focusing its efforts on training procurement personnel, the Nissha Group in Japan has continued to provide the basic procurement education and procurement training by external instructors since the fiscal year ended March 2009. To date, more than 1,000 employees have taken these courses.

Training was also held for overseas Group companies, and in the fiscal year ended December 2023, basic procurement education was given to 6 overseas Group companies in Europe and North America, and 5 overseas Group companies in Asia outside China.

We are currently moving ahead with a plan to implement training globally to help reinforce procurement departments and improve procurement skills. We are studying the use of skill maps to promote visualization of work skills and the construction of a training system (mechanism) in a plan to improve the level of each and every employee.