Providing Responsible Products

Our Efforts to Provide Products to Our Customers

Although KEYENCE manufactures products using a fabless system in which we outsource much of our production to subcontract plants, we procure materials required for product planning, development, design and production.

Production is handled at subcontract plants around Japan, and our production technology, production planning and quality control departments cooperate with these plants and are building a system to manufacture quality products by being deeply involved with production such as by providing assembly drawings and supplying materials.

Produced goods are supplied from logistics centers in Japan directly to domestic customers as well as to overseas customers via distribution locations.

Procurement Guidelines

In order to ensure a workplace that takes human rights into consideration, we have established procurement guidelines for our supply chain, which include prohibition of forced labor and child labor and elimination of discriminatory treatment, and request that our suppliers comply with the Guideline.

In addition, as part of our basic business contract, we request that these suppliers make efforts to reduce their environmental impact and prevent environmental pollution for the purpose of environmental protection, improve the occupational safety and health environment, and respect human rights.

Procurement Guideline

Green Procurement

The following efforts are being made to promote green procurement:

Responsible Mineral Procurement (Conflict Minerals)

Minerals mined in the Democratic Republic of the Congo or an adjoining countries (Neighboring countries to the DRC) may be sources of human rights violations such as child labor, environmental destruction, and funding for armed groups, and may even contribute to the conflict itself.

Our basic policy (*1) is to refrain from purchasing those minerals that have been illegally mined. In addition, the department in charge engages in working on the risk reduction with the procurement department, such as conducting annual surveys with suppliers using the tools CMRT (Conflict Minerals Reporting Template) provided by the RMI (Responsible Minerals Initiative), which is an organization that promotes the responsible mineral procurement.

The survey we conducted found 290 smelters in our supply chain being on the Standard Smelter list of RMI, and 267 out of the 290 smelters (92%) are Conformant Smelters, who passed the RMI audit. (*2)

We will respect to OECD Due Diligence Guidance and continue to analyze and evaluate risks in the supply chain and carry out further investigations depending on the risks.

• *1
  KEYENCE's responsible minerals procurement policy

• Minerals such as tin, tantalum, tungsten, gold and cobalt mined in the Conflict-Affected and High-Risk Areas, such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo or an adjoining countries (Neighboring countries to the DRC), may be sources of human rights violations such as child labor and environmental destruction, funding for armed groups and may even contribute to the conflict itself.

  Based on OECD Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Supply Chains of Minerals from Conflict-Affected and High-Risk Areas, KEYENCE is engaging efforts to eliminate such minerals illegally mined for electronic components contained in our products The risk-reduction actions we will promote with our suppliers' respect for our basic policy are as follows.

  1. 1. We will continue to engage in the survey of the supply chain annually, using the tools CMRT (Conflict Minerals Reporting Template) provided by RMI (Responsible Minerals Initiative), which is an organization that promotes responsible mineral procurement.
  2. 2. We will reduce the risk of the procurement of minerals from the point of view of the social responsibility, by confirming whether it is a Conformant Smelter that has passed the RMI audit in the list of RMI standard smelters.

  RMI(Responsible Minerals Initiative)

• *2
  List of RMI standard smelters identified in our supply chain (PDF) click here

Supply Chain Management

We share and confirm our basic policy and rules with each subcontractor prior to outsourcing the manufacture of products, and request that they comply with the following items.

In addition, we conduct on-site inspection at subcontrators annually to check the status of compliance with the following items, and engage to ascertain the circumstances of manufacturing site and the improvements.