Throughout 15 years of development, Cathaco has had a lot of vivid stories about the effort of the Board of Directors and its staff in overcoming difficulties, bettering and acknowledging themselves. One of the most glorious achievements is Cathaco was recently recognized and certified as one of the nine most prestigious suppliers in total 900 suppliers of Konica Minolta, a large Japanese corporation, having offices in 35 countries worldwide. In the year 2012, Cathaco was chosen to follow the P-DOAZ (Part Defective On Arrive Zero), a program set by Konica Minolta. The program aimed at strict improvement of the production process, increase of product quality and enhancement of delivery progress of Konica Minolta’s suppliers. Requirements of P-DOAZ are:
1. NG ratio on Konica Minolta’s line is lower than 50 PPM.
2. 100% on time delivery Being chosen to be part of the program was an honor for Cathaco but it was a great challenge as well because these requirements were very strict for any supplier.
The implementation of this program even required changes of some arrangement of current management and control procedures. At the beginning, Cathaco experienced a lot of difficulties and sometimes it seemed impossible to implement. However, we kept our determination for the program.
Cathaco members of all levels together discussed and analyzed our problems and hindrances, figured out their root causes, considered solutions and set out specific action plans to follow. We had been continuously training our employees to make them realize and understand clearly the goal of the program, made them become rings of the chain, and in the end they were the one who owned the project and contributed most. We were striving to improve our 5S program, strengthening the audit procedures and trying to provide a better working environment.
In addition, we ran many specific plans such as “Not to produce NG products”, “Non-stop improvement”. We seriously focused on improvement of main errors on products, and updated the list of errors. We had also been continuously training employees to recognize the errors and prevent delivering NG products to customers. Each related department had to make their own improvement action plan and implemented such proposed plans. We met every week to check the results and continue to improve. At the same time, we always tried to grasp, strive and learn from our customers’experiences. With the ceaseless efforts, incredibly, we have reached the goal:
1. 100% on time delivery
2. NG ratio of 11.3 PPM, a far more superb number than the set target of 50 PPM
These accomplishments really satisfied Konica Minolta and we could make it more than expected.
In an event for recognition of the efforts of suppliers, Cathaco was invited to a Konica Minolta suppliers summit in China on March 4th, 2013. Cathaco was awarded a medal, being certified as one of the nine most prestigious suppliers in total 900 suppliers of Konica Minolta. Also, at this reception, representatives of Konica Minolta and Cathaco had their private talks to share a lot of valuable experiences from this great result.
After a year of following the P-DOAZ, we can see remarkable growth and development of our staff, we have obtained a lot of precious experiences, the experience in improving ourselves, the experience in winning ourselves.
Especially, we have consolidated our business philosophy: That is “to satisfy customers and meet their requirements, always”. Customers’ satisfaction is our biggest pleasure and happiness.
We have also learned that we can do the most difficult things when we together have determination and efforts, and we can make the impossible to become possible.
