• Company Overview
• Corporate Profile
• History of Takenaka
• Total Quality Management
  • 1. The Aim of TQM Activities
  • 2. Progress in TQM Activities
  • 3. The Quality Assurance Approach
• Offices in Japan
• Overseas Offices

1. The Aim of TQM Activities

Since its establishment as a general building contractor and in pursuit of its corporate philosophy of contributing to society by leaving the best works to future generations, Takenaka has been providing society with the sort of environmental space it wants. Not only is architecture a tool for the conservation of life and wealth, it is at the same time a vehicle for the transmission of culture from one period to the next. Takenaka saw architecture as a complete and integrated solution stretching all the way to final production of each creation. With this in mind, the design-build system was the best way of ensuring that the architecture which the company provided was of the very best.

The quality of buildings is defined by indicators such as those below:

• Always having attractive quality that anticipates the needs of the generation
• Maintaining functionality, economic viability, artistry and freshness in society, even after many years have passed, etc.

Building-in quality:

The process of building-in quality can be defined as follows.

• Firstly, gaining a clear picture of customers' needs
• Bringing those needs together as a "Quality of Design" and reflecting them in drawings and specifications
• Faithfully building-in this quality of design in the workplace, and assessing it as a "Quality of Conformance"
• After completion, implementing quality assurance activities through after-sales service

Fig. 1.1 shows an overview of the process.

In this way, to constantly ensure that quality comes first, and to thoroughly implement across the company management that emphasizes customer satisfaction (CS) for building owners and other customers as a basic policy, we have established a "vision" and are implementing management activities from a long-term perspective.
Takenaka's TQM activities are positioned as a means of promoting vision management, and improving the quality assurance of our work along with customer satisfaction. Fig. 1.2 shows the flow of TQM activities.