OREANDA-NEWS. Toshiba Corporation announced that two of its production facilities have won major awards in the Japan Management Association GOOD FACTORY.AWARDs 2013. Yokkaichi Operations, the company's development and mass-production base for NAND flash memory, was selected for a Factory Management Award, and Toshiba Information Equipment Hangzhou (TIH), the company's development and mass-production base for value-added notebook PCs, received a Manufacturing Innovation Award.

The GOOD FACTORY AWARDs was founded by JMA in 2011 as part of its efforts to promote the monodukuri (manufacturing) potential of Japan's manufacturing sector. The awards focus on and recognize excellence in different aspects of factory operations, from process innovation through to corporate social responsibility in manufacturing. The winners are seen as models and benchmarks for Japanese manufacturing industry.

The Factory Management Award is based on an "ideal factory" that promotes excellence across its activities and in all business processes, while the Manufacturing Innovation Award focuses on a factory's total efforts to reinforce its manufacturing processes.

The Yokkaichi award recognizes the factory's efforts to establish a management system that allows it to withstand fierce competition through technology innovation and market expansion. The system includes a management index focused on securing the competitiveness necessary to be No.1 in the market and realization of the world's most advanced memory fabrication facility. It also promotes training of technicians and engineers, the use of IT to promote productivity, and an awareness of the environment in its operations.

The TIH award recognizes the factory's efforts to develop a management system that achieve high level process innovation in manufacturing. TIH promotes close collaboration between development and manufacturing in a wide range of activities through projects with a 90-day cycle, synchronizes board and product assembly lines, operates IT-driven quality control and product management, and places a major on reinforcement of human resources development.

Going forward, Toshiba will continue to boost its competitiveness by strengthening manufacturing capabilities across its complete range of operations.