Press Release

Toyo Tire & Rubber Co., Ltd. (President & CEO: Yoshio Kataoka) achieved No. 3 ranking in the overall ratings in the 3rd Quality Management Level Survey conducted by the Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers (Chairperson: Fujio Mitarai) and sponsored by Nihon Keizai Shimbun.

The Quality Management Level Survey objectively evaluates corporate efforts and activities to improve "quality," which affects product competitiveness and corporate value. Questionnaires were sent to 523 companies (215 valid responses) in the major manufacturing and construction industries between June 1 and July 6, 2007. There was a total of 65 questions in two categories: Creating Systems to Improve Quality for company-wide efforts and Manufacturing Floor Activities for core products and businesses.
A total of six factors in the two categories were examined and scored to determine the ranking (Management Commitment, Promotion, and Enthusiasm and Participation in the Creating Systems category and Floor Management, Product Development, and Customer Service and Quality Assurance in the Activities category for core products and businesses.
Toyo Tire took 3rd place in the overall ratings, being highly ranked in five of the six factors: 1st in Customer Service and Quality Assurance, 3rd in both Management Commitment and Promotion, 5th in Floor Management, and 8th in Product Development.
In 2004, we introduced "Toyo TPM activities" in some factories in order to improve employees' awareness of facility maintenance, and we expanded these activities into all of our factories in 2005. We have been holding monthly meetings to provide guidance for all factory workers on inspecting equipment, identifying problems, conducting maintenance, and autonomously initiating improvements on a daily basis. We believe that these activities helped us achieve high ratings in the survey.

Based on these systematic day-to-day activities, we aim to realize high performance and high quality through our quality-based corporate management approach. And, in order to fulfill our corporate responsibilities, we intend to take global action to integrate environmental conservation with quality assurance systems and activities.