E HS Report

Health and Safety
We are promoting health and safety for all our stakeholders, including employees and customers, in every aspect of our business
operations, believing that we should ensure the health and safety of our employees as the basis for a comfortable workplace and as
one of our corporate social responsibilities.

■ For the Safety of All■ Preventing Accidents

The Tokyo Electron Group believes that it should ensure theIn FY 2006, the number of occupational accidents at the Tokyo

health and safety of all employees working for the Group, cus-Electron Group slightly decreased over the FY 2005 level. The

tomers who use the Group’s products, and all other stakeholders inwork volume, however, increased in accordance with an increase inits business operations as one of the Group’s corporate social

production quantities, and factors that can cause occupationalresponsibilities.

accidents are on an upward curve. According to statistics on theIn FY 2006, the Group held a total of six safety seminars for top

trends of accidents in the Group, ergonomic factors* account for

managers (vice presidents of Group companies) at its plants. Theapproximately 30% of all risk factors. As equipment becomesseminars were divided into three sessions. In the “theory” ses-larger and more complex, employees are forced to work in unnaturalsion, participants learned about the necessity of taking an organiza-postures and they have to manhandle heavy objects, which bringtional approach to human factors, as well as risk management. In thenew risks to employees. We are implementing countermeasures“practice” session, they listened to the opinions of workers andagainst this problem.

learned about on-site safety problems, and in the “discussion”* Ergonomic factors mean risk factors associated with heavylabor, repetitive movements, and unnatural postures, which may
cause musculoskeletal disorders in employees who are engaged inthese activities over a long time.

session, they discussed how to build a safety culture across theGroup.
Managers

participatingin

theseminars

commented,“Employees are now more aware of safety, but it seems difficult tokeep them committed to safety,” and “Managers must first commit

Frequency of Occupational Accidents and Number ofInjuries(Number of injuries)

themselves strongly to safety and communicate the importance(Frequency)

Average for all industries in Japan
Average for Japan’s electromechanicalmanufacturing industry
Target for the number of injuries

of safety to employees by

Average for Japan’s manufacturing industry
Average for the Tokyo Electron Group
Number of injuries that occurred in the Groupestablishing the appropri-100

ate

1.82

1.79

1.77

1.78

1.85

1.02

0.97

0.98

0.98

0.99

1.01

48
0.34

41
0.36

37
0.35

43
0.39

39
0.40

0.18
02

0.15
03

0.24
04

0.39

0.32

0506

organizational

andmanagerial systems.” InFY 2007, based on the33

results of the seminars,

0.38
0.38

we will hold seminars for
middle managers.

001

Safety seminar for top managers

1.95

0

* The number of accidents is shown, taking the number in FY 2001 as 100.
* Frequency of occupational accidents: Number of occupational accidents per one
million labor hours = Number of accidents resulting in at least four days
absence/Total labor hours x 1,000,000

TOPICS
Safety First Slogan Campaign
In FY 2006, the Tokyo Electron Group asked its employees to pro-ing handy “safety first” card, copies of which are distributed topose a slogan under which the entire Group would give first prior-employees, thereby making them more aware of safety in their

ity to safety while listening to the opinions of on-site workers.

daily work.

From among more than 600
proposals, we chose the bestslogans and also awarded a special prize to a proposal made by agroup of employees. We createdsafety-first posters using theselected slogans, which are now
put up at the workplaces. We
also printed the prize-winning
slogans on the back of the existHandy “safety first” card

30 TOKYO ELECTRON Environmental and Social Report 2006

“Eye Catch Safety” poster■ Example of Safety Measures—Ergonomic Approachto the Wafer ProberAs shown by recent trends in occupational accidents, ergonomic factors account for a larger percentage of occupational risk factors. As
the background to this, wafers and circuit boards are being
upsized and so the size of production equipment is also expanding.
To cope with this, the Tokyo Electron Group is implementing the necessary measures for its products.
For example, we have introduced measures for the wafer
prober*. In recent years, the test head used in conjunction with theprober has been increasing in size and employees have to manhandle* Wafer prober: Connected to a tester (manufactured by an outside company) to electrically test the ICs on wafers by touching theirelectrodes with a probe needle.

Improvements Made through Analysis of the Work Risks
Work Details

Improvements

Unload the heavy test head from the cart and The tester manufacturer has redesigned theload it on the automatic lifter
cart so that the test head can be raised or lowered by handles, and workers no longer need tomanhandle the heavy test head (see Improvement 1 below).
Install the attachment plate (weighing about 60 The wafer prober is now shipped in a differentkg) on the test head
form, and workers no longer have to manhandle
the heavy object.
Attach the cable bundle (weighing 30 kg or The lifting weight of the bundle was measured
more per meter) to the clamp partand it was divided into smaller bundles to reduce the work risk.

this heavy head, which has increased the ergonomic risk during
their work. Of late, test heads weighing more than 500 kg are notrare. Employees cannot position such a heavy object easily andImprovement [1]Redesigned cart with handles to raise orlower the test head

Improvement [2]Shipped with the attachment plate
installed

their work risks have been rising. In response, we analyzed theAttachment
plate

risk associated with the traditional attachment and adjustment
methods for the test head and fed back the results to the design
department and the manufacturers of the testers. In cooperation withLower

Raisethem, we devised and implemented measures to eliminate or
reduce the associated risks. The specific improvements areshown in the table on the right.
The Group—especially its design section—will continue tocooperate with the manufacturers of various testers to promote
safety from the design stage based on risk analysis and othermeasures.

TOPICSTeam Resources Management Training
As equipment increases in size, the number of workers dealing
with the equipment also tends to increase, and as the number ofworkers increases, it becomes more difficult for them to communicate with each other. Under these circumstances, safety activities
and education need to be conducted focusing on human relations, and thus we developed a new educational method called
Team Resources Management (TRM) jointly with the Japan
Institute of Human Factors. TRM was built on Crew Resources
Management (CRM), which was developed to teach flight crew
members how to use all available human resources, hardware,and information effectively for high-level teamwork on board an airplane.
The TRM training targets on-site work leaders. In the TRM
training, the leaders are trained in communications, team building,and situation assessment. They also practice teamwork within aclean room. The number of participants in the training is limited toaround 10 on each course. Therefore the numbers who havecompleted this training are still low, but we will continue to provide
the courses to train as many leaders as possible so that they will
understand the importance and difficulty of communications,
teamwork, and situation assessment, something that they haveall done without a second thought. The training will also enable
them to recognize that they can improve their activities by intentionally modifying theirbehavior. We hope that
this training will improve
on-site communications
and teamwork.

TRM training

TOKYO ELECTRON Environmental and Social Report 2006

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