(The original article in Japanese was posted on April 1, 2022)

 

Having been notified of the revocation of the type approval certification of four engine models by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT), Hino Motors, Ltd. submitted a statement to MLIT on March 25 to the effect that the company had “no opinion” to offer in relation to the revocation. Accordingly, the first-time enforcement of the administrative action to revoke the type approval certification was confirmed since the Road Trucking Vehicle Law came into effect.  

In light of the administrative decision, Hino Motors slashed its net profit forecast for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2022, from 15 billion yen in the black as announced in the previous forecast to 54 billion yen in the red.

According to Hino Motors, misconduct was found in 2018 during the certification procedures for the engines shipped for the North American market and the company voluntarily commenced a full scope of investigation. Subsequently, intentional fraud was confirmed in the measurement related to the performance testing of exhaust emissions and fuel economy of engines for the Japanese market.

In 2016, when data falsification in fuel efficiency figures was identified at Mitsubishi Motors Corporation, MLIT ordered all of Japan's automakers to check for similar malfeasance. Resultingly, illegal conduct was found at Suzuki Motor Corporation. On that occasion, Hino Motors reported to the ministry that "no fraud" had been found. This implies the partial root of the data fabrication problem. In short, with lukewarm inspection, Hino Motors neglected efforts to investigate the sign of misconduct. In other words, the company fundamentally made light of the quality responsibility.

The root of the problem is undoubtedly attributable to the technological capability in the environmental performance, but at the same time, the nature of the industry as a whole may be pointed out in a sense that they have constantly discounted the importance of "inspections" in manufacturing processes.

It should be noted that Nissan Motor Corporation, Subaru Corporation, and Mazda Motor Corporation had also committed inspection failures. Besides, in July 2021, dealers affiliated to Toyota Motor Corporation were found to have committed data fabrication. Likewise, at Hino Motors, the engine development and the related certification procedures are handled in the same single section until March 2021. The structure of an organization directly reflects the management philosophy. The careless task allocation definitely reveals the management’s habitual lack of respect for inspections and certification procedures.

As it is reported that the recent revelation of Hino Motor’s data falsification was triggered by an alert from an employee who was in charge of the engines shipped to the North America market, I can find a silver lining in the voice of a front-line worker that led to a full scale of inspections. Incidentally, the revised Whistleblower Protection Act will go into effect on June 1 this year. The amendment imposes some requirements on companies of more than 300 full-time employees, such as the assured independence of the contact section that responds to internal whistleblowing activities; prohibition of the act of identifying whistleblowers; and expansion of the scope of whistleblowers’ protection beyond current employees to also include managing directors and those employees who retired within the past year. It is a matter of course to respond to laws and regulations. And now is the time for each and every executive and employee to recover the sincere attitude toward the quality integrity. That is a start of recurrence prevention, and also the essential condition to raise the level of technologies. I hope Hino Motors as well as the automotive industry will go back to their bases and make serious efforts to prevent recurrence of failures.

 

This Week’s Focus, April 1

Takashi Mizukoshi, the President