BCM and Crisis Management

Framework for Promoting BCP

Having prepared crisis management rules and risk-specific manuals for use across the DIC Group in the event of a major disaster, DIC has formulated BCPs for individual product divisions. The Group also recognizes the need to ensure it can fulfill its supply responsibilities in the event of damage to its facilities from a large-scale natural disaster and thus incorporates this perspective into its BCPs. Specifically, the Group formulates BCPs for key products with a view to fulfilling its social responsibility and responding to customer requirements. DIC also conducts BCP-focused joint production division–site exercises assuming the implementation of these BCPs to confirm the effectiveness of manuals, identify issues and implement ongoing improvements.

BCM in Fiscal Year 2019

A number of natural disasters struck Japan in fiscal year 2019. Particularly notable among these were the torrential rains in northern Kyushu in August and typhoons Faxai and Hagibis, both of which struck in October. In each instance, affected sites assessed the extent of impact, including confirming the safety of employees and their families and ascertaining damage, in line with their BCPs and manuals, and promptly informed corporate headquarters. Fortunately, no casualties resulted from these events and the impact of damage to Group facilities on production and supply activities was negligible. In August 2019, DIC also reported an accident at the Saitama Plant involving a major fire in which a hazardous materials warehouse burned to the ground. While placing the highest priority on ensuring the safety of employees and nearby residents, the Company succeeded in minimizing the impact of this incident on customers supplied by the plant by implementing measures in line with pertinent product division BCPs.
Responding effectively to accidents and disasters depends on employees having a correct understanding of BCM and of how to properly execute BCPs. This in turn requires education and training. During fiscal year 2019, DIC continued to focus on providing training and encouraging awareness for individuals involved in BCP across the DIC Group, as it did in fiscal year 2018. Of note, under the supervision of experts, the Company organized workshops and map-based simulation exercises developed for senior management to headquarters task force members, as well as BCP-focused joint production division–site exercises. Efforts to promote awareness also included offering introductory courses on BCP for Group companies and training for newly appointed BCP officers conducted by General Affairs and HR Department risk management officers with the aim of educating participants on the basics of BCP, ensuring they are familiar with manuals and other documentation, and instructing them on how to conduct effective initiatives.

Preventing BCPs from Becoming Empty Formalities

The DIC Group holds annual status update meetings, attended by relevant executives, to verify that the content of BCPs that have been formulated are current and to prevent them from becoming empty formalities. DIC recognizes the need to ensure that divisions and departments share a common crisis awareness to enable the prompt restoration of operations using minimum resources in the event a production site is damaged by a disaster or other event. The aforementioned BCP-focused joint production division–site exercises are conducted annually. In fiscal year 2019, such exercises were conducted for the staff of three product divisions and three related sites in Japan. These exercises are designed to confirm the effectiveness and functionality of product division BCPs through disaster prevention and mitigation exercises based on hypothetical scenarios. They also seek to improve responsiveness to newly recognized issues with the aim of enhancing initial responses in the event of a disaster and of improving site restoration, complementary production strategies, supplier management and local responses. DIC will continue to promote joint training, focusing on production sites.

Conducting Emergency Response Exercises and Drills

In addition to annual headquarters task force–led training and BCP-focused joint production division–site exercises, the DIC Group has developed and maintains a system designed to ensure its ability to minimize damage in the event of a disaster, as well as to facilitate the smooth restoration of operations. This system includes a wide range of exercises and drills, including employee safety confirmation drills, emergency radio warning drills involving multiple sites and site-specific comprehensive disaster drills.

Comprehensive disaster drill at corporate headquarters

Task force map-based simulation exercise

BCP training at corporate headquarters

Crisis Management

Efforts to Reinforce Safety Measures Overseas

Owing to the expansion of its global operations, the DIC Group is establishing new overseas bases and increasing the number of employees being assigned to overseas posts or traveling overseas on business. With the rising frequency of terrorist acts and the dangers posed by infectious disease outbreaks and other such incidents in various locations, the Group is reinforcing safety measures designed to help employees evade danger. These include taking steps to advance awareness among related individuals and reinforce corporate headquarters’ ability to respond effectively in an emergency situation by establishing an emergency overseas contact network, providing risk information to overseas bases, distributing safety handbooks, providing safety training to employees prior to taking up new overseas posts or embarking on overseas business trips, preparing crisis management manuals and conducting exercises based on hypothetical scenarios.

Safety training for employees prior to taking up new overseas posts

Safety training for individuals prior to traveling overseas on business

COMMENT

We are working to realize truly functional initial response and business continuity support systems.

We began providing assistance to DIC in July 2019, particularly in the area of initial response and BCP training based on hypothetical scenarios involving major earthquakes. DIC products are used widely and many can be said to be essential to society. In my view, it is important for DIC to further strengthen its disaster response system to ensure its ability to maintain stable supplies, even in the event of a major earthquake or other disaster.
In fiscal year 2019, we helped DIC conduct BCP-focused joint production division–site exercises at the Yokkaichi, Sakai and Tokyo plants. With the aim of examining the effectiveness of initial response manuals and identifying areas requiring improvement, participants in these exercises used damage assumptions with the aim of achieving a heightened level of reality for scenarios used, proceeding with simulations as well as confirming rules for and identifying issues related to information sharing and collaboration between product divisions and sites. We also helped with headquarters task force–led training, which employed a scenario involving a Nankai Trough earthquake, confirming the flow of reporting from production facilities and product divisions and incorporating instructions for critical tasks in exercises, among others.
Through these and other efforts, DIC is working to build a system that ensures information related to the Company’s initial response and BCPs is shared with management swiftly and accurately. I hope that readers will continue to follow DIC’s efforts to further enhance its BCPs going forward.

Advisor, Rescuenow Inc. Kazuki Hakamada

Our goal is to help facilitate the formulation of effective and genuinely practical BCPs.

Our organization has provided assistance to DIC in its efforts to promote awareness of and revise its BCPs since October 2016. What makes DIC’s BCP and risk management efforts different from the more standard undertakings of many other companies is their focus on ascertaining the essence of issues. In 2017, we assisted with visiting BCP lectures at domestic Group sites, the objective of which was to promote awareness by focusing on the people actually responsible for formulation while confirming the basics of BCP and examining the state of related initiatives to clarify where issues exist. During 2018, we will help arrange joint drills for sites—primarily plants—and product divisions and continue advancing initiatives designed to fortify the framework for collaboration between sites and product divisions. Our efforts are designed to avoid turning this process into mere formality, but rather to facilitate the formulation of effective and genuinely practical BCPs. Expect good things from DIC’s BCP and risk management initiatives in the years ahead.

President, Legal & Risk Management Institute Ken Mori

DIC is promoting measures that will ensure sustainable safety for Japan-based employees when they are abroad.

Effective risk management is indispensable to meeting the expectations of stakeholders worldwide in today’s increasingly global corporate society. We have been assisting DIC in formulating safety- and healthcare-related measures for its Japan-based employees when they go overseas since fiscal year 2016. Since the beginning, DIC has worked actively to create a robust framework that is capable of responding to whatever issues might arise and has taken decisive steps with a view to ensuring effective corporate governance and fulfilling its obligation to ensure its employees’ safety. In fiscal year 2018, DIC prepared various handbooks and conducted training sessions for approximately 760 employees at four sites.
As this shows, DIC’s initiatives are not limited to the creation of a framework, but also focus on fostering a common crisis awareness on the front lines. Such efforts to leverage the framework it has created are enabling DIC to promote measures that will ensure sustainable safety for its Japan-based employees when they are abroad.
In fiscal year 2019, DIC will take steps to strengthen its framework. The Company will also apply this framework in a manner that responds to the needs of employees at sites around the world, thereby providing further support for its global business activities.

Senior Executive Advisor, Relo Panasonic Excel International Co., Ltd. Hiromichi Tsuji

Emergency Drill Simulating Ballistic Missile Launch

Amid rising political tensions on the Korean Peninsula, in September 2017 DIC conducted its first-ever emergency drill simulating the launch of a ballistic missile in the direction of Japan. The drill played out a scenario in which information has been received via Japan’s J-Alert emergency warning system that a missile had been launched, sounded a siren and broadcast instructions for people to take appropriate actions to avert danger. On each floor, members of the Company’s in-house firefighting squad issued instructions for employees to move away from windows and take cover under or behind solid objects. In the event of an unforeseen emergency, it is critical to remain calm and resist the urge to panic. Going forward, the BCM and Crisis Management Working Group will continue to assess the effectiveness of various drills immediately after implementation and incorporate its findings into subsequent disaster prevention planning, as well as to provide training to ensure employees’ ability to implement swift, appropriate initial actions.

Drill in progress

Government-prepared awareness poster in the corporate headquarters’ cafeteria

DIC Corporate Headquarters’ Emergency Pocket Books

Approximately 1,400 employees of the parent company and various domestic Group companies work at the corporate headquarters in Tokyo. DIC has prepared Emergency Pocket Books, pocket-sized booklets that provide instructions on appropriate actions—both autonomous and in cooperation with others— in the event of a disaster for distribution to these employees and their families. The booklets also detail corporate headquarters’ overall emergency response framework and the responsibilities of individual floors and departments in an emergency situation, as well as provide space for employees and their families to provide contact information. The compact size of the booklets ensures portability.

Emergency Pocket Books

Community Efforts to Cope with Major Disasters

Japan, which is one of the most earthquake-prone countries in the world, has been struck multiple times by devastating seismic activity. As a consequence, ensuring earthquake readiness, that is, the ability to prevent and mitigate the impact of earthquakes, is recognized as a critical challenge for society as a whole.
Tokyo’s Nihonbashi district, home to DIC’s corporate headquarters, is noted for its tightly clustered large commercial complexes and office buildings. Every year, a comprehensive community disaster drill is conducted on an empty lot near the DIC Building. Approximately 200 people took part in the 2019 drill, held in September. Guided by personnel from the Nihonbashi Fire Station, participants received training in first aid (AED use and hemostasis), practiced using fire hydrants to put out fires and toured the Tokyo Fire Department’s virtual reality (VR)–based disaster prevention training and earthquake simulation vehicles, through which they experienced simulated earthquakes and fires and learned effective emergency rescue and fire extinguishing techniques.
The DIC Building, designed with state-of-the-art earthquake-resistant technologies, has been designated as a temporary shelter for people stranded in Chuo-ku, where Nihonbashi is located, while DIC, as a member of Chuo-ku’s management council for emergency shelters for stranded individuals, promotes a variety of initiatives aimed at assisting people stranded in the wake of a serious earthquake or other disaster. The Company also participates in drills in collaboration with local authorities designed to guarantee the effective sharing of information regarding evacuations, among others, even in the midst of post-disaster chaos.
In December 2019, DIC conducted a training exercise at its corporate headquarters in cooperation with the owners of the DIC Building in the acceptance of stranded individuals who are not DIC Group employees after a major disaster. The exercise included instruction on the setting up of temporary toilets and the storage and distribution of air mattresses and emergency supplies, including rations, blankets and plastic thermal sheets. DIC will continue to play an active role in community-based efforts to reinforce local disaster preparations. In doing so, the Company aims to help ensure Tokyo’s disaster resilience.

Emergency training in the use of AEDs and hemostasis

Training in the use of fire hydrants to extinguish fires

Exhibit of DIC Building temporary shelter for people stranded in Nihonbashi

Map-based training conducted as part of a community disaster drill