History of Pursuit of Sustainability

The bursting of the bubble economy and the silicon cycle wave hit at the same time, and business performance deteriorated. Although the business had growth potential, we had no choice but to withdraw from the vertical diffusion furnace business, which took time to return a profit.

Since it became necessary to introduce management accounting due to the organizational change to the business division system, we adopted the accounting method of Kyocera Corporation’s Amoeba Management. This became the basis for Will accounting, our original management accounting that would be created later.

As a result of the company's rapid growth, the number of employees exceeded 750, and from executives to employees, dozens of people from completely different industries with different ​​cultures and values joined us each year. DISCO’s management, feeling that it was becoming challenging to build common understanding between such diverse human resources, started to restructure the organizational management and create a corporate culture by organizing and reconfirming DISCO’s original values.

To provide customers with safety as a value, and to aim to create products that not only meet the standards of the country/region they are being shipped to, but also the demands of customers all over the world, it was stipulated that meeting both the CE mark and SEMI standards would be the standard specification for DISCO products. Later, in 2002, DISCO's Product Identity, which was formulated as the basic concept of DISCO products, inherited this idea in the form of “being a product that has passed the strictest standards in the countries where it is used.”

Over the course of two years, the first edition of our corporate values, ​​DISCO VALUES, was completed by the DISCO FUTURE PROJECT. The role that DISCO intends to play in society, that is, the social mission (Mission), and the corporate image (Target) that we aim for in order to make steady progress toward the realization of this mission, is clarified in this. Click here for details.

<Mission>
Bringing faraway science to comfortable living through advanced ‘Kiru’, ‘Kezuru’, ‘Migaku’ technologies

<Target>
Our technology and service are to become international standards, bringing delight worldwide

By achieving excellence in all of our corporate activities, our existence will be welcomed by our stakeholders and society

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"DISCO VALUES" is available to all employees and is distributed in a binder format.

We started a customer satisfaction survey (CS survey) in the form of a questionnaire. We consider it to be an important measure in order to know the voice of our customers.

DISCO‘s purchasing attitude, which is to regard suppliers as equal business partners and to carry out fair business in accordance with laws and regulations, was clearly stipulated. In addition, we place all employees who come into contact with our suppliers in the position of buyers, and have indicated the actions that buyers should follow in the Buyer's Oath.

Click here for details

We established a concept that will be the starting point for creating DISCO-like products. It summarizes the ideas that should be reflected in all products, such as what the products offered by DISCO are and what the provision of those products means.

In addition to the fixed and variable costs in the existing management accounting, we started to manage expenses in a new category called “controlled expenses.” We established a system that allows members to guarantee their profit when profits are expected to deteriorate, by reducing controlled expenses. In addition, we established a “Will penalty” system to improve work inefficiency, and a “Will reward” system to award incentives when efficiency is successfully achieved and to encourage further contributions. By targeting the entire company, we have raised awareness towards profits throughout DISCO and strengthened our governance of expenses.

We continue to conduct anonymous employee satisfaction surveys to create an environment where employees can work more comfortably. We investigate the main causes of satisfaction and dissatisfaction for all employees including at overseas affiliate offices, and notify the results as feedback to all employees. By doing this, this information is utilized for workplace revitalization, development management of younger members, and further improvement of job satisfaction.

A DISCO-style improvement activity.
This is an activity that aims to continuously evolve and improve operations. You specify the “ideal form” and goals of the operation, set the target values ​​(indicators) to measure progress, and if you are not able to reach that target, you repeatedly analyze “why.” This promotes realizations (kizuki), based on which you will change the way you carry out the operation (method change), and achieve your goal, upon which you will set a new goal.

We established new systems such as shorter working hours for childcare purposes and leave to support work-childcare balance.

For the first time, we adopted a seismic isolation structure to minimize the damage caused by earthquakes. All buildings and factories constructed after this have adopted the seismic isolation structure.

This is a system where each department presents the required experience, abilities, and conditions necessary for their department’s job within the company, and selects human resources from among the applicants.

When introducing a dicing saw, an equipment that treats and recycles the wastewater generated during processing is indispensable. In the case of a conventional pure water plant, installation requires a site of around 100 m², a dedicated building, and plumbing work. DISCO's pure water recycling unit implements “pure water production,” “water temperature control,” “filtration,” and “waste liquid treatment” all in one unit, and because it is small-sized at 0.72 m², you can build a pure water facility that is flexible and speedy according to the number of dicing saws owned. In addition, in the case of a conventional pure water plant, the recycling rate is generally limited to about 90%, but when using DWR, 99.5%* can be recycled as pure water.
* 0.5% is lost due to vaporization.

In addition to management plans related to businesses and organizations, in relation to DISCO’s stakeholders (employees, customers, shareholders, business partners, local communities), we determined the ideal state that we want to create and the results that we want to achieve with regard to each stakeholder by 2020.

We evolved the original departmental management accounting system that started in 2003 into a system for individual employees. By quantifying the results of each person's work and visualizing it as income and expenditure, the purpose is to improve individual job satisfaction, to commit to achieving results in one’s own work, and to actively engage in one’s work.

This is a system that provides employees who have the spirit to want to grow through overseas work with the opportunity to take on the challenge of working overseas of their own initiative. Whenever there is a need for human resources at each overseas affiliate office, we recruit applicants in an open recruitment format.

Bonuses now reflect the individual income and expenditure of each employee and the performance of each department under the individual Will accounting system.

It is a system that allows employees to transfer departments freely for the purpose of realizing their career plan and improving their motivation. Without using the in-house recruitment system that started in 2008, one can transfer departments if they reach out to the department they wish to transfer to and reach an agreement, and the current department cannot prevent this transfer.
In this year, the individual Will accounting system was linked to the bonus system. As a result, awareness of profitability management in each department increased, and even regarding applications for transfer, whether or not to accept the application started to be considered more rigorously based on the Will income and expenditure of the department. Enabling free transfer to departments desired by each employee with the background of individual Will accounting led not only to the self-actualization of employees, but also removed the resource bias of the entire company, leading to higher overall productivity.

It is a system that allows employee to change just the work office without changing their department. By enabling employees to work in offices that suit their lifestyles and career plans, we aim to further improve employee satisfaction and performance.

In the Management Guidelines established in 2002, it was clearly stated that all discrimination based on gender, age, nationality, race, religion, and educational background is prohibited. However, in response to social issues such as discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation, we determined a more specific policy in order to create an environment where all employees can work without discrimination, and announced this policy throughout the company in an easy-to-understand format.

While IoT and AI are progressing, the shortage of excellent software engineers in these areas is a global issue. We continue to hold this event to discover and support software engineers who will create the future.

This is a committee comprising of outside directors and outside corporate auditors in order to evaluate the appropriateness of business execution by the representative executive officer with the goal of strengthening corporate governance.

This is a system where one can directly consult with the head office in Japan about harassment at overseas affiliate offices.

In order to strengthen our corporate governance, an Outside Director was appointed as the Chairperson of the "Nomination and Compensation Advisory Board," which was originally established as an advisory committee to the Board of Directors. An Outside Director acts as the Chairperson of each committee even after the transition to a Company with Three Committees.

DISCO VALUES, our corporate philosophy established in 1997, stipulate DISCO's social mission (Mission). DISCO VISION 2030 was established as a mid-to-long term milestone on the path to achieving this Mission. This VISION was established from a future perspective aiming at further evolution, and defines not only quantitative targets such as sales and profits, but also qualitative targets including sustainability issues.

In order to achieve DISCO VISION 2030, which includes sustainability issues, we set targets to be achieved by the end of FY 2030 for each specific initiative. We have also set tracking indices (KPI) in order to keep track of the progress of these initiatives, and are achieving stable progress.

A female Director was appointed from the perspective of diversifying the company's Board of Directors.

In order to respond to the mandate of our stakeholders, including our shareholders, and to aim for mid-to long-term corporate value improvement, DISCO made the decision to transition to an organizational system that will enable accelerated decision-making.

DISCO began initiatives that take labor, safety and health, environment, and ethics into consideration, and started to comply with the "RBA Code of Conduct" set by the RBA (Responsible Business Alliance), which is an industry coalition dedicated to promoting corporate social responsibility in global supply chains.

DISCO endorses the recommendations of the TCFD. Based on the TCFD's framework, we appropriately assess and manage climate-related risks and opportunities in our business activities, and proactively disclose our information.

One of the important targets of DISCO VISION 2030 is "to have a corporate culture in which diversity is mutually recognized and incorporated." DISCO regularly carries out diversity training for all its employees with the goal of promoting the ability to understand different cultures among each and every employee, and producing better value through building better relationships.

Employees must self-evaluate how much value they are creating and their trust relationship with those around them. If they are confident, they can commit and as a result get 100,000 yen added to their base salary. In addition to further returning profits to employees, this allowance aims to prevent employees from solely depending on the evaluations of other people, and to encourage the growth of human resources who will always manage themselves.

The RBA^* is an industry coalition dedicated to promoting corporate social responsibility in global supply chains.
Together with our suppliers, DISCO complies with the RBA Code of Conduct, which is composed of five sections; labor, health and safety, environment, ethics, and management systems.
Under the VAP^** audit performed in FY2024, Chino Plant earned a perfect score of 200 and achieved platinum status, which is the highest status under the RBA certification program.
*RBA: Responsible Business Alliance
**VAP: Validated Assessment Program

Under this Plan, actual shares are granted to management as long-term incentive remuneration. By having management hold actual shares, the Company aims to promote further shared value with shareholders.