Abstracts of Magazine FUJITSU 2007-7 (VOL.58, NO.4)

Special Issue: Quality Assurance

• Fujitsu's Activities for Quality Assuarance

Fujitsu's basic policy is to use advanced technology to provide products and services that are superior to those of our competitors in terms of quality. Fujitsu's quality assurance activities include those of the Quality Assurance Group, which controls the quality of individual products using the information shared among departments as an important indicator of quality. We take various actions to provide our customers with high-quality products and services on a continuous basis through direct support. For example, we ensure high product reliability in social infrastructure systems and mass-produced consumer products, increase the number of purchased components, improve product development and production processes (e.g., by transferring plants to affiliated companies), secure stable system operation on the customer side, and ensure compliance with the laws related to quality. We also continuously improve the environment and regularly review our quality assurance processes. This paper describes how Fujitsu achieves its high level of quality in the development and design, manufacturing, testing, and maintenance stages.

• Quality Assurance Activities for Enterprise Application Software Packages

Fujitsu provides a wide range of business software packages for various enterprise service fields.
In this business, we pursue the concept of service quality and make product quality, customer relationship, in-contract support, post-contract support, and cost-performance the most important aspects of this concept. When developing a product, we ensure it will provide the high availability, reliability, and performance required of any business software product and also meet the special quality requirements of the customer. Moreover, to continuously improve our development practices, we achieve CMMI level 3, using CMMI as a reference. In this paper, we introduce our quality assurance activities for product development, focusing on two representative products as examples. We also introduce the future direction of our quality assurance activities for these products.

• Techniques for High Reliability in Submarine Repeaters

Fujitsu's submarine repeaters have been installed on the seabeds of oceans, seas, and bays around the world, including the Pacific Ocean. We delivered our first system in 1969 for the coaxial submarine cable laid on the Hokkaido Uchiura Bay route, and our latest systems use advanced optical repeaters.
In total, Fujitsu has so far delivered about 2400 coaxial and optical submarine repeaters. These repeaters are regarded as the most reliable products of their kind in the world because they have not failed even once since the beginning of their commercial use. Our high-reliability submarine repeaters were achieved by maintaining a consistent design concept from the development of the design and components to manufacturing and inspection. We have also developed practices for promoting communications among all the personnel and organizations involved in our repeater business so we can sustain and improve our reliability skills. This paper describes the techniques we use to build these high-reliability submarine repeaters.

• Quality-by-Design Approach in Server Development

In recent years, product life cycles have become shorter, and the key to success has become the ability to quickly produce new high-reliability products. The development span of Fujitsu's primary server products is also becoming shorter, and as a result it is getting harder to develop the products using just the conventional development methods. Moreover, problems in product evaluation and manufacturing can have a critical impact on product assurance. Against this background, we have worked toward improving product assurance through "quality by design." In one example of this work, we looked at the problem of LSI remakes necessitated by design errors, which is one of the biggest causes of schedule delays in development projects. This paper describes how simulation can be used to achieve zero LSI remakes of proprietary LSI circuits for server products.

• New Tests for Achieving High Reliability and Availability in ETERNUS

Fujitsu provides customers with storage system products that protect their important data and ensure that if any part of their storage systems fail, they will continue operating. To develop these products, we verify their error recovery function by repeatedly executing various error insertion tests in the configurations of the customers' systems. With these tests, we can determine a product's reliability, availability, and the validity of the failure replacement procedures. Before 2002, all of these tests had to be executed manually, so their coverage was limited. However, in 2002, we developed new tests with greatly expanded coverage. In this paper, we describe the work we did to develop some of these new tests, for example, the BBC test robot, error generating disk drive, and error repetition test we developed to achieve high reliability and availability in the ETERNUS series.

• Structural Requirements and Evaluation Technology for Notebook PCs

Thanks to recent developments of new technologies, notebook PCs have become much smaller, lighter, and more powerful and are now gaining wide market acceptance. In fact, they have become an indispensable tool in business and are being put to a diversifying range of personal uses. Their increased portability enables them, for example, to be comfortably carried in a bag; however, it has also resulted in calls for improved durability, for example, a more rugged main body, scratchproof exteriors, and more durable external connectors. To prepare for an increase in use scenarios for these PCs, it is necessary to quickly identify customer requirements and feed them back to the product development and evaluation stages so we can offer new models that are even more convenient and reliable. This paper introduces a design approach and evaluation technology for the structure of notebook PCs that Fujitsu has been developing in recent years.

• Software Quality Improvement Activities

Fujitsu supports the IT systems of various social infrastructures, and the stable operation of infrastructure software (OS and middleware) for these IT systems represents a very important requirement. Mission-critical IT systems used to be constructed using mainframes but are now being built as open systems. Consequently, there are rising expectations for improved quality of open system infrastructure software. To continue developing attractive software for customers, many developers urgently need to implement high-quality manufacturing and improve their development processes. This paper describes recent quality improvement activities for open system infrastructure software in the kernel of the TRIOLE system, a virtual catalog that constructs products from the customer's standpoint, risk management, the development environment, and the system verification necessary when a developing a new product.

• Front-Loading of Cellular Phone Mechanical Evaluation

Fujitsu ensures its cellular phones have sufficient mechanical strength by carefully considering the expected conditions of use and repeatedly improving the design based on the results of various evaluations. Currently in Japan, more than 96 million people, or about 76% of the population, have a cell phone contract, and it is very difficult to win in this market. To do so, it is important to rapidly develop and offer attractive devices that meet the market needs ahead of competitors. This paper describes the technical improvements and front-loading of the mechanical evaluation that Fujitsu has implemented to help achieve rapid development of cellular phones and the results of making these changes.

• Guarantee-of-Quality Technology for Mechanical Components

The bill recycling units of Fujitsu's ATMs transport notes at the high speed of more than 10 notes/s. These units, which are developed by the Mechanical Component division, have 6500 parts and an extremely complex control system. Because they have to handle both new and used notes, they must be able to respond to changes in note condition. Also, they must be able to respond to changes in environmental factors such as humidity. Before we assemble these units, in addition to performing the product evaluations such as reliability and stability evaluations that are conducted for other Fujitsu products, we check and guarantee the functions of each of their parts. Using the example of a bill recycling unit, this paper describes the quality assurance techniques used by the Mechanical Component division, from the development evaluation stage to the commercial production stage.

• Pursuing Stable Operation by Reforming Service Quality

Synchronized with an increase in customer satisfaction (CS) consciousness inside and outside the industry, customers are expecting improvements to be made in the quality of maintenance services they receive. In response, each business unit of Fujitsu has been developing CS activities and service quality activities under guiding concepts such as "Customer Focus" and "On time, high quality, and speed." This paper introduces the "Speed de No.1" service quality reformation that was developed by Fujitsu's maintenance service division. The maintenance division is using Speed de No.1 to achieve its primary goal of ensuring stable operation of customers' systems by rapidly providing maintenance services. We have drastically speeded up these services by reforming the operation of the CE and call centers that our customers use to contact us and by establishing a new structure for assessing service quality and feeding information back from customers.

• Providing Support Infrastructure in Consideration of IT Management

In complicated network systems, system infrastructures change very quickly and there are wide-ranging problems such as burdensome infrastructure management and infection by computer viruses. Conversely, there are growing customer expectations for more sophisticated, more secure, and safer services. To meet such expectations, Fujitsu has been making great efforts to utilize IT for maintenance work on open network systems, improved efficiency, and the development of related support infrastructures. Moreover, we have received ISO27001 and ISO20000 certification in strengthening our security management of IT systems, and established advantages that allow customers to entrust our support service for open network infrastructure. This paper introduces the systems and structures (technologies) employed to meet customer demands and social needs based on the stable operation of existing systems utilizing our support infrastructures, and describes the effects on their application (in case studies).

• Quality Assurance Program for Purchased Parts

We are continuously promoting quality assurance activities so we can provide our customers with highly reliable, high-quality products in keeping with our company motto of "Fujitsu reliability and creativity." The quality of the individual parts in our products is one of the most important factors for achieving high quality. Recently, product recalls related to quality and safety have become a social problem, and many of these recalls are caused by poor-quality purchased parts, for example, batteries. Based on our experiences, we have constructed an approval system for evaluating all the parts that are used in Fujitsu-designed products. In the evaluations performed under this system, we clarify the impact of parts quality on the product reliability and carry out a continuous quality improvement program based on partnerships with the parts suppliers. As a result, we can prevent problems at the customer side. This paper introduces these quality improvement programs.

• Improving Product Quality by Establishing Audit System for Development Processes

To incorporate quality in upstream processes of product development and prevent failures from entering lower processes, Fujitsu has implemented a Product Development Project audit system, which is a series of third-party evaluations for each product development process. Under this system, the Quality Assurance Unit and selected members of the development division team up to audit the state of development according to the experiences of development members and criteria based on the CMMI model. This audit is performed at three phases of development: planning, implementation, and just before the production test. To quickly and reliably correct the problems that are extracted from the audit, the team determines the schedule and corrective actions as the audit progresses. The quality of our products is assured through compliance with the product development process and the thorough, continuous improvements that result from the process.

• TMP for Assuring Quality of Hardware Products

Today's high-end servers require leading-edge hardware designs and more and more components that are made by outside manufacturers. As a result, it is becoming difficult to ensure they are of the highest quality. We have therefore developed a test and maintenance program (TMP) that assures the quality of products throughout their life-cycles up to the maintenance phase. The main development goals for this TMP were a high fault detection performance, powerful fault analysis functions, and simple operability. The TMP is being used by the Quality Assurance Unit and the Field Support Unit to verify the design of Fujitsu's hardware products and evaluate their performance. This paper describes the development policy and technologies of this TMP.

• Evaluation Approach for Stable System Operation

As a result of the deep and wide spread of globalization, IT systems have become more complex and diversified. IT vendors test their products using various methods to make sure they meet the quality standards before shipment. However, in addition to quality, customers also expect products to contribute to the stability of their systems. As a total IT system vendor, Fujitsu's engineering teams have top-class evaluation skills, and these teams thoroughly test our products to ensure they meet the criteria of mission-critical systems. They also test them to ensure they have enough connectivity for use in multi-vendor system environments. Therefore, the products we ship to customers have proven high quality and performance. Moreover, these teams incorporate the customers' applications into their test beds and work on preventing potential problems from occurring. This paper describes the activities and evaluation tools of Fujitsu's engineering teams.

• Fujitsu's Quality Information System -Outline and Benefits of Use-

To support the ongoing globalization of IT systems, we recently started employing world-standard components in our IT products, and to manage these components we needed to develop a new quality control system. Also, to meet our customers' requirement that their IT systems operate 24/7, we must ensure our hardware products have the highest quality and reliability. We have therefore developed and are now operating a company-wide quality information system (QIS) that integrates data about the entire life-cycles of our products, from design to recycling. This paper outlines our QIS and describes the company-wide improvements we have achieved through its use.

• Monitoring Quality of Customer Systems

In addition to the established practice of each product quality management group monitoring basic trouble involving hardware products, we are taking action to improve the stability of customer systems by monitoring incidents of hardware trouble for each customer system in order to "improve customer satisfaction." Although such monitoring of system hardware for specific major accounts by the system support, product, and field support groups is appreciated, it is difficult to increase the number of targeted systems due to the extensive analysis and evaluation cost involved. We intend to tackle this challenge in increasing the number of systems up to 460 (by the end of Feb. 2007) by standardizing the know-how regarding the "system quality stabilizing committee" activity. For this purpose, we have created new automated tools for visualizing incidents of hardware trouble. This activity is also achieving favorable results in advancing the stabilization of customer system quality by sharing the information among the system support, product, and field support groups.

• Fujitsu's Quality Improvement Model: Qfinity

In 1966, we launched a high-reliability program under the watchwords of "reliability" and "creativity," primarily to improve the functions and reliability of our products. Then, in 1977 we introduced value engineering activities to reduce product costs and rationalize working procedures. Building on the successes we achieved, in April 2001 we launched the Qfinity program with the aim of pursuing quality improvement activities suited to the new age. Our Qfinity concept emphasizes a quality improvement model that uses the plan, do, check, act (PDCA) cycle, which exhaustively pursues not only better product functions and reliability but also quality improvements in all phases of work, including better customer responses, faster product delivery, and reduced costs. This paper introduces the Qfinity program of Fujitsu's quality improvement activities.