To ensure sound and efficient management and operations of the organization, OMRON has established a basic policy for the establishment of an internal control system. In conformance with this policy, OMRON strengthens and implements an internal control system to make sure that all four objectives of internal controls are met. The objectives are: reliability of financial reporting, legal and regulatory compliance, effectiveness and efficiency of operation, and maintenance of assets.

As for the internal control reporting (more commonly known as "J-SOX") which became mandatory by the Financial Instruments and Exchange Law enacted in June 2006, each division/Group company conducts self-assessment for the establishment and implementation status of its internal control system for business process, and the internal auditing department monitors the results of assessment. Self-assessment helps each division/Group company to increase their understanding of internal control for financial reporting, facilitating more autonomous control.

OMRON’s internal audit consists of two auditing programs designed to maintain sound and efficient management and operation of the organization. First, the general internal control audit is aimed at ensuring that its internal control system is functioning appropriately in four areas of internal controls. These four areas are: reliability of financial reporting, legal and regulatory compliance, effectiveness and efficiency of operation, and maintenance of assets. Second, the management process audit is intended to provide solutions for specific management issues and propose improvement measures. In both audits, should any points needing improvement be discovered, OMRON provides support until countermeasures are completed.

To conduct internal audits based on the full knowledge of local business practices and legal systems, an internal auditing department was set up in each of four global regions (North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and Greater China) as well as Japan. In all of these, specialized auditors are stationed.

On March 26, 2010, OMRON’s Social Systems Solutions Business Company (SSB) became the first business company in the OMRON Group to achieve integrated management system (IMS) certification, passing an IMS audit held by the Japan Quality Assurance Organization (JQA), a renowned management system registration body, based on its own guidelines. The IMS certification was awarded to SSB after undergoing an external audit by JQA from February 15-19, 2010 and accompanied by renewal of its quality management system (ISO 9001) and information security management system (ISO 27001) certifications.

SSB has already acquired ISO 9001 and ISO 27001 certifications. As societal and governmental requirements for a company encompass a broader scope, including environmental management and internal control systems, it has recently become difficult for SSB to meet these extensive requirements from the perspectives of quality and information security alone.

Living up to the OMRON Principles, SSB considers that offering social infrastructure systems that provide safety, security and reliability forms the essential part of its CSR implementation. Based on this awareness, SSB believes that to realize this requires enhancing quality in a broader sense by keeping various requirements into consideration. As such, SSB recognized the need for going back to the basics. In other words, SSB realized the need for reconstructing an integrated management system suitable for SSB, rather than separately implementing PDCA cycles for quality and information security respectively with ISO 9001 and ISO 27001 systems. Once accomplished, the SSB organization can be unified toward a single goal of improving quality of work. This will enable SSB to better satisfy its customers and fulfill its social responsibilities.

In fiscal 2007, SSB launched a three-year plan to rebuild and integrate management systems. Its recent auditing was the first audit for SSB’s integrated system and examined whether the company’s management system (including policy-setting, management review, risk management and internal controls) is constructed and implemented effectively in an integrated fashion toward attaining its management goal. According to JQA, it is very unusual for a large company of 1,000-person scale like SSB to implement an integrated system, and it is also very rare to successfully pass the audit on the first attempt. This success was due to the recognition of SSB’s comprehensive strengths, as well as the dedicated efforts that allowed the company to complete everything from system construction to deployment in a mere three years.

Encouraged by this achievement, SSB will continually seek improvements of its management system in order to further enhance the accuracy and efficiency of business processes and boost its overall quality.