The Automotive division of Glass Company has been reinforcing the manufacturing quality with the globally shared view, value and methodology in order to provide high quality products and services throughout the world. As a part of measures to ensure consistent quality, the Company opened the Global Training Center within Asahi Glass Aichi Plant. At the Center, key staff working at the Company's plants in Europe, North America, and Asia receive global education training. In fiscal 2008, after almost five years since the opening of the Center, some of those trained at the Center are teaching what they have learned there to other employees at their local plants. In Japan, the Automotive Glass Company is actively documenting the technologies and skills possessed by experienced employees in a manual using CUDBAS. Furthermore, the Company is educating trainers, who will pass down their technologies and skills to other employees in an accurate and intelligible manner by the use of the manual. The Company plans to expand the application of CUDBAS to its global education programs in the future. The Automotive division of Glass Company encourages its employees, including those working at its overseas plants, to share technologies and skills accumulated at their workplaces and learn from one another. In this way, the same ideas and skills can be shared on a global scale, ensuring high quality manufacturing worldwide.

In order to foster skills and pass them down to the next generation, it is essential to identify, prioritize, and evaluate the skills employed in work. The Curriculum Development Method Based on Ability Structure (CUDBAS), which was developed by Mr. Kazuo Mori of the Research Institute for the Education of Technologies and Skills, represents a method for achieving this objective.
CUDBAS serves as a useful tool for easily identifying the skills and technologies required for work, and for prioritizing them based on their importance and necessity. Using CUDBAS, you can implement the following cycle: assess and analyze each skill, formulate an appropriate plan to improve the capabilities of workers at the production workplace, and effectively educate them. The AGC Group is utilizing CUDBAS across the Group to formulate plans to foster manufacturing skills and technology and ensure their transfer from generation to generation.

The Asian bases of the Flat Glass division of Glass Company have been rapidly introducing new types of glass and the advanced technologies required to manufacture highly functional glass, resulting in the incomplete transfer of basic technologies and skills from Japan to the bases. In order to strengthen these basic skills and technologies and to ensure the appropriate management of quality, safety, and the environment as a premise for transferring these technologies, the Company is utilizing CUDBAS.
PT Asahimas Flat Glass Tbk., which manufactures float glass for construction and automotion in Indonesia, started activities to improve its manufacturing operations in 2006. First, the company analyzed the operations by using CUDBAS to identify present problems and weaknesses, and then provided its employees with sufficient education to encourage them to think independently and develop more creative ideas. As a result in fiscal 2007, the number of complaints about the quality of its products decreased by at least 60% compared with the fiscal 2005 level, which in turn resulted in an improvement in its business performance. Some of the work procedure manuals newly created at the company are also used at the Flat Glass Company’s Thai and Japanese bases as a common educational asset. Inspired by the great improvements achieved in Indonesia, the bases in Thailand and China are also promoting activities to improve their manufacturing operations through the use of CUDBAS.

Analysis of work performed by a group using CUDBAS		In-house education is provided to the employees of business partners as well. In the interactive education, verification is conducted of whether the employees really understand and are aware of the importance of the ideas they have learned.
A morning meeting. In the conference room, the improvement activity plans and progress reports are posted on the wall, and all members are cooperating to promote the activity.		The work procedure manuals are created not as a simple list of work procedures but as a document that clearly shows the important points of the procedures. Users of the manuals can understand why the points are important in their actual work, which in turn strengthens their manufacturing abilities.

The Display Glass General division of Electronics Company faces an urgent need to systematize their technologies as they deal with emerging technologies and rapidly growing businesses. They decided to write the best textbook that they can hope to have at present and successfully systematized the technologies jointly accumulated by front-line specialists and engineers. The thus completed FPD Glass Technology Handbook has a total number of over 1,200 pages. The FPD Glass General Division developed a viewing system for the Handbook and placed terminals related to their business at the Asahi Glass Kansai Plant, Keihin Plant, Takasago Plant, and AGC Display Glass Yonezawa Co., Ltd. for easy review, thereby helping develop young engineers and specialists.

AGC Display Glass Yonezawa ,which manufactures glass substrates for flat panel displays, prepares teaching materials that use videos for in-house education and training aiming at inheritance of technologies. Veteran workers and engineers show how they perform important work at their worksite, and each of the important points about their work (such as feelings, secrets and knacks) is explained with text, photos and videos. All of these are put together in teaching materials that are viewable on PCs. These materials are actively used to educate young engineers.