Approach to Accident Prevention

Takeda prepares "Policies on Accident Prevention" every fiscal year, based upon which each business unit establishes a concrete plan involving the adoption of approaches to both "hardware" and "software" for accident prevention.

Takeda's Major Policies and Achievements on Accident Prevention in Fiscal 2006

As for accident prevention at a plant, we emphasize countermeasures against risks involving static electricity, which has often been reported on recently as a cause of fire and explosive accidents in other companies, as well as countermeasures against leakage of gasses and liquids and intensive inspections of equipment for the "hardware" aspect. Charging and discharging of static electricity is phenomenon often observed during winter; therefore, if it should lead to the ignition of flammable gases and powder dust, it may cause a major accident. Consequently, we continue to pursue work to eliminate any risk of static electricity.

In addition, as for countermeasures against earthquakes at important production facilities, we have promoted the use of equipment such as seismoscopes, which deliver a signal when a certain level of tremor is detected, as well as emergency shutdown valves, which are activated by the signal.
In the case of an earthquake, this equipment works to cut off the supply of fuels, including gas and heavy oil, to prevent secondary disasters, such as fires. As for the software aspect, we have further promoted the enhancement of the "Accident Prevention Manual." In this manual, abnormal phenomena envisioned according to each manufacturing process and countermeasures against such matters are specifically described. Furthermore, regarding intermitting operation, which is considered to have a relatively higher potential for accidents, we have implemented the revision and further improvement of the "Manual for Intermitting Operation." These are the set of materials used for various educational and training programs, while promoting prevention of accidents and disasters as well as striving to inherit accident prevention technology. These accident prevention measures are the efforts of the overall Takeda group production sites.

Meanwhile, Takeda considers it vital to understand the physicochemical properties of medicines, as well as establishing a proper manufacturing operation with the method best suited for properties of each medicine, in order to enhance safety against fire and explosion during the manufacturing process. For this reason, Takeda implements the risk assessment of both R&D pipelines and process at the initial stages of research and development, striving to establish a safer manufacturing process.
In addition, based on the premise that a major accident never occurs unannounced, it is inevitable that some minor accidents will occur beforehand. Takeda considers sustained and committed efforts, such as the positive clarification of 'near miss' cases of accidents; and sharing accident information having previously occurred, both inside and outside the company, will help lead to safety and the promotion of such activities.