Research Areas

The Support Unit for Quality Management (QMU) was established in February, 2007 and is doing the jobs for maintenance and management of work quality concerning the collection, preservation and distribution of biological resources, and support for their techniques.
ISO stands for an internationally uniform standard promulgated by the International Organization for Standardization, and ISO9001 is a standard for Quality Management System. Getting the ISO9001 certification does ensure that cells and microorganisms to be distributed from RIKEN BRC (BRC) will meet certain quality standards, and furthermore endorse that BRC is a reliable organization.
QMU will endeavor for excellence and take all possible measures to QMS (Quality Management System) and TQM (Total Quality Management) in order for BRC to achieve total customer satisfaction and to provide the highest value biological resources and services on time.
Cells and microorganisms as biological resources are widely used in basic to applied research studies, and have high demands particularly in the field of translational research. In this field, high-quality biological resources are needed, since the deterioration and dispersion of quality affect the accuracy of experiments and the reliability of papers using such data. Thus, two of RIKEN BRC's divisions, namely, the Cell Engineering Division and Microbe Division/Japan Collection of Microorganisms, supplying many biological resources to the industrial world, were awarded the certification of "ISO9001:2000" from the Bureau Veritas Japan Co., Ltd in August, 2007, and furthermore in August, 2009, succeed in passing the upgrade audit to "ISO9001:2008" of the latest ISO9001.
And BRC challenged ISO 9001:2008 Renewal Audit (the examination required after the 3rd year from the first certification) by Bureau Veritas Japan Co., Ltd. (BVJC) on May 10-11, 2010. BRC successfully passed its audit without any nonconformity. As a result, without any corrective action and follow-up visit, BRC could get the new certificate (expiration date: July 19, 2013) stating the conformity to ISO 9001:2008).

Research Subject

1. Document Management (preparation of Quality Manual, common BRC Procedure Documents ), Record keeping
2. Planning and implementation of common BRC trainings on ISO and TQM
3. Secretariat of Internal Quality Audit
4. Secretariat of Management Review on Quality
5. Supports of Corrective Action and Preventive Action