STANDARD OPERATING SYSTEMS

(SOP)
 INTRODUCTION

Honda Motor Company, Ltd., Japanese Honda Giken Kōgyō KK, leading Japanese
manufacturer of motorcycles and a major producer of automobiles for the world
market. Headquarters are in Tokyo.
The engineer Honda soichi founded the Honda Technical Research Institute
near Hamamatsu in 1946 to develop small, efficient internal-combustion engines. It
was incorporated as Honda Motor Company in 1948 and began
producing motorcycles in 1949. The Honda C-100, a small-engine motorcycle, was
introduced in 1953 and by 1959 was the largest-selling motorcycle in the world. In
1959 the company also established a U.S. subsidiary, the American Honda Motor
Company, which began producing motorcycles in the United States in 1979 and
automobiles in 1982.
Honda’s primary goals are originality, innovation and efficiency,
resulting in high quality products at affordable price, and
environment friendly.
"A Standard Operating Procedure is a document which
describes the regularly recurring operations relevant to the
quality of the investigation. The purpose of a SOP is to
carry out the operations correctly and always in the same
manner. A SOP should be available at the place where the
work is done".
A SOP is a compulsory instruction. If deviations from
this instruction are allowed, the conditions for these
should be documented including who can give
permission for this and what exactly the complete
procedure will be.
Step 1 - Develop a list of processes that you believe need
SOP creation.
Step 2 - Plan the Process for developing and managing
SOP’s .
Step 3 - Collect information for the content of your SOP.
Step 4 - Write, Review and publish your SOP.
Step 5 - Maintaining your SOP over time.
Honda has been striving to evolve mobility and the daily lives of people all
around the world as part of our 2030 vision. This requires R&D in new domains
in addition to the existing motorcycle, automobile, power products and
aircraft domains.
The potential for creating new value is growing in increasingly diverse fields in
line with advancements in artificial intelligence (AI), big data and other digital
technologies. Honda sees this as a favorable opportunity and is focusing on
R&D in more new areas.
In addition, Honda is taking a proactive approach to open innovation, which
encourages strategic ties with innovative partners. There is no denying that
development in a closed environment would not be able to keep pace with
the speed of change in today’s world.
To enable a swift response, Honda is embracing open innovation. Based on
the concept of “AI × Data × Honda’s strengths,” we are working toward Mono-
zukuri (the art of making things) and Koto-zukuri (new experiences drawn
from the art of making things) that provide new value in harmony with people
as an extension of our manufacturing projects up until now.
 In 2015, Honda established Honda Xcelerator, an open innovation program
headquartered in Silicon Valley. With locations in Silicon Valley, Detroit, Europe, Israel,
China and Japan, Honda Xcelerator serves as a catalyst to discover new technologies
and proactively seeks to partner with startups globally. The program helps startups
with innovative ideas through access to a collaborative workspace, test vehicles and
support from Honda mentors. Focus areas of development for the program include
energy, human machine interface (HMI), personal mobility, automated driving,
artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, advanced materials and industrial innovation as
part of aims to revolutionize mobility and energy management.
 Silicon Valley-based Honda Innovations (Honda R&D Innovations, Inc.) is the driving
force behind Honda Xcelerator. Honda first established Honda Research Institute,
established in Silicon Valley in 2000 and added a corporate venture capital (CVC)
function in 2005. In 2011, the CVC group became part of Honda R&D Americas,
transforming into an open innovation lab called Honda Silicon Valley Lab. In April 2017,
the lab became Honda Innovations, an independent new company with an expanded
mandate — a global role for R&D in new value areas, growing from development
focused on the conventional automobile. The new company, Honda Innovations, has
taken on the role of discovering and developing new technologies, focusing on near-
future developments.
Honda Cars India Ltd. (HCIL) has registered monthly
domestic sales of 14,233 units in October 2018. HCIL also
exported a total of 440 units in October 2018. The company
has registered a cumulative growth of 3% selling 108,652
units during April- October period in 2018, against 105,503
units in the corresponding period of April - October in 2017.

Mr. Rajesh Goel, Sr. Vice President and Director, Sales and
Marketing, Honda Cars India Ltd, said “Despite the festival
season, the consumer sentiment has remained subdued last
month in comparison to other years. However, Amaze
continued its strong performance and the recently launched
CR-V created fresh excitement in its segment with its
premium offering.”
In 1992, Honda’s Environment Statement was released to serve as the
Company’s guideline for all environmental initiatives. The statement
articulates the basic stance we had developed until then to reduce
environmental impact at every stage in the life cycle of our products,
from product procurement to design, development, production,
transportation, sale, use and disposal stages.
In addition, for Honda to further promote the above-mentioned
environmental initiatives and continue to be a company that society
wants to exist, the Honda Environmental and Safety Vision was
established in 2011. Aimed at the realization of the joy and freedom of
mobility and a sustainable society where people can enjoy life as is
declared in this vision, each of Honda’s global business sites is engaging
in the reduction of all kinds of environmental impacts from the aspects of
both production based and corporate activities, beginning with
Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions, which are considered to be a cause of
climate change; use of resources, including water and minerals; and
suitable processing and reduction of waste.
Honda believes that human beings are born as free and unique individuals with the
capacity to think, reason and create – and the ability to dream. The Company’s
wish is to nurture and promote these characteristics in Honda by respecting
individual differences and trusting each other as equal partners.
As Honda’s business activities expand into various parts of the world, taking into
account “the Universal Declaration of Human Rights” as well as “the ILO
Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work,” it established
Associate Relations Policies in March 2012 that are applied to Honda’s daily
corporate actions, putting the Three Principles of Personnel Management into
practice. Honda works to understand current conditions by conducting an
assessment as to whether management operates in line with the Associate
Relations Policies at each Group company and to respond appropriately in case any
concerns are raised. Starting from FY2017, the assessment now covers joint
ventures. In FY2018, there were no incidents identified.
Quality enhancement operations at Quality Innovation
Center Tochigi, Japan, consist of pulling together market
quality data and sharing information about collected parts
and market quality issues. Personnel analyze collected
parts, investigate causes and develop countermeasures
and improvements in a timely manner.
Specialized teams with extensive product knowledge are
able to obtain detailed data using a range of analytical
equipment. The operational process is configured to
facilitate objective and appropriate decision-making based
on gathered data.
To ensure high quality, Honda conducts comprehensive quality
assurance activities from the dual perspectives of design and
manufacturing. For example, drawings for objects that will be
machine processed include finished dimensions. Even when the
same worker uses the same materials, equipment and
procedures to produce an item to the dimensions specified on
the relevant drawings as part of a given production process,
there are inevitably small variations in the item’s finished
dimensions.
To address this fact, R&D departments consider not only
function and performance but also the ease of manufacture and
minimization of variations when designing drawings.
Honda has established a Quality Center to bring together the various components of
our organization concerned with product market quality information to enhance the
functions of “preventing quality issues” and “quickly detecting and resolving quality
issues when they occur” on a global scale. The facility gathers quality-related data
from dealers in Japan and overseas through service departments and customer
consultation centers. Measures and policies for preventing quality issues are then
developed based on the issues identified from this data and provided as feedback to
design, production and the design/production sections for suppliers (parts
procurement), among others.
From FY2017, Honda has undertaken restructuring of its organization that includes
the integration of service sections and the quality assurance section of Automobile
Operations to form Customer First Operations, thereby establishing a structure that
enhances the link between service and quality assurance and further strengthens the
flow of customer feedback.
When a quality issue does occur, Honda moves quickly to resolve it, for example, by
working closely with R&D and production departments to investigate and address
the cause, assisting affected customers and taking action to prevent a recurrence.
CONCLUSION
Honda Motors is able to achieve success in developing the
most suitable strategy to be competitive in the industry by
selecting and applying appropriate theories, techniques
and models. Porter’s Five Forces and Value Chain are the
most effective tools that Honda Motors engaged in
building and implementing long-term strategy to stay
ahead. Competitors in the global arena faces pressures
and Honda Motors is required to adapt and fulfill the
different needs from these pressures to gain a reputable
name and meet consumers satisfaction. Whittington’s
Classical and Processual Schools of Thought is most
suitable for this organization in maximizing its profit.