一般社団法人品質工学会 各種規程

（Objective）

Article 1. To improve the quality of reports submitted to the Journal of the Robust Quality Engineering Society, reports submitted to this journal will undergo an examination including a peer review, normally by two reviewers. These guidelines define the general form of the examination.
 

（Examination of the report）

Article 2. Reports will normally be examined. The types of reports examined are technical papers as specified in Article 3 section (1) of the Submission Guidelines.
2. The examination will be carried out as specified below, under the supervision of the editorial committee.
 

（Examination method）

Article 3. The examination is basically a peer review by peer reviewers, carried out by the following process.
1) An editor will check that the report satisfies the submission guidelines.
2) Peer reviews will be performed by at least two peer reviewers.
3) A final decision on the report will be made by the editorial board.
Reports taking the form of editorials or commentaries, however, may sometimes be reviewed by only one reviewer.
 

（Selection of peer reviewers）

Article 4. Peer reviewers will be selected from among specialists in the field of the report.
2. At least one reviewer must be a member of the Robust Quality Engineering Society
 

（Confidentiality）

Article 5. The identities of the peer reviewers will not be disclosed.
2. Progress and results of peer reviews will not be disclosed.
3. A peer reviewer must not disclose the whole or any part of the report being reviewed to any other party.
4. A peer reviewer must not make any other use of the content of the reviewed report until the report has been published.
 

（Duties of peer reviewers）

Article 6. A person who undertakes a peer review must perform the review promptly and submit a peer review report to an editor. If he or she cannot undertake the peer review, he or she must notify the editor.
2. Basically, a peer review should be completed within about one month from the time when it was undertaken, unless the report requires many corrections, modifications, or queries.
 

（Tasks of peer reviewers）

Article 7. A peer reviewer must evaluate and assess the report being reviewed.
2. Assessment includes determining whether the report is publishable and, if it is publishable, what type of report it is.
There are three types of reports:
 a. Research and development
 b. Case study
 c. Report of implementation
3. The peer reviewer should read the report twice, but need not read it three times.
4. A third peer reviewer will be asked to review the report only if the first two peer reviewers disagree as to whether the report is publishable.
 

（Inquiries and requests for confirmation from peer reviewers)

Article 8. Queries to the author must be made through an editor, or through the head of the editorial committee. Under no circumstances may a peer reviewer query the author directly.
2. When a query is made, it should clearly state what the author needs to do, e.g., correct, modify, or delete part of the article, or add a new part. If necessary, the author’s view may be solicited through a question (Q).
3. In general, a peer review may be repeated only once, so if there are issues that the reviewer was unable to cover in the first query or queries, every effort should be made to avoid additional queries.
4. Authors’ replies to queries should generally be provided within the time frame in Article 6-2, although exceptions may be made depending on the content of the query.
 

（Examination by the editorial committee）

Article 9. When different editors disagree on the matters in Article 7, a final decision will be made by the editorial committee.
 

（Final decision）

Article 10. The editorial committee should respect the peer reviewers’ conclusions, based on which they must then decide how to use the report.
 

（Supervision）

Article 11. Supervision of these guidelines rests with the Editorial Board.
 

（Change or abolition of rules）

Article 12. Any change in or abolition of these regulations will require a resolution of the Board of Directors.
 

Additional Information

1. These regulations came into effect as “Requests Concerning Revisions” on July 7, 1994.
2. These regulations were revised and renamed on September 10, 2011 to reflect current practices in the examination of reports.
3. These regulations were revised on June 9, 2021 to reflect changes that took place when the examination of reports was moved from the former Examination Section (now the Examination and Awards Section) to the Examination Committee.
 
Note: The English translation of the Articles of Incorporation in this document is for the reference of members who are not fluent in Japanese, and the official version is in Japanese.