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Supplier group touts greener
world
By Harry
Stoffer
Automotive News / September 15,
2003
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Here are
potential benefits for a member of Suppliers
Partnership for the Environment.
Learn "best practices" through
task forces and work groups.
Receive technical assistance on
optimal use of energy and materials.
Retain financial savings for
company benefit.
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BAE Industries Inc., a Tier 2 maker of seat
mechanisms, has been paying $6.75 a week to have its
used die lubricant hauled away.
At a "lean and
clean" workshop, the Center Line, Mich., company
determined it could save about $22,000 annually if it
gathered the used lubricant from its stamping presses,
filtered it and reused it. Not only would BAE eliminate
the disposal fees, but it also would need to buy about
50 gallons less of new lube each week.
The
change sounds like drops in a bucket - literally and
figuratively.
But leaders of a new Washington
organization, the Suppliers Partnership for the
Environment, believe the collective impact could be huge
if the many small and medium-sized companies in the
supply chain come up with lots of such ideas and share
them.
"Our vision is for this to really be the
auto sector approach to greening the supply chain," says
Pat Beattie, a General Motors executive involved in
creating the organization.
The partnership's
twin goals are to benefit the environment and save
suppliers money. And the two can be achieved
simultaneously when a company cuts the amount of
material it buys for production, or when it reduces the
wastes sent to incinerators, landfills or treatment
plants, or if it does both, the partnership says.
"The savings realized stay with the supplier,"
says Steve Hellem, executive director of the
partnership. In other words, these are potential cost
reductions that the financially squeezed suppliers don't
have to pass on to customers in lower prices.
But there are hurdles.
More
automakers are sought
One hurdle is the need
to increase membership, especially among Tier 2 and 3
suppliers, so that there are more companies to generate
and share ideas.
The partnership began early
this year by General Motors, the EPA and 13 suppliers.
The suppliers were Ashland Inc., BAE Industries, Delphi
Corp., Detroit Chassis LLC, Federal-Mogul Corp.,
Freudenberg-NOK, Haas TCM, Johnson Controls Inc., Lear
Corp., Motorola Inc., NSK Corp., Petoskey Plastics Inc.
and Visteon Corp.
Membership is rising, but
partnership leaders say getting other automakers to
participate is key to accelerating expansion with
suppliers.
Beattie, GM's director of chemical
risk management and an at-large member of the
partnership, acknowledges that in the hotly competitive
automobile industry, "there's always that possibility"
that other automakers will shy away from the partnership
because they view it as a GM organization.
Spokesmen for Ford Motor Co., DaimlerChrysler AG
and Toyota Motor North America Inc. all said, in
responses to questions about the partnership, that they
were not familiar with the organization. Each also notes
that his or her company has programs to help - or even
require - suppliers to improve their environmental
performance.
Beattie says that other automakers
are considering invitations to join the partnership. She
says she knows of none that has said flatly "no."
Saturn roots
The partnership grew
out of a test program conducted by the EPA and GM's
Saturn Corp. when the Saturn Vue SUV was being
developed.
In one example, Saturn and its seat
supplier determined there was "minimal quality
enhancement" from wrapping every vehicle seat in
plastic, but the coverings created waste for dealers,
says John Resslar, who oversaw the test. He is now GM
manager of design for the environment.
So the
wrapping of seats ended.
All the possible
savings identified during the test, if extended to the
entire GM supply chain, would reach a staggering $390
million to $520 million, according to a report by GM and
the EPA.
GM and the EPA concluded that
considerable environmental gains are possible among the
thousands of lower-tier suppliers. The main reasons:
Small- and mid-sized companies generally don't have
resources of their own for sophisticated environmental
management; they have had limited contact with
automakers' environmental staffs; and they have
participated infrequently in EPA's voluntary programs
for pollution reduction.
Michael Coast,
president of the Michigan Manufacturing Technology
Center, which conducted the lean and clean workshop at
BAE, says it is important for the companies to think of
EPA's job as pollution prevention, and not just
enforcement of environmental rules.
Centers such
as the Michigan one are part of the Manufacturing
Extension Partnership of the National Institute for
Standards and Technology, which provides technical
experts for supplier workshops.
Teamwork
GM's Resslar, who managed the test at Saturn,
says the workshops prove that the best sources of ideas
are the people on the shop floor. "Why hire a
$400-an-hour consultant to go out and ask the people on
the floor when you can talk to the people on the floor
to begin with?" he says.
Emley Halibozek,
quality supervisor at BAE Industries, agrees. She notes
that the idea for recycling die lube came from a die
setter.
Halibozek says management always looks
for ways to save material and reduce waste. But the lean
and clean workshop brought together people from all over
the plant.
"They were saying, 'Let's go the
extra step,' " she says. "I think it opened a lot of
eyes."
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