environmentally friendly manufacturing protects the planet from exploitation and conserves natural resources. Products are made from sustainable materials, while waste is reduced through remanufactruing, reuse and recycling. Besides being a friend of the earth, being eco-friendly can reduce a business' costs through reduced energy use, for example, or lower transportation costs. According to Solusource, some companies never start plans to go green because the process seems intimidating. Just start with simple steps.
Energy Audit
Solusource recommends adopting energy-efficient practices that cut costs instantly. Conduct an energy audit to find where improvements can are necessary. Replace HVAC filters, and replace incandescent bulbs with CFL fixtures. Use caulking and weather stripping to prevent air leaks from the outside. Use programmable thermostats to reduce energy waste and save money. You can hire a consultant for a larger energy retooling. Marlyn Nutraceuticals reports that shade trees surrounding its Phoenix facility naturally lower internal heat by as much as 10 percent.Renewable Energy
Use renewable energy. Renewable energy is energy generated from resources that are replenished naturally, such as sunlight, wind, rain, tides, biomass and geothermal heat. Build your own source of renewable green energy on your business' premises. Many states offer tax breaks and incentives for businesses who do, and some businesses receive compensation for energy they generate and contribute back to the grid. You can also purchase green energy at rates slightly higher than traditional fossil fuels. Marlyn Nutraceuticals uses solar roof panels so that the sun heats the plant’s water while a NASA-developed, ceramic roof coating protects the plant from excessive heat.Waste Reduction
Reduce waste. EcoBrains points out that manufacturing always involves raw materials, but not all parts of raw materials are needed. Some businesses need only one or more parts of a raw material, but the rest is thrown away. This discarded raw material can harm the environment. Make use of leftovers, dispose of them properly or remove them from your manufacturing process altogether. Garrett Moulding, a manufacturer of picture-frame mouldings, with plants in Santa Cruz, California, and Carrollton, Georgia, reports that it recycles and reuses its wood and aluminum byproducts by donating sawdust to farms and ranches for landscaping and animal bedding, by donating its wood scraps to college art departments, by reusing cardboard boxes and by turning discarded papers into environmentally friendly packaging materials.Conserve Water
Implement a water-efficiency program to conserve water and to save money on buying, heating, treating and disposing of water, the U.S. Small Business Administration advises. The local water company can audit your facility to recommend ways to conserve water and minimize discharges to sewers and waste water. Conserve water using the best available technology, such as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's WaterSense protects, and water-saving equipment utilities, the administration says.Other Considerations
The University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension notes that "eco-friendly" products are made of environmentally-friendly materials, including recycled materials or "rapid renewables," such as bamboo, which grows very fast, or are made of wood from a local forest that doesn't necessitate high transportation costs. Products that have gone through very little processing, such as granite benches, stone pavers and handmade products, are considered eco-friendly, because they need very little energy for manufacturing. Eco-friendly products are also made as little as possible from harmful chemicals and toxic compounds, such as wood preservatives or creosote, volatile organic compounds, chlorine and PVCs. The products also serve multiple purposes. An example of an eco-friendly product is a cloth bag made from jute or hemp that can be used for numerous tasks, such as bagging groceries and carrying books, and lasts for years.other than that,we can use BPM tools to make environment friendly business process.It is clear that IT is a key tool in corporate efforts to go green. But while the prevalent focus is on IT power consumption, don't overlook what business process management (BPM) software can do to help you support the environment while generating significant cost savings.
Reduce paper
BPM software proves to be highly effective in the quest to eliminate paper because it not only lets you create online forms and documents, it also lets organizations incorporate those online documents into automated processes that remove the need to manually route and track paper. As a result, BPM eliminates the cost and environmental burden of paper, while at the same time allowing for more effective governance and control.
The average U.S. office worker is estimated to use a sheet of paper every 12 minutes and dispose of 100 to 200 pounds of paper every year. BPM software can serve as the common platform for eliminating paper and automating processes throughout organizations.
Take the City of New Orleans. In 2008, it used BPM software to take its contracts management process online, automating the processing of more than $1 billion worth of contracts. In the absence of process automation, each contract would have moved by manila folder through eight offices. It had typically gone from one stakeholder desk to another's through inter-and intra-office mailings, often with inefficient tracking and delivery methods.
Beyond the paper savings of online forms and documents, organizations that have aligned BPM with enterprise architecture (EA) efforts have facilitated the electronic documentation of the processes, which otherwise would result in volumes of paper being consumed and stored. That lets organizations create graphical models of all processes, complete with annotations and documented interdependencies. Paper is largely eliminated and it becomes easier to maintain processes and keep them current, reducing the overhead of ongoing compliance and resulting in more accurate "virtual documentation."
Reduce fuel and transport
Reducing paper also cuts down on the amount of physical transport required to share information. The ability to complete and submit forms online eliminates the need to mail documents such as applications and purchase orders. In addition, because BPM allows for the automation of human-intensive processes sind the movement of mission-critical paperwork online, knowledge workers are able to review, annotate and collaborate online, reducing the frequency of business travel. Think of the savings from an environmental perspective lower transportation emissions, less fuel usage, and less wear and tear on the physical infrastructure that supports these activities.
Tetra, a global manufacturer of aquarium products, used BPM to move its engineering change-request process online. The solution enabled the organization to not only eliminate paper and costly mail between offices, but also allowed engineers, scientists and other knowledge workers in a variety of locations to collaborate on product changes online. Before BPM, one change request could include drawings of 50 parts and generate an exponential amount of paperwork to process the request.
With BPM, all documentation is online, and multiple, geographically dispersed users can simultaneously review the product folders and subfolders.
According to a recent Barclaycard study a typical business person will travel approximately 7,200 miles per year beyond their daily commute - that's the equivalent of 3.1 tons of CO2 emissions per person, per year. With more than 200 million trips per year attributed to business travel in the United States, the total environmental savings from reducing travel by a modest 20% through online collaboration and process automation could be staggering.
More efficient manufacturing
On the manufacturing front, duplication of work and processes can lead to excessive costs and inefficient resource usage. The idea of lean manufacturing as a protocol was originated by Toyota in the early 20th century, but new technologies are letting manufacturers identify process interdependencies and take a broad view of manufacturing process optimization.
Once the product leaves the manufacturing floor, process automation solutions such as BPM enable companies to increase control over both internal and external processes such as purchase order/invoicing, logistics, and transportation and trading partner integration. Shortening transportation routes by limiting movement and resources use and converting manual, paper-based procurement and payment processes into automated electronic transactions between manufacturers, partners, retailers and customers leads to significantly reduced environmental impact.
In addition, a proper understanding of your supply-chain network, related assets and interdependent processes that is well documented in an EA tool can help identify and eliminate duplicate resources, excess overhead or inefficient distribution channels. Leveraging a tool will enable increased visibility and analysis and correcting these issues could eliminate buildings, machinery and inefficient transportation routes, all of which contribute to a more environmentally and economically sustainable business model.
Supply-chain benchmarking and sustainability efforts, combined with process automation, can yield sustainable carbon-footprint reductions through more optimized paper and fuel consumption, reduced physical overhead and less raw material and resource usage.
Adding it up
Industry needs to embrace environmentally sustainable business practices because it is the right thing to do and because governments will likely force the issue through new regulations and requirements. You can wait for the mandates or proactively improve your operations in ways that will positively impact the environment and deliver measurable cost savings and a long-term platform for sustainability.
Implementing a common technology platform for business process management and enterprise modeling will enable you to go green in more ways than one.
References
-Mooney, Laura, 2008, Going green with BPM tools,Published by Network World Inc.
-http://smallbusiness.chron.com/making-manufacturing-processes-ecofriendly-38937.html
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