Some ups, some downs

Well, yesterday I went to see another automotive company who are keen to develop their green credentials. Interestingly, they’re an American company, like the air conditioning company I went to see last week, and they have a very similar policy when it comes to the environment – try to meet legislation, don’t go much further. I’m not saying that they weren’t doing a good job in reducing their waste water and their emmisions but they certainly weren’t trialling anything innovative. Similarly, the lean systems that I saw looked a little half-hearted and they indicated that they had had problems instilling a lean culture into the factory. I think I am beginning to see the difference between a multinational company telling their Brazilian site how to operate and a multinational company guiding their into sustainable policy.  It was also interesting to note that whilst at the automotive company I was told that they never have funding requests for environmental projects rejected, this was directly disputed by one of the university professors that I spoke with today. He told me that a few years ago they worked with this particular company on a project to treat their solid waste and that funding had never been approved for it, so it was dropped.

Today I spent the day with a team from one of the local universities who are working with a group of five women who have set up a social enterprise; they recycle commercial cooking oil into soap. The lead professor explained that a couple of years ago the university carried out a similar project with a local company who transported waste but the solution that they devised was not suitable. The reason for this, he said, was that they had only considered the technical aspects and not the way in which the product would be used by the customer. Learning from their mistakes, the university has set up a cross-campus team of students and professors to help this social enterprise develop not only suitable manufacturing processes, but also a suitable business model. There are team members from the Environmental Management department, Psychology and Chemical Engineering to name but a few. I think this is fantastic that the university is using such a worthwhile cause as a case-study for their students, instead of letting a multinational company use the knowledge and resources of the university for free.

A number of points struck me today – firstly, the vast majority of Environmental Engineers in Brazil are women. Almost everyone I have met both in companies and in universties has been a woman. Obviously this is great progress and will hopefully encourage more women to join other disciplines, but I wonder why it is so attractive to female students? When I spoke to people about it today, they said it was because it has a cleaner, more “glamourous” appeal than a discpline like mechanical engineering, which typically evokes images of workshops and heavy machinery (although there is nothing clean or glamourous about a sewage treatment plant or a landfill site so maybe there is a flaw in this thinking..?!).

Secondly – and I think the most poignant – I was talking to a Brazilian student today and he expressed his surprise in talking to me; he said “In school we are taught that English people are cold and not friendly”. I think this is so tragic; the impression that people have of England is really not good. Every time I speak to someone about football (on a daily basis… this is Brazil!) the first thing they say is “Hooligans!”. Even if they do not speak English they know the word “Hooligan!”. It begs the question, did we really deserve to host the World Cup if this is what the rest of the world thinks of us?

Laws and Lean Libraries

On Friday I went to see another factory here in the south of Brazil; they’re an American company who produce air-conditioning units and although they were keen to stress that “they’re not yet a sustainable company”, they certainly have a strong CSR company. I think that compared to the automotive company that I have been working with, this tends to focus more on the social aspects than the environmental; they ran many schemes such as training disadvantaged local students and providing free healthcare, vaccinations and exercise facilities to their employees. This is not to say that they did not have a strong policy of reducing their imapct on the environment, it is just that I came away with the impression that their motives for doing so were either because it was profitable to do so or because they were being forced to do so through legislation. (I found it very surprising that, before I came, one of my professors told me that he believes legislation has no impact on whether a company implements sustainable manufacturing or not; at the automotive company I certainly found this to be true but I do not think this was the case at the A/C manufacturers.).

Whilst on this site visit, I learnt a bit more abot a new law that has neen passed in Brazil which is very similar to the EU’s WEEE directive; all electronic equipment must now be returned to the manufacturer to be recycled. Speaking to Christiane, the environmental engineer who was showing me round, she explained that this would take a long time to come into effect because many manufacturers are not in a position to receive used products and dismantle them. She also highlighted the massive differences between the North and the South of Brazil and indicated that this would be another reason why it will take so long to bring this law into effect. In the South, there are many companies who are able to recycle materials but this infrastructure does not exist in the North. Not only that, there is not a culture of recycling (such as waste segretation) in the North and so she believes that people will need to receive better education on this before this law can work properly.

One thing that I was really impressed with here was the encouragement that the company gives to their staff to set up “volunteer improvement teams”. This is where 4-6 employees form a team to manage a continuous improvement project. One such team monitored energy usage and found that the company was using vast amounts of electricity at night when, theoretically, nothing was being used. To combat this, they implemented a very simple “Switch it off!” campaign which comprised of signs, stickers, monitor screensavers etc. As a result of this very simple project, the company now saves £132,000 per year. I like this type of initiative because, not only does it obviously benefit the company, but it gives the employees a chance to have their voice heard, lets them make a difference to the company and provides them with training in sustainability.

All of the companies that I have spoken to have placed a huge amount of emphasis on training and I think this is one of the main differences between Brazilian and English companies. I have always found training in the UK to be a bit half-hearted; managers see it more as a “tick in the box” than actually fundamental to business devlopment. In Brazil, it is very much the opposite – lean training at the automotive company that I have been working with proved so successful that they were required to provide their shopfloor with a “lean library” to meet the requests of their operators! I have yet to see a UK company where this is the case…

A lot to see, a lot to think about

Wow, so much to write. Since my last blog I have been spending time with the environmental team  learning about the environmental projects that are currently ongoing here at the Porto Alegre site. Once again, I can’t help but be amazed by what they’re doing. One of the most impressive projects is the effluent treatment system; this is where they take the gunk and the sludge that the factory produces (and  we’re talking really horribe gunk) and processes it to give clean water (which in turn is reused to clean the floors with and cool the machines) and a dried, solid material, which is then sold to another company who produce “BioBlocks” – bricks made using this recycled sludge. In addition to this, all of the material that cannot currently be recycled is stored in a large warehouse so that when the company develops a suitable technique, the material can be reused. It certainly seems like forward thinking to me.

Now that I am becoming more familiar with the products and processes here I have been able to start asking more questions about peoples opinions of the companys and the manufacturing systems here in Brazil and the motives behind sustainable manufacturing. What is continuing to astound me is the positivity with which people talk about their employers – people genuinely love their jobs! (I will be totally naïve and presume that this is always the case in Brazil, but their certainly seems to be much more widespread job satisfaction than in England). The other thing that has really surprised me about the company that I am working with is that they are not shouting about their acheivements in CSR and sustainable manufacturing – if anything I have to dig for information. Beore I came I was really ready to “sift” valuable information from corporate spiel; the reality is that the company proactively does not shout about their successes. (The reason for this, I was told, is that their customers then turn around and say “OK, well done, you have made your process X times more efficient; lets go halves on the cost savings”. I found this really interesting and I wonder if this is a block to companies sharing best practice?).

On a side note, I have started reading “Natural Capitalism” by Hawken, Lovins & Lovins; it adresses the need for a new industrial revolution to bring about the changes that are needed in the manufacturing world. I’m finding it really interesting, and it is certainly providing food for thought, but think I will need to read a bit further before I’m able to come to any conclusion about its message.

Lean Manufacturing Part 1

I spent the morning with Raquel – a production engineering student who has worked here for one year. She gave me a tour of the shopfloor, focussing on the lean aspects.  Safe to say, I was very impressed. While the machines aren’t the newest or the most capable, the lean systems are incredible. Not only is a textbook infrastructure in place, it seems to be being properly utilised; modelled heavily on the Toyota Production System (TPS), true pull systems are used throughout the factory with visual management as a key element of the system. They use KPIs that I have only ever seen described in textbooks (which are ALL updated on a daily basis…) and the operators all understand what they mean. The use of primary colours to identify zones and important items makes it look more like a Teletubbies set than a factory. They have supermarkets with dedicated delivery trucks to take raw material and WIP to the cells; shared toolboxes at the end of each cell and, perhaps the most visually effective, “defect mats”. These look something like the sketch below (unfortunately I’m not allowed to take my camera onto the shopfloor, so you’ll have to put up with my diagrams!):

Raquel said that some of the shopfloor think that lean is just corporate nonsense, but for the large part, I think they’ve achieved a successful buy-in. Everyone does exercises in the mornings, there’s an HSBC branch on the shopfloor (?!) and there’s a definite feeling of employee satisfaction. (And did I mention, there was a musician playing guitar in the canteen? How lovely!)

However, despite this rosy picture that I am painting, the factory is far from perfect. The figures on the KPI boards for things such as On-time Delivery and Defect rates were fairly erratic. I think a closer inspection may be required. Whilst much of the shopfloor is a textbook example of how to implement lean systems, other parts of it are a textbook example of what happens when it is only implemented in certain areas of the supply chain.

Anyway, I’m writing this whilst sat in little café eating chocolate torte and enjoying the sunshine. It’s a hard life.

Olá Brasil!

As part of my Ignite project, I’m looking at Sustainable Manufacturing; in particular, I’m really interested in how it fits into the Corporate Social Responsibility agendas of multinational businesses, especially in developing economies.

CSR is a bit of controversial topic to say the least – is it driven by a genuine concern for the wellbeing of our society or is it just PR spin? Whatever the motives may be, I see sustainable manufacturing as a cornerstone for a strong CSR policy, and I don’t think there’s any way that it could be described as a publicity stunt. To make a process “lean and green” requires commitment and investment from all levels of a company, it demands continuous review and it will often result in a cultural shift within the organisation; this may be a result of the recognition that, in a marketplace with dwindling resoures, more efficient, sustainable processes are required in order for a company to remain a competitive player. In other words, I think there is too much at risk for this to be a mere marketing tool.

My own experience of sustainable manufacturing in the UK is, to be honest, pretty poor. I’ve yet to see a company where I’ve thought “Wow”. There’s a lot of talk but I always feel it’s just hot air.

 So, to see if I can find some really good examples, I’ve headed out to Brazil where I’ll be working with one of the world’s leading manufacturing companies, who produce key components for almost all of the major automotive brands such as Audi, Volkswagon, Fiat and Toyota. They are renowned for their environmental policies and for their commitment to sustainable manufacturing. I’ll also be visiting other factories in southern Brasil to give me the chance to compare strategies and best practice.

I’m not overly sure what the outcome of this project will be but, ultimately, I want to gain a better understanding of sustainable manufacturing than I could from a textbook.

The First Blog.

Well, hello, and welcome to my first blog.

First up, I guess should explain what brings me to WordPress – a while ago I started working with Ignite Futures, an organisation which supports young engineers (http://www.ignitefutures.org.uk/); I’m currently studying Innovative Manufacturing  Engineering at Loughborough University and I thought this would be a good way to chart my progress into, what I hope, will be a succesful career! (And if that fails, at least you’ll be able to learn from my mistakes.)