Report: Increased recycling will create 1.5M jobs http://www.bizjournals.com/austin/news/2011/11/15/report-increased-recycling-will.html?ana=handmark
This story continues to drive home the idea that there are other ways to create green jobs, even in the services sector. What other ways are there that our political leaders gave not thought of?
Posted in Environment, Green Manunfacturing, Leadership, Service
A recent story on the Fox newswire shows a significant number of companies that qualified for green energy tax credits for producing renewable energy products did not have enough tax liability to make use of the credits. For many emerging technology companies, they are simply not profitable yet. Therefore, no tax liability and no help. This in turn gives them more incentive to seek subsidies and manufacturing capacity in Mexico and overseas.
Other firms simply cannot fix the green investment to bring their projects to capacity. It is increasingly difficult for US manufacturers to compete, when Chinese companies are getting credit subsidies from the government. LDK Solar in China received an $8.9B credit facility from the China Development Bank. Contrast this with a total of $2.3B approved for a total of 183 projects submitted under the DOE’s 48C program. Working capital loans for manufacturing companies continues to be a problem that slows economic recovery. Availability of cash in loans (not handouts) allows US manufacturers to grow and create jobs. It’s time we looked at putting our money where the mouths we feed are and focus on loan programs for successful manufacturing companies that create US-based jobs.
An new article in the Washington Post highlights the fight for manufacturing jobs being waged by foreign countries will ing to invest in manufacturing companies for the purpose of job creation. With traditional manufacturing jobs disappearing to offshore, near shore and other outsourcing models, the fight to retain US Manufacturing competitiveness is tougher than ever.
While China and Mexico are willing to offer cash incentives to attract companies, the best incentives the US seems to be able to offer are secured loans that are available as long as the company has sufficient collateral. This will rarely be the case in a new and growing company. It’s time that the government levels the playing field for all manufacturing companies, not just subsidies to money losing entities like the airlines and auto makers. Where are the incentives for growing companies that can create real US jobs? It’s time Washington looks at the fight we are in to maintain the country as a cornerstone of manufacturing. It’s time to mobilize manufacturing as a political force with the ability to create the jobs lost over the last decade. Let your congressman know how you feel.Posted in Environment, Green Manunfacturing, Leadership, Offshoring
This article on Reuters caught my eye this last week, as we have been working hard on the designs for VirTex Assembly’s new facility. One of the largest considerations we have is ways that we can reduce, not only our overall consumption, but our peak demands. LEDs offer a number of important benefits in a manufacturing environment over traditional halogen based lighting. Halogen lights give off nearly 90% of the energy they consume as heat. This is wasted energy and requires additional energy to remove this heat using air conditioning. Even fluorescent lights can waste nearly 50% of the energy used.
In addition to being more efficient than fluorescent lights, LEDs can be dimmed and have little to no maintenance cost. they also can offer better visibility and a more natural look than fluorescent lighting. This may translate to better employee morale in a building with little outside lighting. Take a look at LED lights if you are looking to upgrade your facility or move into a new one. It may be one of the simplest and most effective green changes you can make.
Posted in Green Manunfacturing, Leadership, Lean Manufacturing
There is a good update on some topics at the 2010 Green Manufacturing Summit in the Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel this week. A topic of interest was the discussion by Foley & Lardner of the requirements being placed on suppliers by their customers, as well as state versions of Cap and Trade. These requirements, which are driven largely by Fortune 50 OEMs. 60 companies including 3M, Pfizer, Siemens and Kraft Foods are cooperating on a standard to require their supply base to reduce their green house gas emissions. These 60 companies have set a goal to reduce greenhouse gases from their supply chain by 20 million tons over the next 5 years. This will likely be a much more effective approach than a government mandate and will be much cheaper as it will be enforced by industry.
Maybe more meaningful reforms could happen in the health care insurance industry if they chose to clean up their own backyards, rather than continue the turf wars that reduce effective competition. Legislation is rarely the most productive or cost-effective method of enforcement.
I think it is time for all companies to look at their manufacturing practices and see where they can have a green impact. It’s the right thing to do, and frequently makes good fiscal sense too.
Posted in Environment, Green Manunfacturing, Leadership
In another proud economic move for California, Freshwater Tissue, the only chlorine and dioxin free pulp mill in the United States will be forced to close after being unable to get stimulus funds to convert the mill to an integrated toilet tissue plant.
Freshwater tissue had a goal to produce cost-effective, ecologically friendly products to compete against offshore competitors. When the owners bought the plant they also planned to use wasted byproducts of the nearby redwood forest. The tanoak tree, which has long been a fire hazard to the redwood forests, was to be used in the production of this tissue pulp. The plant would have created nearly 3000 jobs, as well as protecting vital natural resources.
This is the problem when stimulus money is controlled only by lobbyists and special interest groups. The money is not getting too small and midsize businesses who could use the money to create new industries in the new green economy.
Maybe Washington will eventually wake up and see that there are other industries that should receive funding. They are doing progressive and positive things in proven technologies that are good for the United States. Many of these companies are in smaller niche markets which do not get the attention that the automakers and airlines get. Until then, good companies will continue to fail, while mediocre ones benefit from their lobbyists and their greed. This is a big loss for Samoa, CA and another loss for the US green manufacturing industry.
Posted in Environment, Green Manunfacturing, Leadership
When I think of slot machines, I typically only think about the type of green that I leave behind to build new casinos. Flashing lights, buzzers and music do not exactly conjure up images of reducing energy usage. Never the less. the Leonardo Academy is developing a Standard for Sustainable Gaming, LEO-8000. Per their website, the purpose of the standard is to:
“[E]stablish a comprehensive framework and common set of sustainability metrics for the environmental, social, and economic performance of the gaming industry, including the entire supply chain and delivery chain for gaming products and services, as well as the operations of the gaming companies and organizations themselves. The standard will provide a set of metrics that encourages continuous improvement of the environmental, social, and economic sustainability performance of gaming at all levels of the supply chain. The standard will start with gaming equipment such as slot machines and work through the entire scope described.“
I don’t know about you, but if someone can make Las Vegas green, they can do darn near anything. Don’t get me wrong, I love Las Vegas, but it is really not my idea of green. I have long thought that with all of the buildings there, if you installed solar panels on all of them you could have a very green neon jungle. It is certainly un-obscured by clouds.
Again, I Just tkae this as a challenge to think about areas where you are not being green and find new ways to do things that are more green. Vegas may never be truly green, but this is a start.
Brad
Posted in Green Manunfacturing, Leadership, Service
Well, the stimulus is in full swing and the Obama administration is promising millions of new jobs through the creation of “green jobs”, but what do these really mean. Traditionally, a green job was a job working in a renewable energy sector, but this definition seems to be getting broader as more of the talking heads discuss it. So that got me thinking (and now writing about) what REALLY constitutes a green job.
If manufacturing solar cells and wind turbines are green jobs, why not production of hybrid vehicles? What about all of the Reduction of Hazardous Substances (ROHS) in electronic manufacturing? Are these jobs any less green because they are not NEW? At VirTex Assembly, we take great pains to recycle, reduce and reuse as much as possible, while minimizing the impact on the environment. Does that make us green? I would like to think so.
If a company making solar power or wind turbines is inefficient and wasteful by spending huge amounts of fuel transporting goods around the globe rather than producing them locally, does that make them less green? I would like to think that is true too. Green should be more than the industry you are in. Green should be a corporate culture. Sustainability needs to become the focus and companies working hard to reduce emissions and decrease their carbon footprint should be afforded the same opportunities. Are the hundreds of thousands of new government jobs to oversee stimulus money so it is not wasted green jobs? What about the jobs created protecting the habitat of Speaker Pelosi’s beloved salt marsh harvest mouse? It’s environmental, right? Doesn’t that make it green even if it is just another case of ridiculous pork barrel spending?
I am not naive enough to think that any of the stimulus plan will trickle down to traditional small manufacturing companies. We are not a huge bloated behemothlike the auto industry who has squandered more money than we have donein revenue in our nine year history. We will need to continue to find ways to make ourselves more competitive by focusing on ways to add value in a down economy through increasing responsiveness of service and logistics. Saving money and fuel in reduced transport costs is green, Reducing the amount of packaging materials used to ship products is green. Redesigning boxes and packaging to accomodate more product in less space while providing the same protection is green.
I think I have a green job, as do all of VirTexAssembly’s employees. And I am going to keep thinking so, until something in the very un-green (except for the color on the money) stimulus plan tell me otherwise.
Brad
Posted in Environment, Green Manunfacturing, Leadership
Well, the swing back to American manufacturing continues. DESA Heating, a Kentucky based manufacturer of heaters has signed a two year contract with the Sheet Metal Workers International Association to move jobs back to Kentucky in order to cut costs.
Across the country, manufacturing companies are starting to look at costs differently. Low cost regions are not always the best answer. When you have to ship raw materials halfway across the globe and tie up your money for six to eight weeks or more, those costs begin to add up. During the height of the rise In gas prices, it was not unusual to see fuel surcharges that added more than 20% to the cost of shipping. When this cost is not factored in, it can wreak havoc with your bottom line.
In recent posts, I have been talking repeatedly about Toyota, and what I deem the new American manufacturing model. This model balances low cost regions with other alternatives. In the new global economy, there will always be a need for low cost labor regions for manually intensive production, but one size does not necessarily fit all. Manufacturers need to look at all aspects of their supply chain and devise the supply chain scenario that is most cost effective for them. China is great for some products, Mexico for others and the United States for yet more alternatives.
Look at your total cost of acquisition, including logistics, cost of capital and warehouse space to hold larger orders. You may find that in the words of Dorothy, “There’s no place like home.” At least for some of your products. It is a lesson my customers understand, and yours should too.
Brad
Posted in Green Manunfacturing, Leadership, Offshoring
In its small business section last month, Business Week has an interesting article regarding manufacturing growth in the green sector. This article focuses on how small companies can establish new markets through focusing on the manufacture of innovative green products. These products can be easily sold to larger industries looking for a green method of reducing costs. As our nation focuses on alternative energy sources and ways to do things with less energy and more efficiently, this will become more the norm, but for now, companies embracing green resources have an open playing field.
This article came to my mind again this week as talks continued about stimulating the economy through the focus on green and the further talks of bailing out the ailing auto industry. proposal is the generation of $2 million green collar jobs via $100 billion in tax credits and direct investment. What is not immediately clear, is how this money would be spent to actually make this happen. How do we change an entire industry to provide the technology America wants and needs? What further remains to be seen is whether, as gas prices continue to drop, whether the public will forget what got us to $140 per barrel oil, and go back to our ways of waste. Even as interest in the cost effectiveness of hybrid vehicles continues to fall, it is important to look back at where we were so that we do not lose our focus on the creation of greener technologies.
We should learn from the lessons of the auto industry, who ignored the advice of Edward Deming and his quality teachings, only to have Toyota learn it first. Today, Toyota is still one of the world’s most progressive manufacturing companies, leading the charge toward lean manufacturing. Through lean and green techniques, the American manufacturer can establish areas of competitiveness, if we do not become complacent through the prospect of a government handout. With the expansion of other world economies, America needs to reestablish itself as the leader in innovation. Only through innovation can we gain a competitive advantage over lower labor markets. We have to be first to be able to achieve the highest margins. We simply cannot sit back and wait for someone else to develop the technology we need while the government rewards poor business practices.
I would challenge all US manufacturers to look inside themselves and eliminate the waste within their organizations and create a culture of lean and green. At VirTex, this is our focus and we are continually investing in the development of new ways to reduce our waste, wherever it may occur. Our customers have come to expect it and now embrace it. It’s time other manufacturers did the same. We are lean and ready, even for a continued economic down turn. Are you ready? Go green. Green pays.
Brad
