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At Goodrich, lean includes reducing environmental waste
Goodrich Aerostructures, a division of Goodrich Corporation, is the world's leading independent full-service supplier of nacelles, pylons, thrust reversers and other structural aircraft components. In 1995 and 1996, the company’s Riverside (Calif.) plant began to implement lean techniques. Efforts expanded as early successes and productivity improvements won increasing commitment from company senior leadership. By 1999, Goodrich Aerostructures was expanding lean implementation efforts throughout many of its U.S. production facilities, as the company sought to become a lean enterprise.
Goodrich Aerostructures expanded the definition of "manufacturing wastes" to include environmental wastes and risks. As the use of lean tools became a mainstream part of facility operations, company Environmental, Health and Safety (EHS) personnel worked to integrate EHS considerations into lean initiatives. For example, EHS objectives must be identified for every kaizen event and recorded on its scope sheet. In one safety kaizen event, a team identified trip hazards in the plant and marked them with helium balloons to raise awareness and to ensure their elimination.
Right-sizing degreasing and painting equipment
At Goodrich Aerostructures Chula Vista (Calif.) facility, several production cells include right-sized painting and degreasing stations. Referred to as "little houses on the prairie," these movable (on metal skids), enclosed stations enable workers to degrease and paint small parts without needing to take them to large, centralized degreasing tanks and paint booths. This creates substantial improvements in productivity, with environmental benefits associated with reduced chemical and paint use, waste generation and air emissions.
Goodrich Aerostructures representatives indicated that had the business case for developing right-sized parts washers, paint booths and chemical treatment baths been based on environmental improvement factors, such as reduced chemical use, hazardous waste generation and air emissions, they would not have been undertaken. Any savings in that area would be significantly smaller than business benefits achieved from reduced capital and time intensity of production. In other words, the business case for change did not enter through the "green door."
Lean chemical management
Goodrich Aerostructures facilities in California shifted to lean point-of-use chemical management systems to eliminate wasted worker movement and downtime, as well as reducing chemical use and hazardous waste generation.
Employees in many work areas that require chemical primers, bonders or other substances receive right-sized amounts -- just what they need to perform their job -- in kits or from "water striders" who courier materials to the point of use (sometimes on tricycles). This avoids situations where chemicals are dispensed or mixed in quantities greater than needed, which both decreases chemical use and hazardous waste generation. Goodrich has also worked with suppliers to get just-in-time delivery of chemicals in smaller, right-sized containers, minimizing the chance of chemicals expiring in inventory.
At one California plant, the Goodrich Aerostructures point-of-use and just-in-time chemical management system has enabled the company to eliminate four 5,000 gallon tanks containing methyl ethyl ketone, sulfuric acid, nitric acid and trichloroethane. The potential for large-scale spills from the tanks was eliminated, as was the need for related risk management planning and other chemical management requirements.
Hazardous waste minimization kaizen event
Now that kaizen rapid improvement events have become a routine aspect of plant operations, EHS personnel are beginning to explicitly target environmental waste streams and risks with lean techniques. In one plant, a two-day rapid assessment of hazardous environmental waste streams included:
- Identification of all hazardous waste streams in a portion of the plant,
- Estimates of the total costs of managing these waste streams,
- Survey of staff about hazardous waste management practices, and
- Development of measurements to track progress toward reducing waste streams.
Follow-on activities and kaizen events have identified and implemented various pollution prevention and process improvement techniques that target reductions in priority waste streams.
Start at the beginning
Rethinking product and process design can produce environmental benefits. For example, Goodrich found that they could meet customer specifications, increase bond strength and reduce process flow time, while eliminating chrome from some of its anodizing process steps. Product and process design continues to be a significant focus for Aerostructures. Designing parts, products, processes and supportive processes and systems that provide the opportunity to maximize the return to the business by, among other things, minimizing EHS issues is of paramount importance. This aspect of the business is reaping rewards much beyond expectations.
Copyright © 2009 Society of Manufacturing Engineers
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| September 7, 2006 Issue: |
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