Get involved in the Made in Group discussion groups and share your insights with other manufacturers. Made in the Midlands and Made in Yorkshire are industry associations hosted on the Made Platform, a private digital network for manufacturers and their industry influencers to share their experiences.
This week's discussion group discussed how to make manufacturing greener.
Making our businesses more efficient, overcoming barriers to becoming greener, and members discussed the effectiveness of green grants.
Members who shared their insights this week included:
Daren Lightwood, Steve West, John D'Ambrogio and Jason Pitt
During the main breakfast meeting session, Daren Lightwood shared his best practice about improved efficiency in how he packages his product, resulting in a reduction of costs despite increases from cardboard suppliers and effectively saving labour time equivalent to 2.5 members of staff.
One example demonstrated by Daren included using alternative ways of moving products around the factory, including a swing hoist with better planning of the workspace, which eliminates the need for a forklift truck in some areas and increases efficiency.
Green Manufacturing breaks down the boundaries between environmental responsibility and business efficiency. It is a new way of doing business - from optimizing existing processes to new ideas in safety, quality and productivity, which enables green manufacturing to be seen through the lens of efficiency rather than as just another cost.
Members also agreed that investing in newer equipment superior in energy consumption was necessary, and it is often older equipment with old motors that drain the most energy. Adding sensors and monitoring equipment was one suggestion for companies to begin managing the process by first understanding the least efficient equipment.
In the last few years, there have been a variety of extra barriers and sometimes tariffs to deal with. The materials prices in Europe have risen more quickly and have higher volatility than in places such as the USA. Our companies are working to become more competitive, and we can mitigate some of those by being more innovative and working smarter.
It was also mentioned by some members that the insurance sector has a unique perspective on the total industry assets and could in theory be a conduit to knowledge transfer and even incentivise behaviour based on green investments.
Green barriers and grants
A barrier to green investment poised by some members included the cost because these investments often have a long payout that does set the bar high in terms of making those initial investments.
It was mentioned during the conversation that there is a 'manufacturing green growth programme', which was judged as not understanding the problem.
As one member said, the grants are for 5k on any purchase under 20k. If we're realistic, anyone who was going to spend 20k was going to do that anyway, the only difference is they have an extra 5k in their pockets, but it wouldn't have changed the outcome.
The grants need to be more meaningful to allow companies to invest in equipment that makes a difference. The grant awarded could then measure how much more efficient the business would be or carbon saved etc.
This strategy is primarily political and used by the government to show that they contribute to the economy. Peppercorn grants are small amounts given to businesses with low success rates. The impact of these grants is historically low, but the number of touchpoints is high. In good times this strategy can never really be called out because of how the government collects data and claims credit for companies' success based on small grants; governments are incentivized to do more of this, despite overwhelming anecdotal evidence it doesn't work.
We can, if scrutinized, find many government grants and resource allocations ineffective. We would benefit from more input from the companies they intend to help. This can be demonstrated by looking at the national debt. Governments are essentially large corporations with a monopoly, and as such, they are inefficient.
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