A former cutting tool worker and lifelong environmental activist dies in a plane crash on his way to a “Save the planet” conference in New York. When he reaches the gates of heaven, he is shocked. He is told that he is destined for hell. He is not happy with this decision and harasses the gatekeeper with his protests. “I have lived and worked sustainably and have always paid my CO2 taxes in full. My net CO2 footprint was always less than half my shoe size.” His increasingly shrill protests continue for some time. After all, it is too much for St. Peter, who is becoming more and more irritated! “Listen, you idiot, we’re doing you a favor. First: You won’t be bothered down there by angry vegans who are upset because you can’t resist the occasional fillet steak. Second, instead of freezing your butt off, like the poor guys on earth, you have it comfortably warm in hell! But, here comes the most important reason: You will meet all your friends and don’t have to listen to the accusations of the climate crisis fanatic brigade you should have made some more! The crashed one gives himself purified and joyfully starts his way down.
You don’t have to go along with every trend, but…
Sustainability, green production, climate-friendly operating procedures – all areas of our living and working environment are currently subject to the dogma of greening. The figurehead of this movement may only be a Swedish teenager wearing braids, but its message is heard all over the world and inspires protests and mass movements. So you have to jump on the bandwagon and think about how to make production greener, don’t you? After all, you want to avoid becoming the target of the next online protest storm. In addition, sustainability is an almost unbeatable marketing argument in times of industry 4.0. Who can resist the prospect of higher sales figures? But what does green manufacturing actually mean? Which solutions are really promising to become more sustainable?
Some things you have to find out for yourself
Well, unfortunately, we can’t give you any answers to that either. After all, we have to take care ourselves not to become a victim of the green enthusiast. In order for us to succeed, we have thought intensively about how we can contribute to sustainability with our software for manufacturing operations. And that ultimately also benefits you, the customers of our products. Here we show you a few measures that, in our opinion, can contribute to achieving industry 4.1, a greener, more environmentally friendly manufacturing process. On the one hand, we show you what MySolutions does internally to be more sustainable and environmentally friendly. It’s also about how our software can help you produce more sustainably. So we also look at how manufacturing companies can do their part to achieve a cleaner environment. Let’s start with a definition of what sustainable manufacturing actually means.
How do you define sustainability in manufacturing?
Sustainable manufacturing is defined by the aim of minimizing waste production and reducing environmental pollution. These goals are to be achieved primarily through practices that influence product design, process design and operating principles. Therefore, sustainable manufacturing can be defined as a system that integrates product and process design issues with manufacturing, planning and control issues to identify, quantify, evaluate and manage the flow of environmental waste. The ultimate goal is to reduce the environmental impact to the Earth’s self-rescue capacity while trying to maximize resource efficiency.
Sustainable production approaches– Three R’s are not enough
Sustainable manufacturing requires that all manufacturing operations strive for the following four activities:
- Reduction of energy consumption
- Reduction of water consumption
- Reduction of emissions
- Reduction of waste generation and minimisation of wearing parts
Sustainable manufacturing integrates sustainable activities at all levels of a company: product, process and system. You may already be familiar with the 3Rs as Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. However, this scheme must be complemented by other measures such as recovering, redesigning, refurbishment and so on.
MySolutions goes green – How our software for manufacturing companiespromotes sustainability
One of the most important steps we want to take at MySolutions with regard to sustainability is the goal of paperless production. We want our customers to be able to work paperless. All our systems for monitoring real-time data are optimized for digital display and show you the results on screens instead of dead trees. But of course, our efforts to make production more sustainable do not stop there. With our webinars, we promote the further training of your employees not only in a time- and cost-saving way. The purely digital processing also minimises the environmental impact, as here too paper is largely dispensed with and the participants minimise their CO2 footprint due to the lack of the need to be physically present at a specific location. Finally, the MySolutions software for manufacturing companies also helps you to reduce the environmental impact of your company through process optimization.
And what does all this do for you and your company?
In addition to the important environmental benefits, the pursuit of sustainability can improve both your company’s performance and profits. By incorporating sustainable practices into the entire process and supply chain, your business will save money, improve products, streamline operations and increase revenue. Even small investments in sustainability can reduce a company’s operating costs by up to 20% and contribute up to five percent to profits. And as your company’s green reputation grows, so does its value to the financial world. Just remember that companies with a bad “green reputation” suffer from an average increase in credit costs of 0.64%.
The MySolutions Group believes that implementing and promoting sustainability is right for our world, our people and our profits. We are committed to continuously improving the sustainability of manufacturing at our and your site. We would be happy to discuss with you personally which measures are possible to promote sustainability in your company.