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Green Suppliers Network Offers New Benefit to Performance Track Manufacturing Facilities
The Green Suppliers Network
The Green Suppliers Network is a collaboration among industry, EPA, and the U.S. Department of Commerce's Manufacturing Extension Partnership, a leading provider of technical assistance to manufacturers. The Green Suppliers Network works with large manufacturers to engage their small and medium-sized suppliers in low-cost technical reviews that focus on process improvement and waste minimization.
Teaching suppliers lean and clean manufacturing techniques can help them to increase energy efficiency, identify cost-saving opportunities, and optimize resources to eliminate waste. These reviews lead to more effective processes and products, higher profits, and fewer environmental impacts. The aerospace, automotive, healthcare/pharmaceutical, and office furniture sectors are now applying the Green Suppliers Network model.
For more information:
Regardless of the manufacturing sector in which it operates, a Performance Track facility and its suppliers are now eligible for a Green Suppliers Network Review. The Green Suppliers Review is conducted at the facility and is tailored to fit the facility’s manufacturing process. These reviews cost $7,000 and entitle the facility to five non-consecutive days of on-site technical assistance using lean and clean manufacturing techniques to enhance the performance of one process line, and a final report outlining the opportunities for improvement. If the facility has 500 or fewer employees, it is eligible for a $2,500 contribution from EPA that would reduce the cost to $4,500.
To date, Green Suppliers Reviews have identified almost $10 million in annual cost savings for 20 suppliers. By reviewing one facility process line and training employees to apply the same techniques throughout the facility, the Green Suppliers Review Team has helped suppliers to identify numerous opportunities to improve their environmental and economic performance, often achieving at least a 3-to-1 return on their investment.
Green Suppliers Network partners have made substantial gains. For example:
- Based on the findings from its Green Suppliers Review, Medegen MMS, a health care supplier in California, implemented new injection mold cleaning equipment and a new cleaning method. As a result, it reduced its generation of hazardous waste by 50 percent, as well as related hazardous waste disposal costs. An improved process flow also enabled the company to reduce its energy consumption and scrap corrugated cardboard generation.
- By improving the management of its boiler fuel, Har-Conn Chrome Co., a metal finishing facility in Connecticut, identified opportunities to reduce internal and external re-work by 50 percent and to save $36,000 per year. In total, the Green Suppliers Review identified improvements that are estimated to save the facility $424,500 annually when implemented.
- One Green Suppliers Review with Summit Corp., a
metal finishing facility in Connecticut, identified
$980,000 in potential annual savings in lean and clean
opportunities.
For further information about the new service for Performance Track facilities, please contact Richard Kashmanian at kashmanian.richard@epa.gov or (202) 566-2875, or Ted Cochin at cochin.ted@epa.gov or (202) 566-1181.