The 2008 Assembly Plant of the Year is a leader in green manufacturing. In fact, the IBM High-End Server Plant in Poughkeepsie, NY, is a pilot site for IBM’s new Green Sigma consulting initiative, which was launched in August.
Green Sigma is based on Six Sigma, the successful business strategy that has been used to analyze operations to improve overall efficiency, lower costs, increase quality, and add, change or eliminate activities and processes to improve overall performance. The goal of Green Sigma is to apply principles of energy and water usage to lower environmental impact, increase efficiency and reduce costs.
“There’s a fundamental truth to understanding and improving any aspect of a company’s performance-if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it,” says Dave Lubowe, global leader of IBM’s operations strategy consulting practice, which is spearheading the Green Sigma initiative. “This applies as much to a company’s energy and water consumption as it does to anything else, and our new offering can help clients apply this principle to make their businesses greener.
“The constraints and costs of energy and water usage are rising at an accelerating rate, with a significant impact on business operations and financial performance,” Lubowe points out. “In addition, companies are coming under increasing pressure from governments, advocacy groups, investors, prospective employees, and consumers to make their operations, products and services more socially responsible, particularly regarding the environment.”
Green Sigma consists of a five-phase approach to managing operations and environmental practices: