Environmentally-conscious types have not always gotten along with hard-headed business types. The two groups have different goals: the first to protect the environment, and the second to make a profit.
Are these two goals irreconcilable?
Hopefully not. In the case of assembly plants (not, historically, the favorite places of Sierra Club members), there are ways to seek both environmental protection and profit potential.
Assembly Services Cannot Afford to Buy All New Green Gadgetry
Some environmentalists expect businesspeople to shell out massive amounts of money to purchase new greener equipment. That attitude does not work when dealing with the assembly industry.
Assembly plants are already squeezed, struggling to stay afloat in a world where somebody else can always do the job for cheaper and mass layoffs may be just around the corner. In such an industry, asking the boss to buy a bunch of expensive new stuff is a surefire conversation killer.
It is simply not possible in the assembly industry to buy everything new and still be competitive on price with assembly services that are using existing and refurbished machinery effectively.
Assembly Services Can Go Green By Re-Purposing Waste
One of the best places to start the conversation about how to make assembly more green is to talk about how the end of the assembly process is handled. Materials and machines used by assembly services inevitably create waste, as products produce by products and machines are replaced.
An assembly service that puts together electronics motherboards, for instance, uses silicon, metal, glues, and many other substances. In the process of assembly, various machines grow old from use and must be discarded at some point.
Assigning a manager at the assembly plant to evaluate how to re-purpose waste and refurbish old machines may produce tangible environmental and business results. The American Indians used every part of the buffalo. So can crafty assembly service providers, if they make it a priority.
Be Honest: Are Assembly Operations Really Doing Any of This Stuff?
Great question, because theory without action does not amount to much. In fact, assembly outfits have, over the last 15 years, made their operations significantly greener.
Whirlpool took measures to make assembly of its washing machines more friendly to the environment as far back as 1995. These measures included reducing the number of parts used in assembly, tracking parts more carefully, avoiding the use of harmful liquids formerly used to coat parts, and making parts more interchangeable from one machine to another.
The International Electronics Manufacturing initiative, meanwhile, has been pushing the electronics assembly industry to adopt specific practices such as Lead-Free Assembly.
Assembly Companies Can Market How Environmentally Aware They Are
By using PR and marketing to inform people that assembly companies care about the planet, too, environmentally sound practices that make business sense may become more widely adopted.
An assembly service that successfully implements a more environmentally conscious way of doing things can cause big change by spreading the word far and wide.
Sources
Clean Process Advisory System
International Electronics Manufacturing Initiative
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