Ian Young, Managing Director of Insights to Excellence (i2e), says industry can expect to hear more examples of Lean and Green businesses now that a group of Victorian manufacturers have been inspired to reduce the environmental impact of their business, while ‘learning to see’ how doing the right thing environmentally, can bring considerable business benefits.
Ferguson Plarre Bakehouses recently hosted the inaugural Sustainability Insight visit at the company’s purpose built Keilor Park baking operations — the first of a series of ‘Learning To See the Triple Bottom Line’ events facilitated by i2e, with the support of Sustainability Victoria.
Local representatives from exemplar ‘Lean’ manufacturing operations and industry associations spent a morning with the Ferguson Plarre leadership team to learn about how they have reduced their environmental footprint by harnessing and redistributing heat recovered from freshly baked products, and incorporated new thinking into the development of their ‘state-of-the-art’ baking facility.
“Over the next few months, our calendar includes Sustainability Insights to Davey Water Products, PZ Cussons, Visy Recycling, and Replas,” said Young.
“All of these organisations will showcase and share with other organisations how they have linked manufacturing excellence with environmental sustainability to make their business a better business,” Young said.
Andrew McCormack from Volgren Australia said the visit highlighted the importance of a champion with passion for improvement and involving people, while Andrew Dean from Futuris Automotive said there’re lots of opportunity for the implementation of lean and green.
i2e is a not-for-profit organisation established to foster and promote an awareness of manufacturing excellence and best practice within the Victorian business community.
The pilot Sustainability Insights program extends the calendar of Innovation Insights, that is now in its 7th year. The 2009 calendar now includes a series of Services Insights and Logistics Insights , which will provide local organisations with the opportunity to ‘learn to see’ excellence in transactional and supply chain environments.
For additional information, contact Ian Young on 03 9372 3033 or go to www.i2e.org.au