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JULY – ENVIRONMENTAL & LOGISTICS

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The challenge

In our third month we ‘re looking at our environmental and logistic operations.

Operations Manager, Michael Newman looks at ways of improving the business both internally and externally here at Tridan Engineering. For this month’s case studies Michael Newman talks about the environmental and logistic improvements made at Tridan Engineering  to decrease our carbon footprint and increase our environmental contribution .

We’ll also be sharing what environmental improvements that we’re planning for the future.

Everything we do is precision focused so our task was to find those small areas of improvement and showcase how they make an overall big improvement.

Next month we’ll be looking at our HR and conventional improvements. 

Environmental-

REDUCTION IN PAPER & INK USAGE 

As an aerospace and defence supplier we’re very record heavy and retain a lot of records. Our paper and ink usage is one of the environmental aspects we have looked at improving to ensure we’re only printing when really necessary.

​Our previous procedures stated that we had to have paper copies of our customer records including purchase orders, this meant 100’s of documents were being printed and stored for long periods of time, so you can imagine how much paper had been sitting in the office!

We had a meeting to discuss these procedures and eventually had them re-written. It was clear that printing all of these documents was simply un-necessary so we started to store purchase orders and customer records digitally, reducing our paper usage by 50%. At Tridan we believe it’s important to think before you print and we encourage all of our staff to print only when needed.

Energy consumption – LED LIGHTING 

As a business, we’re always looking at ways to improve our energy efficiency whilst also improving the working environment for our staff here at Tridan.

Back in 2014 we embarked on a factory improvement project.  One of the main objectives was to reduce our carbon footprint by removing all of the old Metal Halide lighting from the factory floor and replacing it with energy efficient LED lighting. After researching the costs and energy savings of different light fittings we decided that LED lighting was the way forward. After having the LED lighting fitted we would see an energy saving  of 254 watts and a lifetime  saving of £33,450 over a 5 year period.

​The new LED lighting not only improved our energy consumption but also the working environment for the staff working on the shop floor. The project was so successful that we are now in the process of upgrading all of the office lighting with LED lights.

PACKAGING AT TRIDAN

Where possible we use packaging from incoming goods to ensure we are contributing to environmental improvement and re-using material when we can. The decision to purchase of an industrial shredder was also made so that all of the waste paper now is shredded and then re-used for packaging. We have therefore seen a reduction in polystyrene chipping which was previously used a lot more for our packaging.​​

ACCREDITATIONS & POLICIES

In 2011 we gained accreditation for the environmental management system – ISO 14001.  We also have our energy mission and environmental policy which complies with the IS0 14001 standards. These environmental standards are updated every four years and we are now ready to be audited for the new standards – ISO 142015.

Click here to  view our current environmental policy

LOGISTICS –

NEW VAN, BETTER FUEL 

Fuel and emissions is one of the environmental impacts we have looked at improving to ensure we are reducing our carbon footprint. The recent purchase of  the Vauxhall Movano, our delivery vehicle, has replaced and reduced the size of the previous van. The Movano is the most fuel-efficient vehicle in its class at 42.8mpg. The new, fuel efficient, van is another step towards reducing our carbon footprint and contributing towards a greener environment.

​We have also reduced the amount of time the van is spent on the road, from 5 days a week to 3. We have organised delivery schedules to ensure that where possible one trip to two customers close by can be made instead of two separate trips over the week. For the other two days, we prefer to use couriers if required.

HYBRID COMPANY CAR

Our MD now has the latest Mitsubishi hybrid, used as a company car. The vehicle charges at a cost of just 95p, giving the vehicle 33 miles pure electric driving. However, as it is a hybrid, if driven economically it can achieve 166mpg, coupled with 41G/Km ultra-low CO2 emissions.

More Case Studies