case studies - Dresser-Rand

OPERATIONAL EXCELLENCE IN
OUR OPERATIONS
16 DRESSER-RAND
Our primary environmental impact is derived from manufacturing our
products. We use a specialized software application to track our direct and
indirect energy usage for our Scope 1 and Scope 2 greenhouse gas (GHG)
emissions. We report under the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) direct energy
consumption (EN3), indirect energy consumption (EN4), and total direct and
indirect GHG emissions (EN16). Our software uses the globally accepted
World Resources Institute GHG Protocol and the ISO 14064 standard to
collect our GHG emissions data. A third-party firm provides integrated
advisory, financial and implementation services for the energy value chain.
We continue to apply our lean manufacturing and lean office processes
to reduce waste in manufacturing and transactional processes. In 2011,
our Global Process Innovation group coordinated lean initiatives and
environmental stewardship through the Lean Sigma Certificate workshop
for the third year running. The workshop was expanded to encompass
more of our worldwide locations in 2011. A total of 189 participants graduated
in 2011 from the Lean Sigma Certificate workshops, and 54 Lean Sigma
improvement projects resulted from these workshops. The majority of these
lean improvement projects yielded increased capacity and reduced cycle
time via the elimination of wasteful, non-value-added activities.
We continue to expand the implementation of a client-focused, continuous
improvement toolkit to improve quality, on-time delivery, health and safety,
and profitability. Six Sigma workplace process implementation continues
within our manufacturing sites. Each site has established a scoring matrix to
determine sustainability improvement. A process is in place for self-audits on
the requirements of the scoring matrix, with follow-up audits by the respective
site leadership teams.
We are making significant progress introducing Standard Work Processes
in our service centers. Through 2011, more than 35,000 work instructions
have been standardized, written and translated into the respective service
center location’s local language. Results of this activity indicate significant
improvement in efficiency of such complex tasks as teardown and rebuild of
steam turbines.
In 2011, Dresser-Rand worked with its transportation and logistics providers
to continue to identify opportunities for decreasing its carbon footprint.
Actions taken included the consolidation of shipments where possible and
slow steaming of ocean-going vessels to reduce the carrier company’s
carbon footprint.
We also continue to evaluate our fork truck fleet for opportunities to reduce
the number of combustion engine emission–style trucks and replace them
with electric trucks. In March 2012, we entered into an operational lease to
replace 25 combustion engine–emission trucks with electric-style fork trucks.
Jim Methven
Director, Global Singular Processes