Ford's manufacturing management sets environmental goals, which for 2007 included the following.
- Global water use: a 3 percent decrease from 2006 levels
- Global facility energy use: a 3 percent energy efficiency improvement
- North American facility energy use: a 3 percent energy efficiency improvement
- North American volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions: 24 gm/m2
- North American landfill waste reduction: a 5 percent decrease from 2006 levels
Progress against these goals is discussed in the performance section.
During 2005, we began implementing an Environmental Operating System (EOS) at our North American assembly plants. As a counterpart to our Quality Operating System (QOS), the EOS provides a standardized, streamlined approach to maintaining compliance with all legal and Ford internal requirements. The EOS drives compliance responsibility to the operations level by assigning compliance-related tasks to the appropriate personnel and tracking their completion.
The EOS is integrated with other key management systems at the plant level, including ISO 14001 and the Ford Production System (FPS). EOS provides information, standardized tools and processes to support ISO 14001's requirement to identify and manage compliance issues. The FPS, which sets expectations across the full range of manufacturing performance areas, requires plants to complete implementation of the EOS to attain a high rating.
EOS is in place at all North American assembly and stamping plants, and will be rolled out to all North American powertrain plants by year-end 2007. Implementation of EOS has also begun in Ford of Europe.
Ford has moved to group ISO 14001 certification for its plants in North America. All powertrain plants share a single group certification. Likewise, assembly plants, stamping plants and Ford Customer Service Division facilities all have a single group. Instead of being audited yearly by a third party, each plant is now audited every three years. Group certification provides cost and time savings, with no degradation in plant environmental performance.
