Ford's Best in Powertrain Environmental Initiative Produces Impressive Results

Beginning in 2009, Ford's Powertrain Operations management challenged our North American and European powertrain plants to reach a new level of best-in-class performance on four key environmental performance metrics that support Company objectives: reductions in electrical energy use, hydrocarbon use, water use and waste to landfill. This program, called "Best in Powertrain" (BiP), is intended to improve environmental performance by spurring the learning and sharing of best practices across all Ford powertrain plants. A cornerstone of this program was the development of environmental performance goals for each of the four performance areas. The plants with the best performance on each of these metrics provide the goal that other plants are asked to achieve. Each plant is then asked to adopt annual "stretch" goals for reducing their environmental footprint in each of the four key measurement areas, based on a five-year glide-path that will enable them to reach the "Best in Powertrain" levels.

In each plant, the BiP program is spearheaded by environmental leadership teams for each of the four key performance areas. These teams are tasked with developing creative action plans to meet the BiP stretch goals for their plant over five years, in order to lessen the plant's environmental footprint. In addition, they were asked to both share best practice ideas and lessons learned with their counterparts at the other powertrain plants, and to adopt best practices developed at other powertrain plants.

"You get a much higher degree of ownership with this approach," said Kevin Poet, a launch manager at the Van Dyke Transmission Plant in southeastern Michigan. "And the process provided information resources and ideas to go along with the objectives, instead of just handing down targets."

The process of sharing information and performance accomplishments among plants is a key to the Best in Powertrain approach. For example, Poet noted that this process made information on how to improve environmental performance more easily accessible across plants. "By formalizing environmental performance reviews and reports, the BiP process ensured that the information was being used as intended, and it accelerated learning across locations. We had cross-plant discussion almost every week. At Van Dyke, we were able to take advantage of actions at other locations to improve our performance, and we learned how to avoid future issues that could affect our performance. A little friendly competition is not a bad thing, either," Kevin joked. "We cascaded what we learned about other plants' performance to our teams on the floor that are responsible for delivering to these objectives, and it gave them an incentive to go the extra mile."

Gary Johnson, Executive Director for Manufacturing in our Asia Pacific and Africa region (and formerly Director of Manufacturing for North America Engine) also pointed to information sharing and friendly competition when describing the success of the BiP program. "The BiP program kicked off as an opportunity for us to compare our plants globally in key categories," Gary said. "When we first put the metrics together, we uncovered differences of up to millions of dollars in usages from the best plant to the plant with the most opportunity for improvement. We kicked off with a meeting of all North American powertrain plants to show them the metrics and the differences, and to set up action plans to see what we could do to close the performance gaps. It wasn't easy at first, but once we had the data in front of everyone, and were able to show how different plants were meeting their targets, the rest of the plant teams started to follow. This approach has really created a lot of ownership and motivation at the individual plant level."

So far, the BiP program has had impressive results. Ford's powertrain plants have risen to the challenge and delivered significant improvements in all the environmental performance areas. As hoped, employees have also shared insights and ideas within plants and from plant to plant to spur increased innovation and performance improvements.

At the Windsor Engine Plant, in Windsor, Ontario, for example, the environmental team earnestly embraced the program and implemented actions throughout 2009 that significantly reduced their environmental footprint. Among their accomplishments, they:

• Improved energy efficiency by 42 percent compared to 2006 (on a per-unit basis).
• Reduced water usage by 17 percent compared to 2008 (on a total-volume basis).
• Reduced hydrocarbon usage by 20 percent compared to 2008 (on a per-unit basis).
• Decreased waste to landfill by 90 percent compared to 2008 (on a total-volume basis). As a result of the waste-diversion efforts, the Windsor Engine Plant is Ford's first North American plant to achieve zero waste to landfill.

Karen LeBlanc, Environmental Management Representative at the Windsor Engine Plant, indicated that every department in the plant made significant efforts to help achieve the goals. For example, by increasing the performance efficiency of their cooling towers, they saved about 14 million liters of water in 2009. Teams made the environmental goals a priority, meeting twice a week to communicate, brainstorm and coordinate efforts for maximum effectiveness.

The Van Dyke Transmission Plant also exemplifies the success of the Best in Powertrain program. Prior efforts by the plant's employees had already achieved low levels of water use, hydrocarbon/oil use, electrical energy use and waste to landfill. However, they managed to improve their performance even more and to significantly exceed their BiP goals in all of the four key performance areas.

As a result of all the North American powertrain plants' actions, North American Powertrain Operations (NA PTO) exceeded Company targets in all four key performance areas. Specifically, the NA PTO reduced water use by 25 percent in 2009 on a total volume basis, compared to a targeted 6 percent reduction. They reduced waste to landfill by 60 percent on a total volume basis, compared to a targeted reduction of 10 percent. And they reduced hydrocarbon usage by more than 14 percent in 2009 vs. 2008. These results were largely due to the extensive actions taken by the Livonia Transmission Plant, Windsor Engine Plant and Sterling Axle Plant in increasing accountability for hydrocarbon usage and fixing water leaks.

In 2010, we are expanding the Best in Powertrain environmental initiative to include our Asia Pacific and South American powertrain plants, as well as formalizing the program in Europe, which will expand our learning community – and our environmental improvements – even further.