Our company just went into an environmental "Surveillance Audit" for R2. Some advice for people who are getting certified, or thinking about getting certified...
The temptation is to think that on the second audit, you've done this before. You got the initial certification, you think that's the hard part. No. Joining the Army is the easy part. Staying in the Army is the hard part.
When you think about it, there aren't too many economic incentives to keep someone out of a certification, whether it's E-Stewards, or R2, or ISO, etc. What the company is signing up for is a process. It's like joining a church, it's not about your past sins, it's about your commitment to being better.
What happened prior to our Surveillance Audit was that I took two trips to the Southwest (things are heating up at Retroworks de Mexico, despite the snow down there) and left people I trust in charge. They have earned my confidence, as in confidence to do what I've trained everyone is our culture to do.
Efficiency, Good Work, Value, Accountability. Get 'Er Done, combined with Know-How.
In that vein, everybody at the plant was motivated, without me telling them so, to make the place ship-shape. We were proud of our company, and open to the audit with open arms. A special clean up crew was assigned room by room to make sure everything was swept up and ship shape.
Well, we do "batch work" a few times a year. Like we let the projection tubes build up until there will be enough of them to actually fill barrels with ethyl glycol. If you do them as they come in, a few per day, you tie up more floor space with 1/8 full barrels which are actually more susceptible to spills than the projection tubes they were stored in. So it makes sense, operationally, to store up 30 gaylords of the projection tubes when things are busy in the summer, and to keep people employed in the winter by draining them in a batch.
LCDs are similar. In the first batch, you test working. In the second batch, of the ones not working, you examine for capacitors and other "easily" repairable problems (for those in the know). In the third batch, you leave for last the de-manufacturing of the busted-up-beyond-hope LCDs that need demanufacturing.
You are proud of the quality of your reuse. We are led to believe, and it's true, that a lot of companies will sell the LCDs "as is" in a mixed lot. Economically, you can "externalize" the cost of the LCD demanufacturing if you use the reuse value of the working and repairable to make the other LCDs tag along, as "toxics along for the ride". So we haven't been doing that, we are proud to be tackling the hardest part of the work during the R2 winter surveillance audit.
So you've got a couple of people doing something new, something they aren't as experienced in, in the "batch work". And you have a crew of eager clean up guys, circling around, trying to make the place look neat and orderly before the auditor arrives.
Crack.
That was the thin ice.
When you think about it, there aren't too many economic incentives to keep someone out of a certification, whether it's E-Stewards, or R2, or ISO, etc. What the company is signing up for is a process. It's like joining a church, it's not about your past sins, it's about your commitment to being better.
What happened prior to our Surveillance Audit was that I took two trips to the Southwest (things are heating up at Retroworks de Mexico, despite the snow down there) and left people I trust in charge. They have earned my confidence, as in confidence to do what I've trained everyone is our culture to do.
Efficiency, Good Work, Value, Accountability. Get 'Er Done, combined with Know-How.
In that vein, everybody at the plant was motivated, without me telling them so, to make the place ship-shape. We were proud of our company, and open to the audit with open arms. A special clean up crew was assigned room by room to make sure everything was swept up and ship shape.
Well, we do "batch work" a few times a year. Like we let the projection tubes build up until there will be enough of them to actually fill barrels with ethyl glycol. If you do them as they come in, a few per day, you tie up more floor space with 1/8 full barrels which are actually more susceptible to spills than the projection tubes they were stored in. So it makes sense, operationally, to store up 30 gaylords of the projection tubes when things are busy in the summer, and to keep people employed in the winter by draining them in a batch.
LCDs are similar. In the first batch, you test working. In the second batch, of the ones not working, you examine for capacitors and other "easily" repairable problems (for those in the know). In the third batch, you leave for last the de-manufacturing of the busted-up-beyond-hope LCDs that need demanufacturing.
You are proud of the quality of your reuse. We are led to believe, and it's true, that a lot of companies will sell the LCDs "as is" in a mixed lot. Economically, you can "externalize" the cost of the LCD demanufacturing if you use the reuse value of the working and repairable to make the other LCDs tag along, as "toxics along for the ride". So we haven't been doing that, we are proud to be tackling the hardest part of the work during the R2 winter surveillance audit.So you've got a couple of people doing something new, something they aren't as experienced in, in the "batch work". And you have a crew of eager clean up guys, circling around, trying to make the place look neat and orderly before the auditor arrives.
Crack.
That was the thin ice.
