Chapter 1: Early Stage Issues

Title: Development of Ecological Plant Indicators for a Small Sized Enterprise

Author(s): Stefano Apolloni, Matteo M. Savino

Address: Department of Industrial Design and Management University of Naples Federico II, Italy | Department of Engineering Sannium University, Benevento ,Italy

Reference: International Conference on Product Lifecycle Management 2006 pp. 287 - 299

Abstract/Summary: Environmental performance is fast becoming a selection criterion both for consumer and for industrial markets; as a matter of fact some consumer market segments use environmental criteria when selecting a brand. In industrial market, supplier selection by multinational firms can also be conditioned on vendor environmental performance. This paper attempts to explore the impact of the ISO 14000 rules on a small sized enterprise. The purpose of this paper is to explore the implications that ISO 14000 adoption will have for SMEs, including how ISO 14000 will likely impact plant structure. In the end we have analysed – referring to an automotive production site – the plant utilities (electricity, compressed air, heating and air conditioning, transport) with the objective to realise an EMS with the two main tasks of minimising the environmental impacts and maximising, at the same time, global performance of those utilities in terms of energy saving and maintenance activities, and global management costs.

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