Boeing's environmental programs start with suppliers
By Brian Milligan -- Purchasing, 6/3/1999
Want to be known for your environmental approach to purchasing? Start with your suppliers. Teach them about environmentally safe initiatives. Give them input and feedback. And, above all, make them a part of the process.Those are the lessons The Boeing Co. is learning as it tries to protect both its internal environment and the world outside. It's an effort that gains importance each day, as OEM companies and their customers realize they are working with resources that are limited, and the ecosystem they come from must be protected.
"We've done our best to come up with things that are safer, healthier, and more beneficial to the environment," says Pat Doscher, manager of environmental risk management and analysis for the material division of Boeing's commercial airplanes group. Since 1988, Boeing has increasingly aimed policies designed to keep its aircraft program, including supplier activities, environmentally safe. There were early initiatives, for example, that helped Boeing discourage suppliers from using toxic cleaning solvents like methylene chloride.
Starts with research
Doscher calls Boeing "proactive" when it comes to communicating its environmental initiatives with suppliers. The company's process begins with basic research. Doscher asserts that Boeing conducts careful research to choose materials and processes that would have the least negative impact on the environment. Getting a supplier to use a corrosion-inhibiting compound or a low-solvent paint that does not have a lead base, for example, is important to Boeing. Doscher says Boeing is careful to communicate its needs to suppliers.
"If [suppliers] use a material that is not environmentally friendly, we have them change to an environmentally friendly material," Doscher says.
She notes that much of the company's environmental initiatives with suppliers are driven by regulations. The company comes under heavy scrutiny from the Federal Aviation Administration, and the Environmental Protection Agency has explicit regulations regarding the aerospace industry. The company's use of paints, potentially ozone-depleting substances, and other potentially hazardous materials are carefully watched.
Still, she asserts there is an art form of bringing the initiatives to the suppliers in the right way. On one hand, Boeing communicates its environmental initiatives through constantly upgraded Web sites. But it also sends suppliers questionnaires, asking them if they understand the policies and their reasons. These questionnaires were once mainly distributed to suppliers in the United States, with an emphasis on Washington and California, the two states that provided most of Boeing's materials. Suppliers like AlliedSignal and the Connecticut-based United Technologies' Hamilton Standard unit all were tops on this list. The brochures are now distributed globally.
Not all companies are convinced that the questionnaires, or surveys, are the best way to do this, however. Catie Blackler, an environmental specialist with the New York-based Eastman Kodak Co., said suppliers today tend to feel inundated by such questionnaires. Blackler says Kodak is learning that suppliers would be happier if they saw some unification in the surveys and follow-ups on environmental initiatives.
"I think there will probably be an opportunity for large companies to get together and do this certification or questioning, surveying of the supplier base together," she says. "We are hearing a push-back from suppliers on this, that they are inundated by questions from these companies.
"We are learning to work in a way that is not overwhelming our supplier so much," she continues. "So our response to the surveys is not as great as we had hoped."
But Boeing goes further than surveys. Company representatives conduct onsite visits to suppliers to communicate the initiatives and seek input. It's an interactive process that is important to a final-assembly company like Boeing, which is highly dependent on suppliers for aircraft parts. Doscher says Boeing must take as many steps as possible, but it's complicated by being part of an industry that goes through constant surges and lulls in supply demand. "We are subject to ups and downs," she says. "The amount we contract with a supplier today is different than what we will have tomorrow. We need to promote a lot of good will.
"Our suppliers are our future," she continues. "Frequently, they are conducting processing that carries a lot of environmental risks. The more we help them, the more we keep them in business, and they reserve capacity for us."
Boeing's environmental technical support staff conduct assessment visits, a kind of environmental "checkup," with its suppliers. The twice-yearly visits are designed to provide better communication about the initiatives, and help suppliers understand their reasons.
Doscher says the standards are intensive, with Boeing adhering to strict specifications when it comes to a supplier's material. Boeing is revising these specifications to emphasize environmental protection. The company now starts the process by providing its engineers with a generic design document that points out the environmental directives. "The document has safety, health, and environmental issues in it," she says. "The designer thinks about that from the beginning rather than thinking about it in hindsight and forcing us to do extensive revision."
Cost savings result
Doscher also says companies like Boeing will see a lot of cost savings when they implement such environmental initiatives. By creating a more efficient ordering system, they can cut down on waste. She recalled how some initiatives strictly pointed out how perishable composite materials like paints and adhesive must be ordered. "We changed our ordering system, and worked it out with suppliers so we would get perishable materials just-in-time," Doscher says. "Now we are not disposing anywhere near the quantities that we used to. There is a tremendous waste savings that way."
But Doscher also believes the company's philosophy carries some of the credit for the initiatives. They are the kinds of initiatives, she says, that one should expect from a company like Boeing.
"We are an engineering company," she says. "Engineers are pretty forthright, honest people. We are really driven to do the right thing."
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