Improvements can be made to...

Measurement

• Measure and track your usage rates for energy, water and ingredients.
• Ensure that your suppliers measure, and are accountable for, the quality of their product or service, including environmental impacts.
• Define the optimum start up conditions for each process, and train staff to minimise start up losses.
• Measure what you sell or package and ensure you do not give your product away.Assess your environmental performance regularly.

Recording

• Keep maintenance/material safety data sheet manuals in an easily accessible place (and keep them up-to-date).
• Keep current records up to date and manage your historical records effectively.

Reporting

• Devise reports in terms of products that you sell. For example, litres of water per tonne of product, or kilograms of waste per tonne of product.
• Track usage rates of raw materials, for example, product yields, number of spills and waste output rates.
• Develop a system to record your measurements, and determine full cost attribution for each waste product (that is, know how much each waste really costs).
• Be consistent when taking and recording measurements.
• Establish regular reports for major resource consumables including water and energy. Report all consumption by a per unit production basis, not by time (for example, litres of water/unit of production not litres of water/minute).

By measuring the rate at which resources are consumed and wastes produced, you will be able to manage improvement in your business, particularly in increasing efficiency and reducing waste…and proving it!