PACE - Partners for a Clean Environment

Manufacturing overview

Certified Businesses Certification P2 Resource Sheet Pollution Prevention

Because manufacturing as a business type is a broad category, PACE developed a flexible program to help with business-specific issues. PACE offers assistance to identify, evaluate, and implement pollution prevention and energy efficiency opportunities that will improve process efficiency and increase profits. Although PACE will work with any interested business, we are targeting our outreach to approximately 60 county businesses which utilize hazardous materials, have air and/or water emissions, or are major water or energy consumers. There are over 1000 manufacturing and R&D facilities in the county.

Sources of Pollution

Specific wastes vary based on the type of manufacturing facility. General sources of pollution can be found in each of the main business process areas, including purchasing, materials management, inventory, process management, quality assurance, and production management. Some examples of the sources of waste associated with each of these areas are listed in the following table.

Sources of Pollution from Manufacturing

Process Area	Sources of Waste	Pollution Prevention Alternatives
Purchasing, materials management, and inventory	- expired shelf life - improper storage - poor handling - incomplete materials use	- develop specifications and work with suppliers to match units of purchase with units of use - develop materials management procedures and train employees
Process management and quality assurance	- setup waste - off cuts, edge trim waste - rework and quality rejects	- develop process flow diagram to identify sources of loss (e.g. wasted materials, energy, water, rejects) - identify process improvements
Production management	- poor scheduling - excessive startup and shutdown wastes - bottlenecks	- analyze processes to find and correct bottlenecks