Overview

The River Rhine, it is well known,

Doth wash your city of Cologne;

But tell me, Nymphs, what power divine

Shall henceforth wash the river Rhine?

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Cologne'

Environment and safety are not popular issues with most manufacturers or service organizations. Costs of compliance, audits and inspections are non-value adding. This chapter shows why environment and safety issues should be considered critical success factors. For example, poor health and safety leads to illnesses and accidents - and significant costs for the organization. Wasted energy consumption damages the environment and damages profits. Good health and safety and environmental practice can also be used in marketing the organization - internally and externally - as a caring organization, to staff, the local community and to customers. Add to these considerations moves by institutional investors, such as the State Treasurer of California (the United States' third largest pension fund, with assets of US$250 billion), who demand environmental accountability and disclosure before investing in company stocks.

Since Wickham Skinner of the Harvard Business School published his famous article, Manufacturing - the missing link in 1969, hundreds of books and articles have been written on manufacturing strategy, mission or policy for industries. Few of these publications describe the importance of environment and safety issues as an integral part of manufacturing policy or process. What references there are seem to emphasize either a structuralist philosophy where it is believed that success in a manufacturing business comes from vision, planning, measuring and monitoring the performance...