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Daily CSR

Daily CSR
Daily news about corporate social responsibility, ethics and sustainability

LEDs At GM Turned Out To Be Environment & Pocket Friendly



02/27/2019

GM is in the middle of a shifting process towards LEDs which aims to finish by 2020 and already the automaker counts its benefits.


Dailycsr.com – 27 February 2019 – General Motors has won the “EPA ENERGY STAR® Partner of the Year award” for seven times, while continuing to show its leadership in the field of sustainability as it operates with “superior” efficiency. From the year of 2010, GM has saved over “$230 million” from energy costs as it reduced “1.8 million metric tons of carbon emissions” by implying “energy-reduction challenges” in “many of its facilities”.
 
From the year of 2015, the “Lighting Strategy Committee” at GM began to improve the lighting systems in its “large production” facilities. They found the “energy-efficient LED” to be promising and sought to figure out if the invest would fetch the desired environmental impact. As a result, they turned to trusted advisor for help.
 
Gene Taylor, the Account Manager is the current leader of the project who explained the committee members the benefits of establishing “standardized LED” lighting systems which could help the company’s “long-term energy usage” plans. In the meantime, the team led by Taylor brought to GM’s notice the sharp fall in the LED price in the recent years. In his words:
“We built a commercial and technical business case for LED going step-by-step. There are many types of lighting environments that GM has to think about—from assembly to production to paint—and they wanted a fixture that appropriately fit those different areas. It also had to be affordable, given the tens of thousands of lights that would be going up, and we were able to alleviate those concerns in multiple iterations. The strong dialogue between our teams can’t be understated here; it takes excellent communication to successfully steer a project this size.”
 
GM found that Current’s “Albeo™ LED high bay lighting fixtures” provided the solutions it was looking for, as Taylor added:
“This had to be a solution GM could put in place and not think about for 10 years or more. In fact, five of the sites selected for LED were new manufacturing facilities or existing plants where millions of square feet would be added. In each case, we were looking at between 5,000 and 7,000 fixtures total, so it absolutely had to be the right choice.”
 
On the innovative front, Current’s LED system provided “Albeo fixtures without silicone components”, as silicon is not a desired element in a “highly sensitive production environment”. And Taylor explained further:
“Because of this, the GM team wanted to understand everything inside the fixtures and challenged us to modify the design to meet their specific requirements. The scale of this project and the expertise of our design engineers made it possible to go down that path and, following rigorous technical certifications, deliver the level of customization GM needed.”
 
Talking about collaborating with world giants, he exclaimed:
“Working in concert with many of the world’s largest companies to solve new challenges is all part of elevating our product portfolio over time”.
 
GM has so far installed over “50,000 fixtures” in more than twenty of its facilities situated in North America, while the installation work in the remaining sites still continues. 2020 seems to be the deadline for completing the installation work in all of its facilities, and as of now the automaker is saving more than “$2 million annually”. Furthermore, Taylor stated:
“The product quality is high, and it’s extremely reliable. And if something goes wrong, they know we’re standing behind it. This experience—the ability to differentiate our product and engage GM directly—was very productive and something we couldn’t have done through typical channels.”
 
However, Taylor is also aware that:
“With LED comes the opportunity to install a digital ceiling in your facilities. And while you may not be ready to go down that path just yet, putting the infrastructure in place today is a huge step to future-proofing your business as data solutions become intertwined with building systems and built infrastructure.”
 
 
References:
3blmedia.com