PCF in Assembly-Oriented Industry and Process-Oriented Industry

process-oriented industry which is mainly in the focus of the data collection part.

Assembly Type—Supply Chain Engagement

The examples of assembly industry are the Electronic Manufacturing and Automobile industries. Due to the large amount of components and their embedded carbon footprint, the PCF of the assembly industry is focused on getting the accurate footprint data from the suppliers. These data include the BOM of components that are imported to suppliers, and primary activity data of production and transportation in the suppliers’ plants. As the case of Dell shows, the emission from the production of components is second or equal to the user phase, which are the Top 2 portions of the total life cycle emissions. Adding the fact that the number of components is a big figure, more time and effort may need to be spent on the upstream of the supply chain, in this assembly-type industry.

Point of Entry Participation Procedure Project & Process _Management

Pilot- Oriented Process- Oriented Market- Oriented Business-As-Usual Task Senior-Management- Group Initiated Task Incorporate PCF task into firm strategy Internal: product department External: limited Internal: Product, Mfg, & Logistics External: Sufficient Internal: Product, Mfg, Logistics, Marketing, & Public Relationship External: Extensive Scope: Selected Stages of Product LC Tools: Rely on Software Scopes: Full LC of Product with Selected Focuses Tools: Software & Consultancy Templates Scopes: Extensive coverage of Full LC Tools: Software and Routinized System Limited Support outside PCF team 1-2 month Extensive support from relevant departments 4-6 months Special Team set up and High-level Management Group Involvement 7-9 months Assessment Dimensions Maturity Level of PCF

169

As the carbon footprinting is the new issue in supply chain management, and new to most of the suppliers as well, then awareness cultivation, engagement and carbon audit capability development become the key focus. And these are all related to the data quality provided by suppliers.

Cases of Acer, AUO, BenQ and Lenovo all show significant effort devoted to the supplier capability development. In the framework we proposed, a general meeting with suppliers, which is usually combined with the yearly supplier conference, should be organized to raise their awareness to the carbon issue. At the same time, the first training section provides suppliers with basic concepts and an auditing requirement. For the suppliers, the ISO14064 standard can gives sufficient preparation for the carbon footprinting. After sending out data collection templates to suppliers, a second training section should be conducted in order to counsel suppliers to fill in template forms. The Taiwan Industrial Development Bureau (IDB) program gives a good example of engaging suppliers for PCF—tutorial workshop with focal firm and its key suppliers attending side by side. So the instant interaction between a focal firm PCF team and suppliers enables there to be a high-quality-communication between them. After the second training, suppliers should be clear about the requirement for data collection templates, and return the data to the focal firm’s PCF team. One to two site-visits should be implemented for two purposes: first, to advise the suppliers on how to collect data, in case suppliers return low-quality activity data; second, to give a review and verification on the suppliers’ data collection practices to ensure that data is valid.

Process Type—Internal Production

Examples of a process-oriented industry are food & beverage manufacturing, steel, and chemical manufacturers. Compared to assembly type industry, process type manufacturers have a much smaller number of raw material suppliers, either by its types of raw material or by the numbers of suppliers for each material. For the steel industry, the key suppliers, who are ore suppliers , are usually only a handful. Also, instead of spending a huge amount of time engaging suppliers, there is a much more complicated internal production process for these process type manufacturers.

Training for internal department staff is especially necessary in order to obtain accurate primary activity data. Primary activity data from energy and material is easy to obtain for firms that have regular auditing practices. The time and effort consuming task comes from the allocation of activity data due to the complicated production processes. The common allocation bases include economic value, weight, unit, workforce (per head times hour), etc. The carbon footprint of semi-products, such as Beer in the Tsingtao case, can be allocated according to different bases along the production flow. This allocation principle is usually discussed between the PCF team and its external consultants.

170

Considering more special aspects in the footprint calculation is another issue that assembly-type manufacturers do not usually need to be concerned about. Issues such as land use change, internal renewable energy use, electricity exported to grid, are within the consideration of the PCF team in process-type manufacturers, because the focal firm’s plant has implemented a CHP system, and in the food & beverage industry focal firms have agriculture-related activities directly in their product life cycles.

But the basic principles and PCF processes in PAS2050 are applicable to both of the two-types of manufacturers.