CASE STUDY No. 9637
KEY WORDS ELECTRICAL COMPONENT REELS, REUSE
Delco Electronics Corporation
One Corporate Center WH 600
Kokomo, IN 46904-9005
Contact: John P. Maher, Environmental Engineer. Tel: 317-451-5111. Fax: 317-451-5131.
Summary
Delco's Packaging Systems Group recovered and reused 30% of the incoming plastic reels of auto wiring components, reducing cost of new reels by $150,780.
Action
Delco manufactures automotive electronics for engine control, anti-lock braking, air bag deployment, instrumentation and display, comfort control, suspension control, navigation and object detection, and audio systems. The company employs about 10,500 at the Kokomo plant.
In 1991, the company determined to reduce the volume of materials sent to landfill disposal. The Kokomo Operations Steering Team--an open committee of approximately 25 hourly and salaried workers--was formed and began to examine the company's waste stream to see what might be recovered for recycling or, better still, eliminated by source reduction. Later the team also found markets for recovered materials, organized collection and transportation systems, and educated plant workers in waste reduction programs.
Waste stream analysis revealed a large volume of component reels being disposed. These are plastic reels resembling motion picture reels but used to hold continuous strings of electronic components. Along the assembly line, reels feed machines that automatically place electrical wiring in cars. Reels vary up to 13 inches in diameter and up to 18 inches wide. Many are made of polystyrene (PS, No. 6), some of combinations of plastic and paperboard. Delco was accumulating empty reels at the rate of 2,000 a day.
Delco set an objective of returning the maximum number of reels to suppliers for reuse and reusing reels internally. One of the company's suppliers agreed to reuse reels (but the others did not, citing concerns over quality, contamination, and static electricity). The reuse process began with collection of empty reels in a Gaylord box at the assembly line and then delivery to a refurbishing contractor--a sheltered workshop one mile away from the Delco plant--for sorting by size and color, cleaning, removal of labels, spraying with anti-static chemical, inspection, and just-in-time shipment to the supplier for reuse. Internally, reels are reused for interdepartmental transfer of components, averaging 10 reuses.
Reuse by the outside supplier proceeded successfully for a year but was discontinued for lack of a sufficient supply of reels to meet JIT demands, and because of transportation costs to the supplier's location in Texas.
Payback
An estimated 30% of incoming reels are reused. The cost to refurbish a reel for reuse is 58 cents; the cost of a new reel is $7.50. During 1995, Delco sent 22,656 reels for refurbishing and realized net savings in new reel purchases of $150,780. Reels that are not reused internally are sent to a plastics processor for grinding and recycling. During 1995, Delco reused or recycled 280 tons of component reels.
In mid-1996, the company purchased a new labelling machine, enabling the use of
peel-off labels on reels. This is expected to speed the refurbishing process.