• RoHS / ISO compliance. Applicable PANDUIT products comply with the material restrictions of European directives on the Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS; 2002/95/EC) and Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE; 2002/96/EC). All global PANDUIT manufacturing facilities are registered to the ISO 14001:2004 and ISO 9001:2000 standards.
• Design for Environment. PANDUIT includes operational energy efficiency, end-of-life, and disposal considerations for all product designs. Our product life-cycle analysis helps us choose materials that have the least possible impact on the environment when we process them, as our customers use them, and at product end-of-life and disposal. PANDUIT always chooses the greenest available technology consistent with achieving product form, fit, and function to manufacture our electrical and networking solutions. Also, our global manufacturing facilities are strategically located to reduce the environmental impact of shipping PANDUIT products worldwide.
• Lean Manufacturing. PANDUIT maximizes customer value by relentlessly identifying and eliminating waste in every aspect of our business. Our Lean Manufacturing teams have developed best practice initiatives which go beyond simple waste reduction to true pollution prevention: materials used in the production process are reviewed for environmental effect, process outputs are reviewed for reuse or recycling, and manufacturing techniques are optimized to (1) reduce or eliminate the production of waste and (2) maximize recyclability of unavoidable non-product process outputs.
• Energy Management. Since the energy crisis of the early 1980’s, Panduit has had an active energy management program at all of its facilities, worldwide. The program is headed up by a Corporate Energy Manager with active involvement from Energy Coordinators at each of our major manufacturing, warehousing and office facilities all over the globe. This Energy Team meets on a regular basis to assure that corporate energy guidelines are both current and enforced, to review active energy conservation projects currently in progress at each facility, and to share best energy practices developed at each location in coordination with our Lean Manufacturing initiatives. Corporate energy goals are established on a yearly basis, and key performance indicators are monitored, measured, and reported in an annual report to the President. The Energy Team concentrates on completing specific energy conservation projects each year in order to meet goal objectives. Energy conservation projects are typically centered on three key areas: manufacturing and process initiatives, facilities planning and operation, and recycling efforts. Over the past 10 years, projects focusing on energy efficiency have reduced electricity and natural gas usage at our manufacturing sites by 32.6 % (in total energy as of 2007 data). Current efforts are underway to reduce overall energy intensity (energy used for a standard unit of production) of all facilities 1.46 kWh by 2013. The following is a brief summary of past and ongoing successful energy reduction projects that have contributed to the success of our program:
A) We strongly rely on in house manufacturing and machine controls engineers to design, specify, build and modify new and existing machines as required for optimum energy performance. Some notable successes have been to design & install our own proprietary PanCim system, and we have both designed and built our own controls for process equipment
B) Our central warehouse facility contains over 10 miles of conveyor system. Corporate electrical engineers designed and implemented enhanced energy management logic & controls which have greatly reduced conveyor operating costs.
C) For our plating operations, engineers implemented improved hoist controls and other process improvements with similar results. In general, due to advanced automation engineering capabilities, Panduit has been able to successfully increase machine capacities resulting in more output (efficiency) resulting in less energy usage and a smaller industrial footprint per part manufactured.
D) Compressed air: Annually perform ultrasonic leak testing on all systems & make required repairs. When purchasing new units, use the highest efficiency models available. Use computerized staging to exactly match unit operation to load. We capture all rejected waste heat in winter and reuse it in the facility to supplement domestic heating. Lower system set-points to the minimum required for the process or operation. In plating, we’ve eliminated the use of compressed air entirely and replaced with low pressure blowers.
E) Chilled Water and Dehumidification: Raised mold chiller set-point by 25 degrees in all molding operations. This change had a tremendously beneficial effect on the molding area environmental control levels. By successfully raising the chiller temperature, similar changes in room humidity and temperature levels became possible. Room RH levels were increased by 12 to 14%, and room temperatures were raised by 7°F. Since Panduit has molding operations world-wide, these changes resulted in an almost 50% decrease in energy usage for these support systems. Raising these system set-points also resulted in additional energy savings. A higher chilled water operating temperature allowed us to remove thermofluids (freeze inhibitors) from the system. A straight water system provides a better coefficient of heat transfer in the molds resulting in improved machine cycle times. A higher room temperature allowed the use of more free outside air cooling in the fall, winter & spring months, and a higher chiller operating temperature allowed the use more free outside cooling (via air to water heat exchangers for more hours of the year).
