Best Practices for Selecting a World Class
Environmental Management System
Lessons Learned from OEMS
in the US & Canada
Presented by
Bob Ernest
Toyota Motor Engineering & Manufacturing
North America, Inc.
Environmental Sustainability

Manage to Succeed

Measure to Manage

Standardize to Measure
North American Pollutant Registries

México


Canada


Registro de Emisiones y Transferencia de
Contaminantes (RETC)
National Pollutant Release Inventory (NPRI)
United States

Toxics Release Inventory (TRI)
What do they have in common?
They’re all about measuring…
“A hundred ordeals, a thousand trials,
and finally the matter is accomplished”
Lessons Learned... the Hard Way
Lead to ... Best Practices
Yokoten
 Yokoten is a fundamental
practice at Toyota
 It means implementing
someone else’s practice and
reaping the benefits
 Using a system that
incorporates ideas and
countermeasures of others is a
great example of Yokoten.
Yokoten – Learning from others’
experience

Systems need to empower people and make them
more efficient

Common problems found across North America in
our industry

Some examples….
“We have a small
team. It’s really
about making sure
that the team is
efficient...
We must keep up
with expansion and
not have to
redevelop our
system”
Halle Price,
Environmental Engineer
“Our group is small, and
was recently
downsized, so we’re
kind of scrambling…
Reporting was
becoming more &
more
overwhelming…
…my accuracy
was definitely
slipping.
Maureen Ramsay,
Technical Coordinator,
Environmental Group
“Before we got a consolidated system,
we spent half our
time on QA and
correcting errors
Our IS group had developed an
in-house system that worked
well but was aging.
It needed up-keep
which they couldn’t
provide because we
were increasing
production.
Jared Lynn,
Environmental Engineer
“We needed a
system that
manages the data
and calculations
for us,
so we can spend more
time doing meaningful
work, not manipulating
data and fixing errors
every month.”
David Steedly,
Toyota Motor
Manufacturing Kentucky
“The objective of our system is
time savings, accuracy up, and
succession planning.
2 or 3 of us are
eligible for retirement
within 5 years.
Make-shift excel sheets were
going to make it very difficult for
someone else to come into this
role.”
Maureen Ramsay,
Technical Coordinator,
Environmental Group
If information is
buried in a table
in some database
and you can’t demonstrate
(to auditors) how you
calculate your emissions,
it doesn’t matter
how accurate
your results are.
David Steedly,
Toyota Motor
Manufacturing Kentucky
Adapting to change

Your system must be:



Flexible and support change
Contain a toolset to adapt to
business needs
With constant plant changes,
work is never over

You need a system that can
adjust to changes
Lessons learned...
Common Lessons
Bad System Ideas:

Systems that can not be
maintained

Unsupported Env. staff selfmade systems

Env Professionals tasked as
computer programmers

Thinking environmental systems
are static not dynamic

Choosing developer without
environmental expertise
Lessons learned...
Common Lessons
It is Time Consuming to:

Develop internal systems

Find external computer
systems

Implement computer systems

Organization is vital

Multiple databases / spreadsheets are trouble

The Team needs diverse skills – knowledge of
regulations, processes

Time Allocation is vital – don’t spend valuable
time on trivial issues

Focus on the most important chemicals /
processes

Use visual tools, material balance, flow
diagrams, process diagrams top ten lists

As soon as the report is complete have a
reflection meeting and identify improvements for
next year