From Human to Planet: Smarter Manufacturing for Sustainability

NORTHAMPTON, MA / ACCESSWIRE / January 31, 2023 / What if there was a sensible manufacturing facility the place warmth from servers within the manufacturing home is rerouted to maintain the manufacturing house heat? Which piped in recent air to chill the servers relatively than energy-inefficient air-con? A manufacturing facility the scale of seven full-sized soccer pitches which produces vitality from photo voltaic panels on the roof?

What if there was a manufacturing facility with sustainability at its coronary heart?

There’s: the brand new Lenovo manufacturing facility in Budapest, Hungary, the place the most recent innovation is getting used to advance Lenovo’s efforts in opposition to local weather change.

And there could not be a extra vital second for this manufacturing facility to be constructed. With the significance of sustainability entrance of thoughts for thus many, Lenovo is consistently reaffirming its imaginative and prescient for net-zero emissions, making certain an emissions discount strategy aligned to the most recent local weather science.

However these objectives can typically really feel distant and onerous to understand, begging the query – what does this really imply on the bottom?

Our flagship manufacturing facility solutions this query, and extra. All of the extra purpose to look intently on the work being carried out there to innovate sustainably, and the inspirational people who find themselves making it occur.

Contained in the Manufacturing unit

Szabolcs Zolyomi, the manufacturing facility’s Website Chief, has a palpable ardour for sustainability that may be felt in any dialog.

“There’s a false impression that you could’t be a producer and an environmentalist,” he says. “This isn’t true. I’m captivated with creating, as a lot as I’m captivated with defending the surroundings.”

And after 25 years honing his abilities as each a sustainability advocate and manufacturing professional, he has a lot to be enthusiastic about. Not solely is he overseeing Lenovo’s first EMEA in-house manufacturing facility, on the similar time he’s pioneering sustainable innovation for the enterprise.

Masking nearly 50,000 sq. metres throughout two buildings and three flooring, the brand new website is one in every of Lenovo’s largest and smartest manufacturing amenities. The manufacturing line can produce greater than 1,000 servers and 4,000 workstations a day – each constructed particularly to buyer necessities.

The opening of the location additionally marks a major milestone in Lenovo’s manufacturing and optimisation journey – a key issue of our emissions discount – bringing smarter know-how nearer to Lenovo’s Europe clients and lowering emissions for its supply.

In a method, this shiny new manufacturing facility is a microcosm for our wider sustainability work. “We all know our imaginative and prescient to offer smarter know-how for all requires a number of vitality,” provides Szabolcs. “However we’re dedicated to creating this consumption as sustainable as doable, always pushing the envelope to be extra sustainable than yesterday”.

And in each nook of the manufacturing facility, there’s proof of the concrete steps Lenovo is taking to embed sustainability in its processes.

Constructing the smarter future

On a macro degree, the manufacturing facility is likely one of the most environmentally acutely aware manufacturing amenities Lenovo has ever constructed, with every of the manufacturing facility’s buildings fitted out with photo voltaic panels. The photo voltaic panels’ capability will shortly be upgraded, with the outcome being the potential for industrial-scale vitality manufacturing.

The manufacturing facility’s sustainability is just not solely supported by structural developments, however by the manufacturing processes used inside it. For instance, Lenovo’s Low Temperature Solder course of is used, which reduces carbon emissions for product soldering by 35%.

This environment friendly vitality is then being channelled into ahead considering manufacturing processes such because the Lenovo Worth Restoration programme (LVR). LVR extends the helpful lifetime of {hardware} by providing refurbished servers and spare elements to clients, lowering e-waste and serving to Lenovo attain its sustainability objectives.

Each gentle within the manufacturing facility has been put in with movement detectors to forestall wasted vitality. Workers journey to work in free shuttle buses, relatively than driving a whole lot of automobiles to and from the ability. These easy steps, corresponding to making certain all gadgets are mechanically switched off when not in use, be sure that no stone is left unturned.

Steps are additionally being taken to sort out the emissions attributable to mass heating and cooling. Within the manufacturing facility, warmth from different areas of the manufacturing home is being rerouted to maintain the manufacturing house heat. Whereas in winter, the identical house will use chilly air from exterior the manufacturing facility to chill it down – a course of generally known as air-side free cooling.

Constructing 5,000 gadgets domestically can also be dramatically lowering the freight miles these merchandise incur, offering extra environment friendly and sustainable transportation choices. “Localisation is essential to effectivity,” explains Szabolcs. “Having the ability to ship our packaging, and our merchandise from the native space drastically reduces our emissions.”

It is within the particulars

This funding in sustainability, mixed with essentially the most modern manufacturing processes, is one step towards Lenovo’s emission discount objectives and imaginative and prescient for net-zero.

However progress may also be discovered within the particulars: the on a regular basis ordinary adjustments to tradition which can be embedding sustainability within the very cloth of our manufacturing strains.

“Usually a lack of know-how holds us again,” says Szabolcs. “So, we have invested in educating our employees to apply our most sustainable insurance policies.”

Sustainability commitments can typically appear summary and distant, however the sustainable innovation discovered at Lenovo’s flagship Hungary manufacturing facility demonstrates their very actual affect. And that is just the start. Throughout EMEA, Lenovo is dedicated to utilizing the work being carried out in Hungary as a producing blueprint to scale back emissions, with plans to copy sustainable greatest practices all through Lenovo’s international manufacturing amenities.

View additional multimedia and more ESG storytelling from Lenovo on 3blmedia.com.

Contact Data:
Spokesperson: Lenovo
Web site: https://www.3blmedia.com/profiles/lenovo
E-mail: [email protected]

SOURCE: Lenovo

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