When it comes to performance measurement, Sealy, one of North America’s largest bedding manufacturers, isn’t sleeping on the job.
Every one of the company’s projects—from small-scale efforts to major global deployments—has dedicated scorecards, deadlines and quantifiable expectations. “We measure everything,” says Jim Packer, vice president of supply chain management at Sealy, located in Trinity, North Carolina, USA. “We are very disciplined.”
So, when Sealy’s parent company, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (KKR), partnered with the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) to improve the sustainability of its companies, the bedding giant seemed like a natural test case.
In late 2008, Sealy and EDF added environmental metrics aimed at tracking the effectiveness of the mattress manufacturer’s initiative to reduce fuel and energy consumption in response to rising costs.
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Sustainable Savings |
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Being good to the environment is certainly nice, but Sealy is also seeing a financial payoff in its efforts to reduce material waste.
Projects to improve manufacturing processes, optimize material usage and recycle scrapwaste have saved the company more than US$4 million in material costs and prevented 650 tons of solid waste from going into landfills.
And not everything has to be a major change. To cut waste, the company has made some simple adjustments— replacing bottled water from vending machines with reusable Sealy cups and water dispensers, and encouraging employees to use projectors instead of handouts to decrease paper waste. |
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Speed monitors and UPS tracking software were installed in the company’s trucking fleet to monitor fuel usage and distance covered. The information collected was then used to optimize delivery routes, select vendors based on their proximity to Sealy plants and consolidate transportation in North America.
A team leader was assigned to the initiative, and the company established baselines and scorecards to measure incremental project results.
Within three months, the company saved US$1.2 million in fuel costs and improved the efficiency of its fleet by almost 9 percent compared to 2007, while reducing CO2 emmissons by nearly 3,000 metric tons.
Sealy has also cut greenhouse gas emissions from product delivery by 8 percent since January 2009. And as of June, the company had slashed fuel use by 19 percent—far surpassing its 8 percent reduction goal for all of 2009.
For Sealy, bringing in a partner provided a fresh perspective. “EDF is very pragmatic, and they got us looking at projects through an environmental lens. EDF helped us facilitate projects and enabled us to see what’s going on in the world beyond our four walls,” Mr. Packer says. “They energized us to go further than just year-over-year improvements.”
And the sustainability focus is starting to weave its way through the company’s culture. “We’ve seen how little decisions can make big impacts on our margins and the environment,” Mr. Parker says. “And for us, when we see that we’ve saved money and reduced our environmental impact, it’s a double [win].’”
