The quest for environmental and productivity improvements at the IBM/sub R/ Demanufacturing and Asset Recovery Center

As the life cycle of computers continues to decrease due to new technology and improved processing performance, many companies are faced with an increasing volume of returned end of life equipment. Without making dynamic changes to meet the required capacity, companies could be confronted with the need for more people, space, and capital equipment, all costly investments. Therefore, the performance of demanufacturing operations becomes critical to not only ensuring proper environmental disposal options, but also improving process efficiency and minimizing expense. This paper looks at how the Global-Asset-Recovery Services organization of IBM and its' Asset Recovery Center (ARC) in Endicott, NY have been able to focus on improving both environmental performance and demanufacturing productivity while meeting the challenge of processing increased returns and controlling labor, space, and capital expense. The paper identifies and discuss the key actions taken over the past six years that have led to a continuing environmental disposal improvement. The amount of material dispositioned to the landfill has decreased by over 75%. It also highlights changes and enhancements that have been made to the process and demanufacturing line to realize greater than three times growth in productivity.