Karps TA
02-26-2009, 06:46 PM
Interesting to see where they are making cuts. Like only using 1 light bulb per fixture, and removing clocks.
Maybe they can start using only 3 tires per car?
From Chrysler blog
William Wolf is Director - Paint, Pilot and Facility Operations
Whether you’re sitting around the kitchen table balancing the checkbook or in a corporate office calculating an annual budget, it’s true that a few changes can quickly add up to real savings.
That’s particularly true with the Chrysler Technical Center, located in Auburn Hills, Michigan. At 5.3 million square feet, equivalent to 121 acres or 92 American football fields, the CTC is the second largest office complex in the United States, only behind the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.
I wrote earlier on the blog about how we saved nearly a quarter million dollars over the holiday season by shutting down headquarters from Christmas to New Year’s Day. Since then, we’ve implemented new, additional ways to save some money.
Under a single large roof is our 15-storey world headquarters, five design studios, a 170,000 square-foot pilot plant, aero acoustic wind tunnel, emissions and noise labs, several employee cafeterias and much more. With such a large facility, heating, lighting and maintaining the CTC costs millions of dollars each year. A few adjustments add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars in savings, yet maintain the CTC as a safe, pleasurable and productive work environment.
One recent change we made: we’ve gone from two to one fluorescent bulb in the overhead lights in our offices at the CTC. The adjustment took more than a simple flick of the light switch, but the savings are enormous – about $400,000 in the first year alone. With fewer bulbs to replace, those savings will grow over time. We’ll also save from reduced cooling costs – those lights add a lot of heat, even in the winter.
And speaking of heat, we’ve turned down the thermostat. We’ve dropped the temperature in the office suites down about four degrees. Those few degrees result in a cost savings of $70,000 annually.
When the snow falls outside this winter there’s money to be saved there too. We’ve roped off some of our rooftop parking decks and surface lots, letting the snow pile up rather than hauling it away. By asking our employees to park in designated areas, we’re saving $220,000 this winter at the CTC. The same policy is saving an additional $90,000 this winter at our Plymouth Road Office Complex in Detroit, home to Jeep and Truck engineering.
Come spring time, when the days get longer and we make the switch to daylight savings time, we won’t have to spend a lot of money at the CTC resetting the hundreds of clocks. That’s because the clocks are gone. Last October, when the end of daylight savings time was approaching, my team realized that we could save $10,000 by taking the clocks down. These days, everybody can easily see what time it is on their watch, Blackberry or personal computer.
You don’t need a clock to know when it’s time to change. Everybody has to make adjustments during tough economic times, and the 9,000 Chrysler employees and contractors working at the CTC have rolled with the changes.
Now I just have to figure out what to do with a closet full of clocks.
My fav is the reply from an employee
Great Job Bill!! At this rate, by the end of the century we will have recouped the hundreds of millions of dollars AME Senior Management lost on the Patriot/Compass launch. You remember that launch. That's where AME Senior Management decided to blindly outsource the body shop and not require the supplier to follow our standards or involve our Engineers. Thank God with the new reorg we lost those managers....NOT. We couldn't afford to lose that talent now could we. You can force me to use both sides of the toilet paper if you'd like, but until we lose the no talent never waz's running our AME organization, our fate is sealed. :rolf:thumbsup
Maybe they can start using only 3 tires per car?
From Chrysler blog
William Wolf is Director - Paint, Pilot and Facility Operations
Whether you’re sitting around the kitchen table balancing the checkbook or in a corporate office calculating an annual budget, it’s true that a few changes can quickly add up to real savings.
That’s particularly true with the Chrysler Technical Center, located in Auburn Hills, Michigan. At 5.3 million square feet, equivalent to 121 acres or 92 American football fields, the CTC is the second largest office complex in the United States, only behind the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.
I wrote earlier on the blog about how we saved nearly a quarter million dollars over the holiday season by shutting down headquarters from Christmas to New Year’s Day. Since then, we’ve implemented new, additional ways to save some money.
Under a single large roof is our 15-storey world headquarters, five design studios, a 170,000 square-foot pilot plant, aero acoustic wind tunnel, emissions and noise labs, several employee cafeterias and much more. With such a large facility, heating, lighting and maintaining the CTC costs millions of dollars each year. A few adjustments add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars in savings, yet maintain the CTC as a safe, pleasurable and productive work environment.
One recent change we made: we’ve gone from two to one fluorescent bulb in the overhead lights in our offices at the CTC. The adjustment took more than a simple flick of the light switch, but the savings are enormous – about $400,000 in the first year alone. With fewer bulbs to replace, those savings will grow over time. We’ll also save from reduced cooling costs – those lights add a lot of heat, even in the winter.
And speaking of heat, we’ve turned down the thermostat. We’ve dropped the temperature in the office suites down about four degrees. Those few degrees result in a cost savings of $70,000 annually.
When the snow falls outside this winter there’s money to be saved there too. We’ve roped off some of our rooftop parking decks and surface lots, letting the snow pile up rather than hauling it away. By asking our employees to park in designated areas, we’re saving $220,000 this winter at the CTC. The same policy is saving an additional $90,000 this winter at our Plymouth Road Office Complex in Detroit, home to Jeep and Truck engineering.
Come spring time, when the days get longer and we make the switch to daylight savings time, we won’t have to spend a lot of money at the CTC resetting the hundreds of clocks. That’s because the clocks are gone. Last October, when the end of daylight savings time was approaching, my team realized that we could save $10,000 by taking the clocks down. These days, everybody can easily see what time it is on their watch, Blackberry or personal computer.
You don’t need a clock to know when it’s time to change. Everybody has to make adjustments during tough economic times, and the 9,000 Chrysler employees and contractors working at the CTC have rolled with the changes.
Now I just have to figure out what to do with a closet full of clocks.
My fav is the reply from an employee
Great Job Bill!! At this rate, by the end of the century we will have recouped the hundreds of millions of dollars AME Senior Management lost on the Patriot/Compass launch. You remember that launch. That's where AME Senior Management decided to blindly outsource the body shop and not require the supplier to follow our standards or involve our Engineers. Thank God with the new reorg we lost those managers....NOT. We couldn't afford to lose that talent now could we. You can force me to use both sides of the toilet paper if you'd like, but until we lose the no talent never waz's running our AME organization, our fate is sealed. :rolf:thumbsup