Pirelli a Top Manufacturer Award finalist

Water awareness at Pirelli’s Carlisle plant has put the company in the running for a prize at The Manufacturer of the Year Awards 2014. Pirelli is on the shortlist as a finalist in the Sustainable Manufacturing category joining the likes of Coca Cola Enterprises; Johnstons Sweepers; the Vallant Group; and Encirc & Capporo Industries.

Julie Hannah, HSE Manager at Pirelli UK, said: “This award recognition specifically relates to the significant reduction in water withdrawal that has taken place over the last 12 months at our Carlisle site. This reduction has significantly improved our environmental performance.

“As a company we are continually looking for ways in which we can reduce our environmental impact, striving for ideas from employees across the board, whether it is reductions in waste, water or energy use, all ideas are reviewed for their potential implementation. Employees are given the opportunity to put forward their ideas by speaking to site managers, safety reps or bringing ideas to the sites Health, Safety & Environmental Committee meeting.”

Water reduction at Carlisle

In 2014 Carlisle is showing a significant reduction of 36 per cent for its total water consumption. This has been helped in particular by two key projects.

The first began in September 2013 and was undertaken by a number of maintenance operators. The idea, which has been put into fruition, was to recirculate water from the vacuum pump slip ring (borehole water) in the boiler house. The team identified that by modifying some pipework – utilizing an existing (spare) tank and pump – they could recycle the water back into the cooling water reservoir.

A secondary project also identified that it was possible to treat the borehole water and soften it allowing it to be used for the water hydraulics system and for the production mould cleaning process. Whilst not affecting the overall water consumption, the project reduced Pirelli’s usage of town mains water by 25 per cent.

Julie Hannah continued: “Moving forward we will continually look to reduce our water usage even further and we are investigating the potential for replacing steam heating with gas heating, as well as running a water awareness week campaign for participation by all employees.”

The Manufacturer of the Year Awards is remarkable in its diversity, with finalists from nearly every sub-sector of manufacturing. Automotive, food and drink, engineering, defence contractors, speciality steel, aerospace, beauty products, medical technology, precision components and much more show how open the contest is and how difficult it will be to judge the winners.

The winners will be crowned at The Manufacturer of the Year Awards Ceremony & Gala Dinner on November 27 at The ICC, Birmingham.