Efforts for environmental protectionTOP PAGE
  • Decreasing environmental burden of products

    • Since products generate environmental burdens during their long life cycle, from the production stage to disposal stage, the entire life cycle of a product must be considered to decrease environmental burdens. Oki Electric Industry Co. Ltd. established waste product and packing material recycling promotion sessions to decrease the environmental burden of products.

    1.Product assessment
    In order to provide products with a low environmental burden on the environment, it is necessary to evaluate the environmental burden of the entire life cycle of product at the design stage, considering energy conservation, resource saving and recycling issues, and to improve design as much as possible.
    OKI established a product assessment system in 1995 to evaluate 22 items at the evaluation stage in the 11 categories shown in the table to the right. The evaluation level is indicated by a numeric, and if the result does not reach a specific level, a redesign or design change is required. In fiscal 1998, we executed a product assessment for a total of 15 models, including OA equipment, information equipment and communication equipment.     		Example of environmental assessment
    Category Item
    1.Recycling possibility 3
    2.Easy disassembly, separation 3
    3.Easy sorting 2
    4.Compactness and light weight of product 2
    5.Actual use as recycled resources 2
    6.Promotion of use as recycled resources 1
    7.Durability of products and parts 1
    8.Energy consumption 3
    9.Easy collection and transportation 1
    10.Safety during treatment 2
    11.Avoidance of environmentally polluting substances 2

  • Example of improvement by product assessment [ATM 21 series]

    The ATM 21 series, which was released in 1998, is the next generation automatic cash transaction machine for financial institutions.
    Since the function to shut off power supply to unnecessary components when a transaction is not performed for a long time was added, power consumption during idle time was decreased by 50% compared with conventional models.

    		• ATM 21 series
    ATM 21 series

    2.Decreasing toxic substances (lead solder)
  • >Research on lead-free solder

    When an electronic equipment product becomes waste, the solder in the product is dissolved by acid rain, and lead, a toxic metal, runs off. This is now a major social problem, so we have been researching soldering methods using solder which does not contain lead.
    We used lead-free Sn-Ag-Cu solder and obtained a result equivalent to conventional lead solder. We will continue this research to implement a lead-free solder.

    Decreasing lead solder in production process

  • Decreasing lead solder in production process

    The performance of cream solder used in the soldering processing of printed circuit boards deteriorates in a short time, making use of a board impossible. To deal with this problem, we have been researching cream solders which deteriorate more slowly, and as a result the amount of solder normally required decreased.

    • 3.Promotion of green procurement
  • Establishment of green procurement guidelines

    The environmental burden of purchased parts must be low to decrease the environmental burden of a product. We established green procurement guidelines for products, parts, materials and services to be purchased from third parties, so that the priority of purchase is given to those with a lower environmental burden.
    The guidelines follow.
    EStandard for selecting a company who is active in environmental conservation
    EStandard for selecting environmental conservation type products, parts and materials

  • Construction of green procurement database

    To execute green procurement, it is necessary to understand the environmental pollutants contained in purchased products. For this we conducted a survey equipment with the cooperation of manufacturers on the content of parts purchased for communication.
    The result is included in a database which was used to create a system to be made accessible to product designers.

    • 4.Decreasing packaging and packing materials
    Since the volume ratio of container and packaging waste of general waste is approximately 60%, decreasing this waste is a critical issue.
    We established a packaging and packing assessment system in 1995 as an effort to decrease the packaging and packing materials of products. In 1998, we executed packaging and packing assessment for 9 models, including OA equipment and information equipment.     		Changes in purchase of packaging materials
    (including major production companies of the OKI Group)
    . Changes in purchase of packaging materials


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