How does a small metal finishing shop grow to become one of the largest and most recognized names in its industry? At Anoplate Corporation, a job shop metal finisher in Syracuse, New York, the road has been long, winding and many times unclear but always interesting and challenging. The keys to our success are business planning, environmental stewardship, and service to our employees and the community. This article concentrates on our environmental activities including quality management.

Environmental management, environmental compliance, pollution prevention and continuous improvement are integral parts of our business plan. They have been instrumental in helping us to succeed in the turbulent metal finishing job shop market. We have been also been involved as a technical, information, and training resource with regulatory agencies at the federal, state and local levels.

Anoplate's reputation for speed and accuracy was built doing small lots such as this barrel load.

What began as a three-person shop, founded in 1960 by Milt Stevenson III to serve a small tool and machine shop industry has grown to 170+ employees with 104,000 ft² facilities. Anoplate offers more than a hundred finishing services to a broad base of over one thousand active customers including aerospace, medical, electronics, optics, computers, and defense. We have up to eight hundred jobs in-process at a given time. The care, attention, planning, and resilience of Anoplate demonstrate the characteristics needed for small business to attain long-term success.

Successes

Anoplate has completed numerous projects that have yielded significant environmental benefits. A new state-of-the-art solvent vapor degreaser has been installed that reduces air emissions by 90% and allows Anoplate to remain in a viable and necessary niche market. With management of F006 Waste (waste removed from process wastewater) we have recycled 100% of this material as stainless steel feed stock. All spent nickel solutions are recycled at off-site facilities. Spent acids are beneficially re-used in secondary process baths and for waste treatment chemicals in place of virgin products. We have reduced the use of nitric acid, a TRI chemical, by over 15,000 lb/yr by substituting other chemicals. And, on a smaller scale, the cost and waste of two hundred styrofoam coffee cups per day have been reduced to zero by providing employees with permanent cups.

As Anoplate has grown, so has its ability to handle large volume jobs, such as this one for the automotive industry.

Partnering

Anoplate has served as a resource and partner to regulatory agencies in their efforts to improve the environment. Over a 3-year span, we contributed eighteen man-days at various sites across the State to present a series of statewide training sessions concerning the operations and waste management practices of the metal finishing industry. An initial course was authored and presented by Anoplate to explain the various processes used in the metal finishing industry (1, see box below for references). Subsequently, a metal finishing waste management course was co-authored and co-presented with NYSDEC staff (2). These sessions were attended by regulatory staff of USEPA, NYSDEC, and local governments as well as by interested industries. We have also made several environmental presentations at NYSDEC pollution prevention conferences (3, 4) and at local POTW training sessions in Onondaga County. Anoplate has also contributed its expertise by helping to write articles for NYSDEC guidance documents (5) and industry trade journals (6). Anoplate volunteered its services as a data collection site and an aide to USEPA in developing its screening survey for the proposed Metal Products and Machinery (MP&M) Wastewater Effluent Guideline.

1. "Common Electroplating and Metal Finishing Processes" was authored in 1994 by Mike Florczykowski and Milt Stevenson of Anoplate, under a consulting agreement, and was presented as 2-day seminars at the IBM, Fishkill and Xerox, Webster facilities. The training manual took over 150 man-hours to prepare.

2. "Treatment of Electroplating and Metal Finishing Wastes" was co-authored and co-presented with NYSDEC Bureau of Water Compliance Programs, Facility Operations Assistance Section staff. These were presented as 2-day seminars in 1995 at SUNY Morrisville and in 1996 at SUNY Jamestown. These latter seminars resulted from the many questions raised by participants during the initial 1994 training seminars on the Metal Finishing industry and its processes.

3. "Reducing Toxic Loadings to POTWs", Michael Florczykowski, June 1997, NYSDEC Annual Pollution Prevention Conference, Albany, NY.

4. "Pollution Prevention Project—Solvent Vapor Degreaser," by Michael Florczykowski, May 2000, NYSDEC Rochester Metal Finishing P2 Workshop.

5. "Solvent Vapor Degreaser Project", Michael Florczykowski, 2000, NYSDEC Metal Finishing Technical Guidance Document.

6. "Safety in Plant Design," Michael Florczykowski, 1996 Plating and Surface Finishing Magazine.

We have been actively and consistently involved in the development of the USEPA and later the NYSDEC Strategic Goals Program (SGP) for the Metal Finishing industry. Anoplate chaired one of the State's subcommittees to develop the SGP initiative of voluntary environmental stewardship. As a result of such efforts, the New York Water Environment Association presented Anoplate with the 1998 "Industrial Achievement Award." NYSDEC has also awarded us several acknowledgement Certificates and USEPA Administrator Carol Browner has recognized our efforts with a Certificate of Appreciation.

ISO 14001—beyond compliance

Anoplate's most recent efforts have been to attain certification in both the ISO 9002 Quality Management Standard and the ISO 14001 Environmental Management Standard. Having completed the final audit by the Registrar in November 2000, we anticipate certification to both standards by year end. Anoplate will be the first industrial wastewater discharger using the Syracuse Metropolitan Wastewater Treatment Plant to be certified to the ISO 14001 Standard. The environmental management system (EMS) developed under ISO 14001 is not a fad or just a certificate on the wall, it is a business strategy to implement continuous environmental improvement.

The EMS establishes a formal program for continuous measurable improvements that reduce the adverse environmental effects of company activities. The program is based on the fundamental quality principle of "plan-do-check-act" applied to environmental management.

Environmental Policy Anoplate Corporation is committed to conducting its operations in a manner that meets or exceeds applicable environmental laws and regulations and other voluntary commitments to which the Company may subscribe. Anoplate will seek methods to prevent pollution at the source, re-use materials within our own processes, and recycle materials off-site as much as possible in order to conserve valuable natural resources and raw materials, minimize the generation of wastes and the impact of Company operations on the environment.

The Company will maintain an on-going and systematic review process to identify environmental impacts, establish and carry out control programs and projects, and continuously improve environmental stewardship.

Anoplate will improve its manufacturing and environmental management systems to more efficiently produce goods and services that satisfy our customers' requirements, conserve resources and reduce operational costs. Anoplate will develop, document and communicate the general principles and practices of this Policy to all employees and train each employee in the specific practices related to his or her job that will promote the protection of human health and the environment.

We will strive to be a good corporate neighbor to other environmental stakeholders through involvement with training and education outreach programs as an information resource and other related activities for the public good. Anoplate will strive to manage its operations in a manner that implements these principles to continuously improve environmental results.

"Plan" began when Anoplate's management established a corporate environmental policy. The environmental policy sets out operating principles and objectives that are articulated as specific measurable targets. A business plan prioritizes and phases in work on these targets over a 3-year period. For example, one specific measurable target, achieved in 2000, was to reduce water usage by 10%. Another target, one without a numerical metric, is to investigate and establish a plan for extending the useful life of process solutions. This target is scheduled for implementation in 2001. These actions are tracked on the "Anoplate Corporation EMS Environmental Targets" form.

Click here for the Anoplate EMS Environmental Targets form (Adobe .pdf format).

The second facet of "planning" occurs from the shop floor perspective. Here, company activities are first listed by type then expanded to show the specific activities. Each specific activity is assessed and ranked for actual and potential environmental effects. The rankings are then prioritized to raise the most significant issues to the top of the list as action items.

Air emissions from chrome plating are exhausted from the work place . . .

. . . and scrubbed to meet stringent Clean Air Act standards before discharge.

"Do" is working to attain the targets through projects or programs. When a project or a program successfully reduces the environmental effect of an activity, the activity is moved down the priority list and replaced by others that require attention. A planning sheet links shop floor impacts to management's targets, thus yielding a coordinated dynamic work plan that continuously generates new priorities.

"Check" is done by internal and external auditing and by management review of the EMS. A critical aspect of our checking is the full involvement of decision-makers.

"Act" is done through corrective and preventive measures to make appropriate adjustments to the EMS. The ISO 14001 "plan-do-check-act" is a continuous process that ensures on-going and credible improvements in reducing actual and potential adverse environmental effects of Company activities.

ISO 9002 quality policy

Under ISO 9002, Anoplate has established a Corporate Quality Policy. Employees are encouraged to learn the Quality Policy through a bi-monthly contest where they recite the Policy and win a handsome monetary reward in the process. Everyone is included from temporary employees right up to the president. Anoplate's actions show how we walk the talk of our Quality and Environmental Policies through business practices and environmental stewardship and through community benefit activities.

Quality Policy
To provide world class finishing services in a timely, cost effective, environmentally responsible manner and to invest in our employees, our community and our business partnerships.

Plans in action

What are some of the specific ways Anoplate puts its ISO 14001 and ISO 9002 philosophies into practice? Our aim is to provide world-class finishing services. We network with other industry leaders to learn best practices, and we conduct Gallup polls of our customers to evaluate our services. We constantly integrate new process technologies. To promote quality constantly, we have self-certified operators that monitor quality and turnaround, and our internal audit teams monitor observance of the ISO 14001 and ISO 9002 standards. A major goal of the Environmental Operations Department is to keep Anoplate in compliance with all environmental requirements while meeting ISO 14001 certification obligations. On the shop floor, we have deployed an Operational Excellence Task Group that promotes the best cycle times, and monitor cost metrics to both keep prices in check and maintain profitability.

We invest in the skills of our employees. We now have eighteen Certified Electroplater Finishers (CEF) on staff, and we invest in continuous training of our employees as career platers. Anoplate also empowers its employees to make pertinent decisions and to take on more responsibility when they are ready for it. We solicit suggestions from employees and reward those that are implemented and result in improved productivity, safety, or morale.

In our business partnerships, we support local and national technical and professional associations, taking leadership roles when appropriate. We continuously try to improve relations with suppliers through our purchasing practices. And, Anoplate and its employees are active in the community supporting activities as diverse as food pantries, breast cancer fund-raisers, and highway cleanup.

170 strong: the extended Anoplate family. Quality, environment, and community spirit.

Anoplate, although a relatively small business, continues to succeed in a holistic sense: in sustained growth in its industry sector, in long-term environmental stewardship and on-going continuous improvement, as an active industrial partner and resource to the legislative and regulatory agencies, and in success in employee programs and community involvement as an active corporate neighbor. Our approach to cooperative business activities transforms our outlook. Not only do we provide jobs and wealth, we also add many unrecognized values to our community.
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Milt Stevenson, IV is president and director of technology for Anoplate Corporation. Michael E. Florczykowski is chief environmental officer and plant engineer at Anoplate.

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