preview

Herman Miller Essay

Good Essays

Analysis: As a leader in their industry, regarding environmentally conscious manufacturers, Herman-Miller felt they could be even more proactive by following in the footsteps of a few of the most successful manufacturers in the world, such as Nike, by adopting the Cradle-to-Cradle (C2C) sustainable practice strategy. Herman-Miller’s Mirra Chair project, to manufacture the first highly engineered Cradle-to-Cradle (C2C) compliant product, has the potential to elevate their reputation as Green manufacture leaders, but the project would not come without it’s costs. The focus of the Mirra Chair project lies primarily in the decision to use PVC in the armrests of the chair or to replace the PVC with TPU, an environmentally friendlier …show more content…

Given that Herman-Miller was already on a tight schedule to release this new Mirra Chair design at the Neacon trade show in little less than a year, the process to find credible new suppliers could pose detrimental to their projected sales numbers shown in Exhibit 8 of the case. (Lee, Bony, 2009) The threat of delayed sales growth to find new suppliers to accommodate the C2C protocol would be an initial cost Herman-Miller would have to incur. At this time in 2002, the entire industry was seeing delayed sales growth do to a stagnant economy and the “pre-Internet-bubble” (Lee, Bony, 2009). However, because Herman-Miller still held on as one of the top furniture suppliers in the US during this time we believe this would be a valuable opportunity to set themselves apart from their competitors, who would be focused on retaining cost instead of innovation. The case elaborates on the idea of “Eco-effectiveness” and the concept that if implemented properly, manufacturers will save time, money, and decrease their environmental impact. The process itself involves making every process in one’s manufacturing system recyclable or to continuable on a closed-loop. This means the goal for Herman-Miller would be to use materials that can be reusable and non-hazardous to the environment. As mentioned before, the PVC

Get Access