The recycling system was in desperate need of innovation in North America in 2020. The average person was generating 12 times their body weight in landfilled trash annually, and the equivalent to a dump truck full of plastic waste was entering the world's oceans every minute. This crisis prompted Ainslie Simmonds and Mark Manley to develop MeCycle, an innovative, technology-enabled platform to help change consumer behaviour and increase recycling rates. This case examines consumer behaviour with regards to recycling, explores barriers to recycling, describes MeCycle’s business model, and estimates the potential environmental and economic gains from hypothetically implementing the MeCycle platform in London, Ontario, Canada.
The recycling system was in desperate need of innovation in North America in 2020. The average person was generating 12 times their body weight in landfilled trash annually, and the equivalent to a dump truck full of plastic waste was entering the world's oceans every minute. This crisis prompted Ainslie Simmonds and Mark Manley to develop MeCycle, an innovative, technology-enabled platform to help change consumer behaviour and increase recycling rates. This case examines consumer behaviour with regards to recycling, explores barriers to recycling, describes MeCycle's business model, and estimates the potential environmental and economic gains from hypothetically implementing the MeCycle platform in London, Ontario, Canada.
It was June 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, and Frances Edmonds, head of sustainable impact at HP Canada Co., the Canadian subsidiary of HP Inc. (HP), was continuing HP’s decades-long pursuit of sustainable impact. HP had worked nearly two decades with strategic partners like Lavergne Groupe to redesign its products and make plastic circular. HP was now committed to using 30 per cent post-consumer recycled plastic across its personal systems and printers by 2025. However, decreasing commodity prices during the COVID-19 pandemic, global supply challenges, and lowered global collection of recycled content could potentially undermine HP’s recycling efforts and goals. Edmonds was considering possible strategic, tactical, and operational actions to cope with the situation and sustain HP’s aspirations. Would HP’s circular supply chain remain viable and competitive?
It was June 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, and Frances Edmonds, head of sustainable impact at HP Canada Co., the Canadian subsidiary of HP Inc. (HP), was continuing HP's decades-long pursuit of sustainable impact. HP was now committed to using 30 per cent post-consumer recycled plastic across its personal systems and printers by 2025. However, decreasing commodity prices during the COVID-19 pandemic, global supply challenges, and lowered global collection of recycled content could potentially undermine HP's recycling efforts and goals. Edmonds was considering possible strategic, tactical, and operational actions to cope with the situation and sustain HP's aspirations. Would HP's circular supply chain remain viable and competitive?
In March 2019, Boeing's 737 MAX aircraft was grounded across the globe following its second crash in five months. Investigations concluded that the sensor in the planes' Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) had failed, leading both aircraft to nosedive downward, crashing and killing all aboard. The public was confused as to how this engineering error occurred, given Boeing's strong history of aerospace achievements. The case traces the main developments in the aircraft manufacturing industry and Boeing's organizational changes over time. How could these changes have affected events leading up to the two 737 MAX crashes?
This case describes the sourcing policy for a consumer electronics company. The company must decide how to structure contracts with their supplier - using a purchase contract, an option contract, or combination of the two. The company can also buy from the spot market. The students use a spreadsheet model with Monte Carlo simulation to analyze the contracting options.
Protagonist leads an apple industry association that hopes to develop a market for New England apple slices to improve demand for apple products. Apples grown for slicing have characteristics that differ from most apples grown in New England. Case allows students to examine whether it makes sense for a farmer to begin to grow apples for slicing. The case also describes the distribution of apples and apple products so that students can examine how a market for sliced apples might get developed and which industry participants might enjoy a position of power in the market.
This case describes the waste management industry and a clean technology solution for landfill diversion and renewable energy production. The (A) case focuses on the operational characteristics of waste management and waste to energy, as well as the characteristics of the waste management industry. The intent of the (A) case is to have students perform operational analysis on the organic waste-to-energy process to evaluate whether a potential new plant is economically feasible and attractive. The (B) case focuses on the sourcing dilemma: pre-processing vs. source separation. To ensure that its waste input fuel is of sufficiently high quality (i.e., low level of inorganic contaminants), the company can either build a pre-processing facility to sort incoming waste to filter out contaminants, or work with suppliers to source separate their waste stream.
This case describes the waste management industry and a clean technology solution for landfill diversion and renewable energy production. The (A) case focuses on the operational characteristics of waste management and waste to energy, and the characteristics of the waste management industry. The intent of the (A) case is to have students perform operational analysis on the organic waste to energy process to evaluate whether a potential new plant is economically feasible and attractive. The (B) case focuses on the sourcing dilemma: pre-processing vs. source separation. To ensure that its waste input fuel is of sufficiently high quality (i.e., low level of inorganic contaminants), the company can either build a pre-processing facility to sort incoming waste to filter out contaminants, or work with suppliers to source separate their waste stream.
This case explores a method of value creation through exploiting synergies that exist in an environment where there is diversity. The context of the case is a farm where biodiversity is leverage to create value. This is contrasted to industrial farming which operates on the principles of economies of scale. The case also provides an opportunity for students to discuss the environmental impact of different types of operating systems.
This case describes how a company improves resource efficiency and process quality in its manufacturing process by developing a waste by-product into a new product. The case describes how CCP cleans production equipment between batches using styrene, which becomes a costly hazardous waste. Having worked on minimizing waste for the past 20 years, CCP believed it could not reduce the use of styrene without risking product quality. Instead, CCP was exploring the development of a by-product from its "rinse styrene," but faces uncertainty regarding the operational, financial, and environmental implications of doing so. This case contains data to support quantitative analyses of financial, operational, and environmental issues including some basic life-cycle analysis (LCA) calculations that focus on greenhouse gas emissions.
Herman Miller, an office furniture supplier, decided to implement the cradle-to-cradle (C2C) design protocol during the design of its mid-level office chair, Mirra. The C2C protocol was a set of environmentally friendly product development guidelines created by architect William McDonough and chemist Michael Braungart. The essence of this protocol was to eliminate waste and potentially harmful materials by designing the product so that, at the end of its useful life, the raw materials could be fed back into either a technical or biological cycle and used for the same or other purposes. Therefore, materials remained in a closed-loop, eliminating the need for landfill and other toxic forms of disposal such as incineration. The case describes the C2C protocol, the details of how Herman Miller implemented C2C during the design of the Mirra chair, as well as the impact of the new protocol on their internal processes: design decisions, manufacturing, and supply chain management. The proximate decision point in the case is whether the company should replace the polyvinyl chloride (PVC) material in the arm pads of the Mirra chair. PVC was a highly toxic material to manufacture and dispose of and thus violated the C2C protocol. However, it was the standard material for arm pads and many other parts in the office furniture industry as it was durable, scratch resistant, and inexpensive. To switch to thermoplastic urethane (TPU), a more environmentally friendly material, for the Mirra Chair arm pad required at least modification of a production tool, or possibly a completely new tool. In addition, the cost of TPU was higher than PVC. There was also uncertainty about how consistent the quality of the arm pad would be with TPU.