POWERING DOWN AT WHITLEY POWERS UP CHARGE SAVINGS

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Have you ever wondered how much it costs to leave just one monitor on standby? And how much that could potentially cost Jaguar Land Rover over a year? Read on to find out the answer, and how one switched on Whitley colleague devised a simple cost-saving solution that can be scaled up to save the company many thousands of pounds.

When Chris Orr heard a Global Customer Services colleague saying how annoyed she was that she couldn’t fully switch off her monitor and that it must be wasting money, the Whitley-based Inventory Analyst decided that a CHARGE mindset would uncover the solution to this costly issue.

Chris, who has worked for Jaguar Land Rover for 14 years, explains: “Two things came together. Firstly, I understand that CHARGE needs people to volunteer ideas and solutions and I am also a big supporter of the Switch It Off initiative, but I know that switching off isn’t always simple to do because of where things are positioned in the office.”

The solution? Hard-to-access plugs underneath the workstation were relocated to the top of the desk and an extension featuring just one master on-off switch allowed everything to be turned off. Nine more colleagues quickly asked Chris to do the same thing.

But Chris didn’t stop there and with CHARGE in mind analysed the cost implications of hundreds of docking stations and monitors remaining on standby.

The figures are eye-opening. Just one monitor left on standby for long periods can cost the business £4.16 of avoidable spend each year and research in an area of Global Customer Services (GCS) showed that 124 monitors (94 per cent) were on standby over a weekend, adding to the energy bill.

With the encouragement of the GCS Change Agents, and the endorsement of Global Customer Service Director, Peter Hettich, Chris was able to show that his department alone can save roughly £6,000 per annum - and the wider Whitley site an estimated £60,000.

The GCS Change Agents are now helping to ensure the potential savings are made as visible as possible throughout Commercial and that the simple technical solution of a desktop plug layout is adopted more widely where appropriate. Change Agent Chris Boylin commented: “Chris looked carefully at one colleague’s concerns about the cost and environmental impact of not being able to switch-off and has then managed to take this all the way through to an excellent recommendation with some significant savings attached for the organisation.”