Successful Dealer - June 2010
At its four dealership locations, NorCal Kenworth has taken steps, including installing motion detection lighting, T5 and T12 lights and LED accent lights, to help reduce its carbon footprint.
In other words, Mamizuka wondered what the dealership, which was seen by its customers as a green expert, was doing to reduce its own carbon footprint. Mamizuka thought that the dealership was doing "a pretty good job. We turned lights off in rooms we weren't in and things like that." Other energy saving measures at NorCal Kenworth include installing motion detection lighting, switching to T5 and T12 lights and using LED lights for accents. The dealership currently is looking at a solar project for its roof. Then Autonomics Software approached Mamizuka about managing the power usage of the dealerships' 120 computers. As part of the evaluation process, Mamizuka did a brief survey of the dealerships' computers and found that the power-saving settings "were all over the place from five minutes to 30 minutes to never." Realizing that perhaps they weren't quite as "green" as he thought, Mamizuka had Autonomics take over the dealerships' computer power management. According to Tony Gigliotti, CEO, Autonomic Software, "We have a small intelligent agent that we automatically deploy to each desktop. Its job is to be the keeper of Harry's power-saving parameters. So if Harry decides to have half of his system go to standby after 30 minutes, we can do that." Mamizuka is given a daily accounting of how much money the dealerships are saving by using the software. There also is a central console from which the system administration can make sure no one changes the settings. By using the software, Mamizuka can save $40 to $50 per year per computer. With 120 computers throughout his four locations, that is an annual savings of $6,000.
Gigliotti adds, "If you have 1,000 computers, you are going to save $50,000 a year. You also are going to save 250 acres of trees that would have been cut down and you probably will save in the neighborhood of 15,000 tons off your carbon footprint." Before determining what the parameters should be, Mamizuka had Autonomics take a sampling of where employees in various areas of the dealership had their standby mode set. "We picked different people in different skill sets. Some from administration, some from sales, parts, service to get some general time frames of when users were on their computers actually working versus not working and when the actual CPU was almost idle," Mamizuka explains. "You don't want to be intrusive to the employees and impact their productivity, but at the same time it is kind of like a motion detector on lights, or in this case the computer not being used. There is no reason for it to run at full power."
By setting parameters for when its computers go into standby mode, NorCal Kenworth is saving money.
The reaction from NorCal Kenworth employees to the change has been positive, Mamizuka says. "We are in an industry that is constantly challenged by public perception. Not only that, but our culture here--our philosophy--is to embrace clean air programs and to be the leader with our customers in terms of our skills, knowledge and assistance to help them reduce their carbon footprint. "Now we are doing our part and our employees have embraced it because they want to be good corporate citizens," he says. While there is a monetary savings attached to power management, Mamizuka says the greater benefit is "the consistent message that we want to deliver to the industry, the community and our employees and that is that we all do our part in helping `green' our communities."
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June 2010 | SUCCESSFUL DEALER | 27