Fri, Mar 19, 2004
It's All About Saving Trees
Take heart, environmentalists. U.S. defense contractor Lockheed
Martin Corp. sees your point of view when it comes to saving trees
and saving money, too. The maker of fighter planes and
communication networks for the military is about to replace its
paper instruction manuals for all its F-16 fighter plane with a
computer-based system. Some 1.4 million pages of data will
eventually appear online.
When the system launches later this year, Lockheed's military
plane unit will join defense contractor Boeing Co., as well as
leading-edge technology companies in the Internet age. Tech firms
have long encouraged customers to get most of their instruction
from Web sites, and Boeing in 1995 made electronic manuals the
standard for its newest F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jets.
Lockheed's move suggests the trend is spreading.
"It's quite a savings in paper and ink, as well as handling and
bundling costs," Geoff White, Lockheed's senior manager for
publications in Fort Worth (TX.) told Reuters. "The savings could
exceed hundreds of millions of dollars."
The Fighting Falcon's 250 manuals comprise some 50,000 pages in
total. Currently there are more than 4,100 planes in the field,
spread around 20 countries. And each order calls for multiple
copies of documents. Even more stacks of paper are required when a
change is made on any plane; updates are slow and expensive. The
U.S. Air Force alone could conserve more than $500 million in
printing and paper costs over the next 40 years, Lockheed said in a
statement.
"Whenever you have a new country or a new block of the aircraft
that comes on board, that's a lot of ink and a lot of paper," said
White.
Environmentalists applaud the move. Their only complaint? It
hasn't happened sooner.
"It's a good idea and ought to be implemented more," said Carl
Zichella, a regional staff director for the Sierra Club.
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