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| | Meet Corinna Kammerer, Desktop & Green PC manager |
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1. Can you tell me about your role in the company? |
I am the Product Manager responsible for professional small form factor PCs, and in particular our 'Green PCs'. My role involves managing and overseeing PC production over the complete lifecycle from product definition, development, production, to end-of-life.
I define product requirements such as their features and functions and then evaluate the potential costs and profitability of bringing such a product to market. It is then my job to ensure we have the capability to actually build the product before preparing a marketing and launch strategy. The final part of my role is to oversee production. This includes controlling costs and ensuring the product is being designed to specification with end-of-life always in mind. |
2. Can you tell us more about the environmental component within your job? |
Managing the life-cycle of PC production really means that. It is a cradle to grave approach, one that considers all aspects within a PCs life from conception to development, to production to end-of-life.
For me, managing the environmental impact of our products is all about looking at, and evaluating, a product in this way. It is about looking at that product as an organic whole rather than a series of single parts which, from birth to death - design to end-of-life - interacts with the environment around it in a variety of complex ways both positive and negative.
So even though my official title is 'Desktop PC Manager', I see myself as an environmental manager too. My role involves building environmental concerns into products so as to minimize their environmental impact at each stage of their life. |
3. Can you give us an insight into how you do this? |
| It has to begin in the design stage. From the outset we design products with the environment in mind. This includes designing and then sourcing products with the most energy efficient components possible, and integrating power saving features such as the eco button and low power soft off. In this way we can dramatically lower the power consumption of a specific product during its working life. We also look to design products using the minimum levels of hazardous chemicals possible, and in a manner which ensures they can be easily dismantled at end-of-life. This improves recyclability and removes the risks of environmental damage at the end of a products working life. |
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4. Your fellow employees hold you up as 'the green lady' - why is this? |
Well, I imagine this is due to my commitment and role in the ongoing development of Green PCs here at Fujitsu Siemens Computers.
My job places me in a unique position of environmental responsibility and opportunity. I watch over a product as it evolves - from birth to end-of-life, and it is my responsibility to mother that product throughout its life journey. I have used this position to push for environmental standards and solutions wherever possible. I think this determination has won me that name. |
5. What inspires you most about your job? |
| That through my job I can really make a difference environmentally. |
6. Describe one of your greatest challenges at Fujitsu Siemens Computers? |
Helping, along with colleagues, to make the case for Green PCs and Green motherboard production back in 2002. At the time, Hans Bergquist and Bjoern Simons, account managers at Fujitsu Siemens Computers, had begun pushing the case for green motherboards after seeing the green prototype boards at our annual IT trade fair in Augsburg, Germany. They came to me in early 2002 and from there we begun our campaign to make the case for full green motherboard production.
It was a constant fight of ecology versus economy. Internal interest in the initial green motherboard was high, but we were not convinced that customers would pay the additional costs of a green board. This was made worse by the fact that few of our competitors were addressing environmental issues beyond basic regulations. Nonetheless, and convinced market demand would swell in the future, we pushed ahead with a successful test batch, and finally persuaded the company to set up a full Green PC production line for launch across Europe in October 2002. It was a real step-by-day approach to which my colleagues and I were deeply committed. |
7. What will the 'green lady' be working on next? |
| Over the next year I'll continue working to lower the environmental impacts of our IT products wherever this is economically feasible. Specifically I'll be focusing on increasing the energy efficiency of our PCs and continuing the step-by-step elimination of PVC from our products. |
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