Wal-Mart Prototype Team Embraces Efficiency Challenges

An unofficial motto has been adopted by the engineers and architects at Wal-Mart:

“Difficult, yes. Impossible, no.”

Charles Zimmerman, Wal-Mart vice president of prototype design and construction standards, has seen it posted around the office.

“We don’t let something that’s difficult stand in our way,” he said. “We want to push all the way to the wall of impossibility. That’s where we want to be. A lot of things we’re doing are things that no one else is doing because it’s very difficult.

“But we’re going to try it.”

While former Vice President Al Gore has brought plenty of awareness, no entity has advanced the sustainability football farther in real-world terms than Wal-Mart in the last three years.

Tops again on Fortune’s list of largest companies, Wal-Mart has already fully converted its laundry aisle to concentrated detergent, improved the fuel efficiency of its trucks by 20 percent and sought reductions in packaging by its myriad of suppliers.

The new HE.5 prototype store will be rolled out in western climates and is 45 percent more efficient than stores constructed in 2005, far exceeding the company’s goals.

Zimmerman had just returned from Wichita, Kan., home of the HE.2 prototype, and said it meets goals but there is “more efficiency we can squeeze out of it” before it becomes the “everywhere USA” store.

The team, most with more than 15 years experience at Wal-Mart, includes five engineers, 12 architects, 15 cost estimators and a couple others in quality control.

In Wal-Mart’s backyard, the Fayetteville Sam’s Club has already produced results.

Adopted from its United Kingdom division Asda, the club has “siphonic” roof drains. Normal drainpipes rely on gravity and thus never flow at full capacity. A siphonic drain has a special cover that creates pressure and allows the pipe to flow full at half the size.

A second insight was gained into “waterless” urinals. Zimmerman said “issues” were discovered, and Wal-Mart approached manufacturers to come up with a design that used just a bit of water.

Toto Inc. and Zurn Inc. came up with a 1/8-gallon flush and no problems.

While politicians debate tax incentives for companies to create more efficient technology, Wal-Mart’s experience with urinal makers is not unique. Similar innovators have been rewarded with exclusive deals.

Hill-Phoenix designed the unique CO2 secondary loop refrigeration system in place at Fayetteville and Savannah, Ga.

WattStopper Inc. was chosen for its motion detectors controlling LEDs in refrigerated cases and SunOptics of Sacramento was awarded a two-year deal to install sunlight harvesting systems like the one in Fayetteville.

The rainwater harvesting system in Fayetteville has yet to be tested. The pair of 35,000-gallon tanks are full from the heavy rainfall, but the irrigation system won’t be activated until the weather gets drier.

Rainwater harvesting at Fayetteville is a “big experiment,” Zimmerman said, and while it may be cutting edge now, it is only a first step.

“There will be a dozen systems in a Sam’s open tomorrow that aren’t in Fayetteville,” he said. “It’s just that evolution.”