Continuing the project work in Bulgaria, on the 14th of January 2015 we moved to Sofia, where the second Project Promoter – GE Prison Production is located.

The project owned by GE Prison is quite different from a private investment done by the stone processing plant of Cherkezov. Here there is one more, extremely important factor of the whole investment done from the Green Industry Innovation Funds – creating workplaces for prisoners and giving them educational bonus, which should certainly help with the process of reintegration of the society.

The goal of the project was to set up a complete production line for solar water heaters – workshop manufacturing the unit and assembling it with boilers and electronic supplies in order to deliver to the market there types of solar water heaters of different capacity.

The aim of the site visit was to review the assumption of the organization of the production process and plans for the operation of the workshop. GE Prison managers gladly listen to IDN recommendations ( Senior adviser at IDN, Leif Estensen has more than 30 years of experience in industry project development) , especially having in mind that the equipment was about to arrive in late January so the suggestions could be considered quite easily.

One of the very first remarks was to consider additional small scale investment related to flooring in the workshop building. Initially it was not covered by the Green Industry Innovation project, but in our opinion necessary to maintain safety and efficiency of daily operations. Soon after the visit, short recommendation was presented to GE Prison productions manager who approved it and new floor, fulfilling the industry requirements was in place before the equipment was installed.

Part of the workshop was also focused on presentation of the Lean production principles and guidance how the Lean practice could be implemented into the daily operation of the manufacture. Last but not least we discussed further project opportunities and develop two concepts related to other business area of GE Prison Production which could be presented in the next call of GII mechanism.

Based on the fact finding done during the site visit IDN will draft the report focusing the recommendations for the operation and environmental performance of the workshop, but also reviewing safety at work requirements set up by both national and European standards.