Driving competitive advantage through energy efficiency in Mexican maquiladoras

Abstract Energy efficient policies and the appropriate management of energy supplies have become essential in developing and keeping competitiveness across all industries and forms of industrial production. The scientific contribution of this article is the presentation of competitive advantages that can be developed from efficient management of energy resources in two Mexican maquiladoras and that might be replicated in more organizational structures. In order to ascertain how energy efficient Mexican maquiladoras are, several in situ visits were carried out; hard data were collected following a proposed energy efficiency program developed by the UNEP, as well as other auditing instruments to acquire first-hand information about the maquiladoras. The results show that the larger maquila tends to have stronger policies in place. The audits were carried out in maquiladoras that focus on the manufacture of electronic and electric goods and whose sole source of energy is electricity. Thus, the practical contribution is that revealing of unexplored opportunities for maquiladora operators and managers alike to build and maintain an edge over competitors through optimized energy use.