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Corporations have been facing a variety of greening pressures. At first greening effort focused on making sure that corporations did not break the law. Completing forms, putting in requests for permits, making sure information is kept, reporting to various levels of governments to meet regulations and avoid fines are the core and traditional concerns of corporate environmental management functions. Greening was viewed as a cost center and costs needed to be minimized. Minimizing costs includes minimizing risks and liability. The thought was private lawsuits and paying fines and penalties are minimized through good environmental practice.
The ISO 14001 environmental management system (EMS) standard has been designed to help organizations in the creation of structured mechanisms for continuous improvement in environmental performance. This paper evaluates how ISO 14001 EMS and EMS‐like standards aid organizations in operating continuous source reduction programs by exploring some critical elements for program success. The ISO 14001 standard helps organizations define important EMS elements for continuous source reduction. However, adopting these elements may necessitate cultural changes, the core elements of which are embodied by TQM principles. The cultural changes support complex operational activities aimed at source reduction. Three case study firms are used to evaluate these critical EMS elements. Each firm showed substantially idiosyncratic situations attributable to each organization’s size, history, corporate culture, and technology. Despite the differences, however, the cases highlighted one critical point: employee empowerment, their willingness to make suggestions for improvement, and management’s effort to create employee participation in decision making are critical elements in managing continuous source reduction programs. These initial empirical observations provide some insight into how this cultural change may occur.
The decision to invest in flexible manufacturing systems (FMS) and other advanced manufacturing technologies has been an issue in the practitioner and academic literature for over two decades. To this end, a number of models have been proposed to help decision makers evaluate FMS. Many of these models realize that the justification and investment process will require the consideration of multiple criteria that are capable of incorporating both traditional and non-traditional factors. In this paper data envelopment analysis (DEA) modeling is introduced as a technique to aid in the evaluation of FMS. A number of DEA models and some extensions are presented to aid in the investment and adoption decision process. Managerial and research implications for the use of these models are also presented.
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An organization's long-term viability and competitiveness should not be evaluated solely in terms of financial measures. Investors, policy makers, and other stakeholders increasingly seek to evaluate performance with respect to sustainability—the environmental, social, and economic performance of an organization. But measuring and improving the sustainability performance of supply chains is challenging. We introduce a framework to help evaluate sustainability performance of supply chains. We have collected sustainability data on food supply chains within the United Kingdom. These data are then transformed into indicators. In addition, as part of this benchmarking framework and to more accurately determine performance of food supply chains, we have utilized food supply chain experts' opinions about which factors contribute the most to sustainability. Using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), these opinions are translated into importance ratings. The indicators are weighted by these importance ratings to generate an overall index of sustainability. Stakeholders can use the index to evaluate supply chains, and supply chain members can use this approach to guide improvement efforts. Strengths and opportunities, as well as limitations of the methodology are discussed, and sensitivity analysis is performed.
Reverse logistics (RL) and closed-loop supply chains are necessary for effective green supply chain management. RL activities help to extend the life of a
The multi-tier sustainable supply chain relationship (MSSCR) is a socially important topic receiving greater attention in the supply chain research community. MSSCR research investigation is difficult. There is greater complexity associated with broader sets of organizations, practices, objectives, and interconnectivities. These complexities make it difficult to effectively study this environment using empirical statistical correlative research. This paper introduces a cluster rule methodology, based on K -Means clustering, rough set theory and cluster membership, to investigate these complex relationships. A conceptual case provides detailed insights for practitioners and researchers who may apply this methodology to evaluate complex relations and mitigate endogeneity problems. This methodology can help advance theory by analytically developing alternative explanatory relationships, equifinality, amongst variables, even in small sample data situations. Small data environments are especially evident in case study research. We call this define this method as a cluster rule methodology. Directions for future research are discussed.
Blockchain technology has been promised as a solution to social and environmental issues in supply chains. The potential includes reduction of vulnerable party exploitation and avoiding environmentally harmful practices. Yet, it remains unclear how these potential improvements are created and whether blockchain can truly contribute. Therefore, this field study explores and identifies the mechanisms for blockchain technology to facilitate positive social and environmental impacts in supply chains. We applied an explorative qualitative research approach and interviewed blockchain technology implementers and practitioners that allowed a detailed analysis of this problem despite the scarcity of practice data. The results include the development of a middle-range theory that shows barriers and drivers of blockchain-based technologies in supply chains, introduces the concept of blockchain-enabled system, and outlines expected outcomes and impacts. We further identify four impact pathways that describe how blockchain-enabled system create positive impact: (voluntary) market mechanisms, plausibility checks, smart contracts and tokenisation, and peer-to-peer trust. The study contributes by providing insights into “how” blockchain-based technologies in supply chains can lead to social and environmental impacts. The study also furthers the discussion on blockchain technology’s role in supply chain implementation and addresses the yet unresolved problem of measuring the impact of such blockchain-enabled systems.
This article presents a supply chain planning model that can be used to investigate tradeoffs between cost and environmental degradation including carbon emissions, energy consumption and waste generation. The model also incorporates other aspects of real world supply chains such as multiple transport lot sizing and flexible holding capacity of warehouses. The application of the model and solution method is investigated in an actual case problem. Our analysis of the numerical results focuses on investigating relationship between lean practices and green outcomes. We find that (1) not all lean interventions at the tactical supply chain planning level result in green benefits, and (2) an agile supply chain is the greenest and most efficient alternative when compared to strictly lean and centralized situations.
Since the 1992 Rio summit, corporate environmental responsibility has grown beyond complying with increasingly stringent environmental regulation and taking up proactive initiatives. The business and financial performance of companies may depend on being socially and environmentally responsible. Customers do not distinguish between a company and its suppliers. Thus, greening the supply chain is an innovative idea which is attracting attention. This book incorporates the following perspectives: - conceptual development and principles of green supply chain management; - empirical studies showing the practices and concerns of industries in Asia, Europe and North America; - quantitative and analytical tools for use in environmental supply chain design and development, and; - case studies of green supply chain practices which describe the complexities faced and their resolution. Industry practitioners, policy makers, students and researchers in this field will read this book for the insights it provides.
The food industry and its supply chains have significant sustainability implications. Effective supply chain management requires careful consideration of multiple tiers of partners, especially with respect to sustainability issues. Firms increasingly approach their sub-suppliers to drive compliance with social and environmental efforts. A number of complexities and unique challenges make sub-supplier management more difficult than direct supplier management, e.g. a lack of contractual relationships to sub-suppliers, few opportunities to put direct pressure on sub-suppliers, or lack of transparency concerning sub-suppliers' involvement in a focal firm's supply chains. The literature has not investigated, either from sustainability or other perspectives, the critical success factors (CSFs) for firms' sub-supplier management. Therefore, this study seeks to explore and increase understanding of critical factors that help to overcome the complexities and unique challenges of sub-supplier management, with a focus on the food industry. Using data and information from a year-long field study in two food supply chains, the research identified 14 CSFs that influence the success of sub-suppliers' compliance with corporate sustainability standards (CSS). The identified CSFs can be classified into (1) focal firm-related, (2) relationship-related, (3) supply chain partner-related, and (4) context-related CSFs. The present research expands on the theory of critical success factors by applying the theory to the sustainability and sub-supplier management context. In support of critical success theory, it was found that CSFs do exist and their management will be necessary for effective sub-supplier management success as highlighted and exemplified by field study insights from practitioners. Multiple research avenues are necessary for further evaluation of sub-supplier management in the food industry and other industries who may find similar issues that arose from the food industry.
This paper introduces a practical supply chain optimisation model that incorporates both economic and carbon emission objectives. The proposed model is implemented to examine the possible economic and environmental trade-offs for various carbon-pricing and fuel-pricing scenarios in an actual case company representing the discrete, durable parts manufacturing sector. Analysis of the numerical results provides important managerial implications and policy insights. For industry practitioners, the findings can assist in identifying the critical activities along the supply chain on which to focus in order to minimise the cost implications of a carbon-pricing regulation. For related policy-makers, the findings provide insights on how carbon should be priced to make meaningful impacts on emissions reduction while matching variations in fuel prices.
In this article the growth of models used to justify the acquisition of manufacturing equipment is discussed. A description of this growth is provided using a roughly temporal description of the various modeling techniques that were developed. Descriptions of the models are provided as well as a number of references. The context of justification of advanced manufacturing systems is also presented. This context is primarily within a strategic implementation framework.
This chapter presents a case study of an overview of the efforts of Texas Instrument’s (TI’s) internal and external ERP implementation, with a focus on linking its ERP system in a global e-commerce setting. This linkage is especially important since it had been stated in TI’s strategic plan as an objective of this project to provide visibility of the ERP system to external constituents via Web linkages along with the objective of standardizing internal processes and important information technology systems to support market needs. Thus, its ERP system is central to managing its supply chain and B2B e-commerce linkages from both a customer and supplier perspective. Issues faced by TI are clearly outlined with future questions also posed in the final section.
Greening the supply chain is increasingly a concern for many business enterprises and a challenge for logistics management in the 21st century. Of particular concern is how to arouse organizational environmental awareness and put environmental activities into practice in the logistics activities of their supply chains. This paper investigates the correlation of two major factors, organizational learning and management support, with the extent of adoption of green supply chain management (GSCM) practices in Chinese manufacturing firms, where their inbound and outbound logistics activities are potential polluters to the environment. Organizational and operational learning was derived from the firm's experience with programs such as total quality management and environmental management systems. Management support included support for GSCM ideas and practices from top and middle-level management and cooperation across organizational functions. We find significant positive relationships between organizational learning mechanisms, organizational support and the adoption of GSCM practices, after controlling for a number of other influences including regulations, marketing, supplier, cost pressures, industry levels of the relevant practice and organizational size. Implications of our findings on logistics management are discussed.
Political will at the national and multilateral scale is coalescing around the emerging discourse of Green Growth. The narratives and practices of Green Growth have already been rejected by many stakeholders as a reformulation of business as usual discourse. However, this article argues that this critique is grounded in a false conflation of distinct interpretations of the concept. In place of homogenising all associated narratives, we argue for an aspirational Critical Green Growth perspective, socially inclusive and conducive to structural transformation, incipiently identified in Asian national policies, particularly Korea. Drawing on this background, and other development insights, we conduct a ‘backasting’ exercise to identify trajectories leading to this imagined future of Green Growth. We address a key gap in the literature, the lack of dialogue between Green Growth and Developmental State studies. We then argue for the importance of the Green Growth State (GGS) in introducing fundamental change in this critical window of opportunity. Elements of this overarching concept would include broad characteristics of: a flexible and diverse policy mix; value-driven, multi-stakeholder, multi-level governance; public trust and collaboration; and appropriate measurements of progress discouraging commodification of nature.
