Efficiency in Sustainable Supply Chain

Humanity is concerned about changes that occur in the climate and the level of pollution. Countries and producers of goods and services have to introduce the concept of sustainable development thereby decreasing the volume of harmful emissions into atmosphere, searching resource saving technologies affecting the level and pace of business. Only wealthy countries can be a good example for the adoption and strict implementation of commitments by all countries of the world in the field of sustainable supply chain management, the implementation of which has a significant impact on the quality of the environment.

Within the framework of the concept of sustainable development, economic growth should be considered not only in economic, but also environmental and social terms. The economies of countries face new challenges intended to satisfy growing human needs while maintaining (or improving) the quality of the environment. Not all countries are on the same level as regards the implementation of this strategy. We found that the implementation of the concept of sustainable development would be possible but for the activities undertaken by individual enterprises being a part of the supply chain. Special importance is given to the implementation of closed-loop supply chains. The aim of the chapter is to present the need to implement closed-loop supply chains in the Polish economy. The chapter presents the selected aspects of the decision-making process aimed at closing the material flow in the supply chain. The description contains a full analysis of the current ratio analysis at macroeconomic level (pertaining to the economies of selected European countries) and the review of the methods and techniques for the optimization of supply chains which realize forward and backward material flows.

Sustainability has become an important issue in all aspects of corporate policy. This also applies to organizations operating in agrifood supply chains. Most literature on sustainability in the agrifood industry focuses on food security or prevention of food losses. However, little attention has been paid to how organizations working in agrifood supply chains use new approaches and innovations for making physical distribution more sustainable. Therefore we set up a study on how companies in the agrifood supply chains use innovations to improve the sustainability of the physical distribution. For this purpose, we have interviewed key managers of 14 Dutch companies—6 logistics service providers, 3 wholesalers and 5 food processors—all involved in agrifood value chains on how they approach, and innovatively improve, sustainability within physical distribution. We found that all the groups of companies have sustainability in their mission and use various innovations for improving the sustainability of their physical distribution. We also found that various links in the chain preferred different types of innovations e.g. food processors preferred innovations linked to reduction strategy and wholesalers focused on innovations related to efficiency strategy. The applied innovations were not linked to the supply chain as a whole, but concentrated on a specific aspect of the supply chain and were often initiated by a partner from outside the agrifood supply chain.

Each company operating in a free market economy wants to reduce the cost of its activities. But often managers attempt to reduce costs pushing them into other actors operating in the supply chain or even to its surrounding environment. Consequently, such actions are very short-sighted, because all the costs generated by the logistics network are finally being felt in the external environment and price of the final product. Indeed focus should be on fighting disturbance in the supply chain, that include the sustainability issues. Main objective of the chapter is a presentation of different sustainability dimensions with its future development, as well as introduction of Physical Internet influence on logistic challenges in terms of sustainable growth. Following social, business and technology trends by improving cooperation and better access to information among cells operating in the supply networks and their surrounding lead to significant positive results especially in fast growing FMCG industry, as the author presents later in the chapter.

The gloomy economic climate in Europe in comparison to the other continents has a hard impact on SMEs in France and Europe. The best way for resisting to globalisation negative impacts is to be more efficient at each step of their supply chain. This is the key of their competitiveness. According to COP21 conclusions, it is nowadays a necessity for enterprises to integrate in their strategy social, societal, environmental aspects in addition to cost, quality and lead time for improving themselves: they have to be sustainable. The question is how to make sustainable enterprise more efficient. Despite the other functions in the enterprise, the supply chain and its related functions are the main area of improvements. GRAI methodology is one of the three main methodologies (with PERA and CIMOSA) used for improving enterprise performance. GRAIMOD is a tool being developed for supporting GRAI methodology. The concepts defined during this elaboration could be used for making supply chains sustainable. The result of the improvement process is an efficient supply chain. DMAIC is a problem solving method used for continuous improvement and really adapted to the wanted objective: improvement of the supply chain. This chapter shows how to use this method in a GRAI environment for making sustainable supply chains more efficient. Concepts are presented and illustrated will a real example on a SMEs.

E-commerce is a constantly evolving market. In order to cope with the customer’s expectations it is required that companies need an appropriate management of logistics processes. Therefore, it becomes necessary to monitor the processes using the respective metrics and indicators. The aim of this study is to propose indicators of logistics processes in e-commerce, also in an ecological aspect and an indication of trends in e-commerce. Maintenance of proper levels of customer satisfaction requires changes in the organization of the procurement process for e-commerce. It is proved, that helpful are IT systems that allow parcel tracking.

The chapter is devoted to the issues of sustainable development of the transport sector and the definition of eco-efficiency in transport. To achieve this, the author proposed a Matrix of Transport sustainable development and the Classification of environment-unfriendly factors, affecting the eco-efficiency on transport. The author proposes the system Greens, based on promotion of the modes of transport implementing green technologies and fining those modes of transport that do not pay enough attention to environmental issues. The term ‘GreenS’ combines two economic categories: fine (green Strafe) and reward-benefit (green Start). The chapter concludes that the approach estimating modes of transport in terms of their integration into the supply chain is not just reasonable, but also effective, since the use of ‘green’ logistics principles is not just an option, but mandatory path of development, both for individual modes of transport and for the entire transport industry.

In the chapter a combination of the virtual reality technology with the ecological approach to the design of electrical appliances of everyday use has been discussed. The case study on a hammer drill is presented. The authors present how useful can be the virtual reality technology in the process of environmentally friendly design of products. The basic functions of a product, its design and operation can be evaluated by means of the virtual reality technology before the product is put into production. The product disassembly method and duration, as well as the waste reclamation and recycling levels, can be determined at the design stage.

This chapter describes an approach to ecodesign using CAD 3D system. The authors demonstrate the ability to assess the ecological products in the early stage of design. With CAD modules it is possible to generate the design documentation of the product, detect potential collisions during the assembly and disassembly of its components, simulate the motion of the cooperating elements, perform strength calculations and analyses. Chapter describes also copyright software DeforDis, which the main aim is to analyze the level of product recycling rate already at the product design stage. The chapter presents a case study for disassembly simulation by using CAD 3D systems on the example of microwave oven, computer speaker and iron.

Production efficiency is one of the most important problems for modern management, both at operational and strategic levels. Ecological aspect is very often undervalued and even missed by the management of a company. It needs to be noticed that there is growing interest in environmental aspects not only in production companies or whole supply chains but also in policies of many countries in the world. This chapter focuses on the availability of working machines and equipment as the element of operational efficiency of the production process which affects the evaluation in ecological aspect. The author decided that the amount of produced defects and the degree of productive resources use, has an important impact on efficiency evaluation in ecological aspect.

The aim of the chapter is the analysis of effects of joint organisation and provision of transport by independent enterprises. Based on the data obtained from four independent market enterprises, the analysis of potential for cooperation in two basic variants has been carried out and the measurable effects of this cooperation were examined. The study demonstrated the scale of cost savings which can be achieved as a result of combination of transport orders and the level of environmental effects, understood in this case as the change in the CO₂ emissions. The obtained level of results allows the conclusion to be made that the cooperation between the Companies is beneficial both in the micro scale (positive economic effect for the respective companies), as well as in the macro scale (a reduction in the CO₂ emissions).

Demand management is complex and crucial coordinating activity in supply chain management. Its roots are at retail echelon of supply chain where it is most efficiently conducted through category management process. This chapter aims to highlight the importance of category management for efficient demand management activities in the retail supply chain management through a theoretical analysis of the category management process. The need for cooperation between retailers with other members of the supply chain in category management is also emphasized, especially in form of category captainship collaboration. Category management run by retailers is the beginning and precondition for efficient and effective demand management throughout the whole supply chain. Potential implementation problems in certain areas of demand management in retailing are pointed out, and finally solutions for overcoming these issues are offered.