As businesses introduce sustainable practices across their supply chains, operations managers have located a key pain point: carbon emission reductions. Logistics operations—including warehousing—contribute significantly to a business’s carbon footprint that can negatively impact both the brand and the bottom line. While warehouse carbon emissions are not as high as those generated by freight transportation, warehousing…
The well-stocked grocery store is a staple of modern life, with its uniform, colorful rows of canned, packaged, and fresh foods that stretch the long aisles. And while customers enjoy the abundance of grocery store offerings, they are also starting to pay more attention to the extraordinary amounts of waste that consumption generates. As shoppers…
Calculating carbon emissions in the supply chain is challenging—especially as supply chains grow more complex and include third parties and stakeholders who perform outsourced operations. When companies disclose greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, those emissions are organized into three categories, or “scopes,” as defined by the GHG Protocol Corporate Standard. While Scope 1 and Scope 2…
Warehouse operating costs constitute an unavoidable component of supply chain expenses that impact a company’s bottom line. Since these costs differ from company to company, there is no universal formula for cost analysis that operations managers can follow. There are, however, common warehouse expenses related to labor and storage that businesses share. By addressing these…
Achieving sustainability across supply chains is a major objective for businesses across the globe. There has been an estimated 24% increase in the number of companies asking suppliers for reports on environmental data. With freight transportation being a major contributor to costs and air pollution, businesses are focusing on sustainable logistics management practices more than…
Operations managers routinely look for opportunities to scale up in order to address supply chain cost reduction challenges. Scaling can allow managers to take advantage of lower rates and increased efficiencies. While this strategy can work well for large companies, small and mid-size companies are often unable to realize the benefits of scale. Instead, small…