Supply Chain Control Towers
How to contribute to sustainability objectives
By Supply Chain Control Towers / 4PLs
Companies today have overall sustainability goals and supply chain managers are asked to develop strategies and plans to contribute to related objectives. If a business runs a Supply Chain Control Tower and/or has outsourced this function to a 4PL, this entity will play a critical role in achieving these often-ambitious sustainability objectives.
To support this contribution, the service offering, processes, and systems of a Supply Chain Control Tower need to be optimised in 4 different areas.
Definition and monitoring of environmental impact KPI's
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Materials Used (Weight or Volume)
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Energy Consumed (Joules, Watt-hours or Multiples)
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Water Volume Withdrawn (Gallons, Liters or Multiples)
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Air Emissions (Metric Tons or Equivalents)
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Liquid and Solid Wastes (Gallons, Liters or Multiples, Weight or Volume)
Supply chain design also based on sustainability considerations
Design of the supply chain, transport and packaging materials and procurement of suppliers based on contribution to cost reduction, service improvement and sustainability objectives
Optimisation of operational processes
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Include the environmental impact in network design
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Select and manage providers also based on the environmental KPI's
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More focus on dynamic transport planning
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Include environmental KPIs in performance reporting
Modification of systems to collect, use and analyse sustainability data
Data collection and storage
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Collect data for each shipment regarding the energy consumption and GHG emission
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Collect periodical data from each vendor/provider regarding the environmental impact KPI’s
SC/network design
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Include the impact on environmental impact KPIs in the definition and analysis of scenarios
Transport planning
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Include impact on GHG emissions in transport mode and carrier selection functionality
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Optimize use of dynamic transport planning functionality for shipment consolidation, load design and trip planning
Execution management
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Include the environmental impact in decisions about corrective actions
Analytics
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Analyse the actuals regarding environmental impact KPIs and initiate where needed continuous improvement actions based on these insights
Dashboards/reporting
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Reporting of the environmental impact KPI’s on the different levels: supply chain overall, sub-contractors, vendors and 4PL
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Break down of these KPIs by flow, contractor and/or vendor