Supply Chain Management

Table of contents
Executive Summary- Synopsis2, 3
Introduction...4
Research and Discussion.......................................................................4
Warehouse location...............4
Warehouse design.............................5
Increasing energy efficiency.................................5
Managing operations............................6
Improving existing warehouses........................................................................6
Conclusion.....7
Recommendations ............................................................................................................7
References..........................................................................................................................8

SUSTAINABLE WAREHOUSE MANAGEMENT

Executive Summary-Synopsis
Purpose the purpose of this report is to examine and explain how sustainable
warehouse management is important in todays companies trying to have a competitive
advantage and analyse methods that companys can undertake to achieve sustainability
in their operations.
Scope While the report will discuss and describe the key functions and practices
associated with Sustainable warehouse management, this report will also explain the
challenges faced by companies that are making their warehouses sustainable and
analyse why sustainability brings a competitive advantage.
Methodology This report reviews the published journals and literature on achieving
sustainable warehouse management. Literature reviewed has been published
approximately within the last decade, in order to indicate current changes happening in
the warehouse management practices.
Findings The world is going green with emphasis on having sustainable products
from the source to the consumer, this report findings will enable warehouses that are yet
to be sustainable to look at the various methods in achieving sustainability while
enjoying reduced costs and having a competitive advantage as consumers are looking
at lower prices and products that are produced through sustainable means this puts
pressure in the whole supply chain from production to distribution to the final consumer.
The report finds that there is increased value in going sustainable in business
processes and productivity is increased without the need of increasing costs and the
most important factor is offering sustainable businesses in the current market equals a
good competitive advantage.

Recommendations From the challenges illustrated in our literature review and the
discussion of the issues facing sustainable warehouse management and what needs to
be done to achieve sustainability, and the benefits of having sustainable warehouse
management.

Introduction
Sustainability is all about balancing and addressing the environmental, economic and
social aspects of a business operations and outputs. Organizations consider
sustainability as a core strategic value in todays business but find it hard to implement
in their businesses.
Sustainability is all about balancing and integrating the environmental, economic, and
social dimensions, which is commonly known as the triple bottom line decision making,
sustainable management is all about achieving the present needs of the society without
compromising the opportunities of the future generations(Tan, Ahmed & Sundaram
2009).
Most warehousing companies have little concern for the environment impacts that arise
in their operations and dont try to understand the social consequences of their business
operations. With increased competition in the market each company is concentrating on
customer satisfaction and reducing costs to compete effectively. Aspects such as
storage and transportation use energy like electricity and fuel for transportation which
has emissions and is one of the major sources of pollution.
Research; how can sustainable warehouse management be achieved
Warehouse location
According to(Klimek & Meier 2012) by putting distribution centres strategically will direct
influence the energy use and specifically the transportation that serves the building and
will have the greatest impact on sustainability.
Companies are trying to move their distribution centres close to inbound ports or closer
to customers not only to save on local transportation energy but also to close the gap
between on distribution time and ensure that customers get there products in time and
subsequently reduce environmental emissions while maintaining profits, by optimizing
truck capacity and developing more efficient transportation routes one is able to have a
more energy efficient distribution network and reduce costs as well as teh carbon
footprint, by deciding to locate a distribution centre strategically the business is not only
being sustainable but also reducing costs in the distribution network.

Warehouse design
A good warehouse design is just more than making a warehouse look nice but its at the
centre creating an efficient and profitable warehouse. Good warehouse designs should
facilitate the removal of wasteful and unnecessary step in the movement of goods in the
warehouse, by careful planning of a warehouse layout is crucial to maximize workflow
efficiency and remove pointless steps in the warehouse procedure. Companies should
maximize their cube wise space to fully utilise the warehouse for effective material
handling, order picking, and storage process(Accorsi, Manzini & Maranesi 2014).
Warehouse need to be future proof in terms of emerging technology with a good
warehouse design integration of new technology can be added with minimum down time
and costs.
Increasing energy efficiency
Warehouses are fond of consuming huge amounts of energy within a regular logistics
supply chain. Though automated warehouses can have significant amounts of energy
savings as they can function in complete darkness and in non-heated environments and
have a lot of benefits in terms of reduced operating costs(Jacobus, Beach & Rowe
2015), this is different to the convectional warehouse where there is high energy
consuming equipment as well as high operating costs for the machines. Automated
technologies such as stacker cranes can function independently and dont need lighting
or supervision and as a result its unnecessary to cater for operating expenditure saving
the company funds as well as making the operation sustainable. New concepts such as
daylight saving technologies will help companies save energy costs in the long run, with
companies adapting the use of solar panels in there warehouses or light emitting
diode(LED) lighting and also power generation by converting braking forces from
automated equipment to electricity and recovering heat that is produced from cold
storage systems, while some companies are switching to natural ventilation instead of
electrically- run ventilation and eve adjusting the speed of conveyers and palletisers so
that it can sense if the equipment is not being used it can shut down automatically or
slow down(Rowe, Berges & Martin 2016).

Managing operations
Companies can create more sustainable supply chains by improving their current supply
chain through the implementation of optimization measures from packaging operations
to transportation and design(Gunasekaran & Spalanzani 2012). Strategies to remove
unnecessary stages of transportation modes by moving inventory to optimal locations
based on the customers requirements or co-locating value adding logistics such as
packaging and repair services in a single location, by managing packaging operations
logistic companies can help customers to reduce wasteful shipping materials by
alternative designs in packaging and design, this can be by using of packaging
materials made from recyclable or sustainability sourced materials(Rossi et al. 2013).
Automating labour intensive jobs is an important factor in warehouse sustainability, by
switching from paper based to digital track and trace methods, with convectional
logistics consuming alit of paper and the challenge being traceability.
With incorporating the latest technologies one can achieve a fully sustainable
warehouse system which can include everything from bar-coding, pick-to-light
technology and sortation systems(Dadzie, Johnston & Sadchev 2015). When
companies introduce sustainable practices into their operations they can gain
competitive advantages such as lower energy bills and being able to keep a minimum
amount of staff who can be retained for a longer period of time either in times of high
demand or low demand as automation capacity can be increased or reduced when the
need arises.
Improving existing warehouses
Much of the warehouses available are old and were used when the just in time model
was not fully adopted by many companies and as a result they stored a bulk of their
products in the warehouses but with the implementation of processes such as just in
time(Ellram 1996),and reverse logistics are rendering most warehouses not being used,
and for a company that plans on investing on a new warehouse the important factor will
be integration of new pieces of equipment that gives the opportunity of adding new
technology in the future while minimizing downtime for the operation and ultimately
improve production.

The ultimate goal is being able to accomplish the same tasks as always while
expending less energy and costs, by using sustainable technologies in the right places
helps in achieving this goal and creating a greener, safer and more efficient
environment in your warehouse or distribution centre(McKinnon et al. 2015).
Conclusion
Sustainable business management and operation is important in the current business
world for the transformation of existing businesses into sustainable businesses. This
involves the formation of policies, identifying problems and accessing the corrective
actions to be taken. To be able to understand such issues and an environment that
enable us to simulate complex interdependencies between the environmental social and
economic dimensions is required.
This research is important in giving an insight into operationalizing sustainability for
warehouse, it clearly shows the initiatives to achieve objectives of sustainable
warehouse management are not in conflict with economic benefits but the later will gain
more from sustainable warehouses. Considering that technology is evolving it is
advisable to adopt all the best practices in one step at a time as the process is evolving
as time goes.
Recommendations

Companies that wish to undertake sustainable warehouse manangement need to

define their goals for this route and what they are after since sustainability is not

all about reducing energy consumption.

Careful planning of the warehouse is important to maximise workflow efficiency

and ensure that new technology can be introduced without any downtime.
The warehouse can be a competitive asset for organizations to achieve both
financial and environmental sustainability objectives in the long run without
compromising customer satisfaction companies need not to look at the initial

costs but the benefits that come with operating sustainable

Sustainability needs to be strategically managed and given top management
support for actions to occur.

References
7

Accorsi, R, Manzini, R & Maranesi, F 2014, 'A decision-support system for the design
and management of warehousing systems', Computers in Industry, vol. 65, no. 1,
pp. 175-86.
Dadzie, KQ, Johnston, WJ & Sadchev, H 2015, 'Organizational Characteristics and the
Adoption of Innovative Warehouse Automation Technologies', in Proceedings of the
1993 Academy of Marketing Science (AMS) Annual Conference, pp. 581-3.
Ellram, LM 1996, 'The use of the case study method in logistics research', Journal of
business logistics, vol. 17, no. 2, p. 93.
Gunasekaran, A & Spalanzani, A 2012, 'Sustainability of manufacturing and
services: Investigations for research and applications', International Journal of
Production Economics, vol. 140, no. 1, pp. 35-47.
Jacobus, CJ, Beach, GJ & Rowe, S 2015, Automated warehousing using robotic
forklifts, Google Patents.
Klimek, G & Meier, C 2012, 'ASSET: Appropriate Spares Supply and Efficient
Transportation Management', in Engineering Asset Management and Infrastructure
Sustainability, Springer, pp. 509-18.
McKinnon, A, Browne, M, Whiteing, A & Piecyk, M 2015, Green logistics: Improving
the environmental sustainability of logistics, Kogan Page Publishers.
Rossi, S, Colicchia, C, Cozzolino, A & Christopher, M 2013, 'The logistics service
providers in eco-efficiency innovation: an empirical study', Supply Chain
Management: An International Journal, vol. 18, no. 6, pp. 583-603.
Rowe, A, Berges, M & Martin, C 2016, An Extensible Sensing and Control Platform
for Building Energy Management, Carnegie Mellon University.
Tan, K-S, Ahmed, MD & Sundaram, D 2009, 'Sustainable warehouse management',
paper presented to Proceedings of the International Workshop on Enterprises
\&\#38; Organizational Modeling and Simulation, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.