The Rise of Sustainable Supply Chains

After the recession of 2008 companies got leaner and part of this new way of doing business involves looking at inefficiencies throughout the value chain as a way to leverage cost and enhance savings. Lean efforts have been demonstrated to yield substantial environmental benefits (pollution prevention, waste reduction and reuse opportunities) as well as leverage compliance issues.

Although sustainable supply chains have been steadily growing, in 2010 we saw an explosion of activity. The growth of greener supply chains in 2010 included a much greater focus on monitoring, measurement and verification from a host of companies including Wal-Mart, IBM, Proctor and Gamble, Kaiser Permanente, Puma, Ford, Intel, Pepsi, Kimberly-Clark,

Unilever, Johnson & Johnson, Dell, AT&T, P&G, and Herman Miller.

In addition to private enterprise, government agencies in the US (General Services Administration) and abroad (DEFRA in Britain) have set green standards and guidelines for federal procurement.

Major value chain concerns such as materials water and waste management, are part of a growing sustainability trend where companies are increasingly concerned with their suppliers’ sustainability efforts.

Corporate social responsibility issues including addressing concerns for human rights, fair labor and sustainable development got a lot of attention from big companies like Nestle, Corporate Express, Danisco, Starbucks, Unilever and the apparel industry.

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Genius of Steve Jobs

After the news today Apple’s founder and visionary Steve Jobs had passed away aged 56, so much is being said rightly about the technical genius of the man. His profound impact on lives is clear from the global tributes from world leaders, industry luminaries and oft times competitive rivals.

But beyond his astute commercial insight lies a deeper truth, which is much more important to Process Professionals and all us involved in building and developing Process Excellence.



We cannot easily quantify the impact on all of us. To live a life and touch so many people in such a significant way is incredible. What a truly amazing person. I don’t know where I would personally be without my iPhone, iPad and iTunes.

To briefly reflect on his impact in our process world I would like to share three of his key business insights that inspire me. Where did this notion come from? What imperative created this different way of looking at business? How does Apple consistently deliver exceptional performance for their shareholders, customers and employees? Here are some of the insights that I believe Steve Jobs brought to Apple to make it the world-beater it is today:

Insight Number 1: Discern the real need

“You can’t just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they’ll want something new.”

How do you discern the real customer need and not just the want when so often the customer doesn’t know it themselves? Part of this genius is to transcend the customer surveys, research and legions of marketing agencies telling you about customer desires. You need to go beyond that and Steve Jobs did and described a way of thinking through the successful customer outcome and then, only then, align everything you do, through your processes, people and technology to achieving that objective. A collaborator (and sometimes Apple competitor) Jeff Bezos from Amazon describes the process as “working backwards”. He encapsulates the essence of this outside-in view of business “Hey, rather than ask what are we good at, ask who our customers are and what they need. We will figure out how to give it to them.”

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The WTO’s focus is on maintaining an open, equitable and non-discriminatory multilateral trading system which generates opportunities for market access.



However, he added: “If, at the technical level, countries speak a different language, then those opportunities disappear. And if regulatory agencies don’t trust the quality or safety of each others products, they may not allow trade to take place. International standardizing bodies, such as ISO, have an important role in building bridges.

“In fact, it is the very reason that two key WTO Agreements (the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade and the Agreement on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures), explicitly urge regulators to base their measures on relevant international standards to avoid unnecessary barriers to trade. These Agreements go as far as to say that measures that are based on relevant international standards are assumed to be in compliance with WTO rules.

“But this vote of confidence by the WTO confers upon international standardizing bodies significant responsibility. How you set your standards is crucial. Indeed, WTO Members have agreed that for greatest effectiveness, international standards should be developed through open and impartial, transparent and consensus-based process. These are the very same principles that underpin the WTO.

“Let me underline two points I believe are important, one on process, and the other on substance.

“On process, delegations at the WTO repeatedly emphasize the importance of transparency and accountability in development of international standards, calling for broad stakeholder engagement. In this context, I reiterate the importance of enhancing effective developing country participation in the work of international standardizing bodies. International standards must reflect developing country needs. When they do, they stand a greater chance of actually being used.

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Hagaporten 3 has been one of Skanska’s high-profile projects. Construction of the 28,000 square meter building commenced in the spring of 2006 and it was ready for tenants to move into by October 2008.

The building is leased at 97 percent capacity and approximately two thirds of it is rented by the technology consultancy company ÅF, which contributed to its design. With its distinctive profile close to the E4 motorway, the building has become a landmark of the northern approach to Stockholm.

The building was constructed with high environmental ambitions and is one of Sweden’s first to be classed as a Green Building. The building has also received various accolades, such as for environmental work and architecture.

“This transaction is a key step in our aim for long-term growth in the capital city. The property consists of modern facilities with high flexibility. Furthermore, it has been built with high environmental ambitions and is housing a good tenant composition. These were the main factors in Norrporten’s decision to acquire the property,” says Jörgen Lundgren, Executive Vice President at Norrporten.

“We have worked together with Norrporten on several previous occasions, and feel comfortable knowing the tenants will be transferred to a company with a long-term approach to its property holdings,” says Jan Odelstam, President of Skanska Commercial Development Nordic.

Skanska Commercial Development Nordic initiates and develops property projects in offices, logistics, business premises and commercial buildings. The company’s operations are concentrated in the three metropolitan regions in Sweden, the Copenhagen region in Denmark, the Oslo region in Norway, as well as Helsinki in Finland. The development of logistics and volume retail properties is conducted in strategic locations in Sweden, Denmark and Finland.

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Wall Builder is a web-based information security and confidentiality management software application that enables organizations to centrally control, monitor and report on user access

permissions across multiple applications, including document management, accounting, portal, CRM, time entry and records management systems. It also automates notifications to individuals subject to specific policies and tracks acknowledgments for compliance purposes.

This year, several law firms have been recognized for their success based on their adoption of IntApp Wall Builder. Most recently, Patricia Fitzpatrick, Director of Practice Management at Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP, a full-service law firm with over 600 lawyers, was honored by the International Legal Technology Association (ILTA.) as part of its 2011 Distinguished Peer Awards Program. She is one of three finalists in the “Risk and Records Management Champion” category. The winner will be announced August 25, 2011 at ILTA’s annual conference.

“We’re pleased to count ourselves as a successful IntApp Wall Builder client and honored to be selected as a finalist for an ILTA Distinguished Peer Award based on our information risk management efforts,” said Patricia Fitzpatrick, Director of Practice Management, Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP. “IntApp has definitely distinguished itself in our eyes, particularly with its service team’s commitment to addressing our rigorous product implementation and information security requirements.”

Wall Builder is the most-adopted ethical walls and confidentiality management software by law firms with 150 or more lawyers. According to an independent survey by the International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) of its membership, 74% of large law firms using commercial software to enforce ethical screens to secure access to confidential information use IntApp Wall Builder.

Law firms must closely manage and track internal access to client information for many reasons. These include waiver-driven ethical screens, client outside counsel guidelines, and compliance with regulations such as the HITECH Act, ITAR and several data privacy laws.

Wall Builder replaces distributed, ad hoc approaches to information security with a centralized system that provides organizations with unprecedented capability and control over user access to specific applications, documents and other information. It’s the only product for law firms that delivers real-time enforcement while updating access rights in response to attorney behavior to ensure that policies are kept up to date automatically.

“Today law firms face an unprecedented set of confidentiality drivers, which is why so many choose to work with IntApp, as we focus on developing the most sophisticated technology available for addressing this specific challenge, and delivering it in a way that’s easy to deploy and easy to use,” said Pat Archbold, head of IntApp’s Risk Practice Group. “We’re excited to reach these important milestones and thankful to the legal community for standardizing on IntApp Wall Builder for confidentiality management.”

About IntApp

IntApp provides software products and services that enable law firms to achieve competitive advantage by exceeding client compliance requirements, increasing revenue, and reducing operational costs. IntApp’s three practice groups (Risk, Revenue and Integration) focus on understanding existing pressures and emerging trends, and translate this knowledge into products and best practices. IntApp products are the most-adopted in their respective categories – Wall Builder for ethical screens and client confidentiality management, Time Builder for time capture, and Integration Builder for application integration and master data management. IntApp serves over 200 customers, is endorsed by major software vendors across all categories, and has cultivated a vibrant partner community.

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These results were reported on 17 June 2011 at the launching by ISO of the new standard at the Geneva International Conference Centre (CICG), Switzerland. ISO Secretary-General Rob Steele told the international audience of nearly 200 people attending the event: “Energy is no longer a technical issue, but a management issue with an impact on the bottom

line and the time to address the issue is now.” The event included presentations by three out of some 100 experts from 45 countries who participated in developing the standard. Hamilton , Director, Global Energy and Sustainability Services, Hewlett Packard (USA), described ISO 50001 as a “very pragmatic standard” which will help companies to integrate energy management with business practices. It will allow multinational companies like Hewlett Packard to reduce energy costs and increase the efficiency of energy use throughout global supply chains.

Mr Hamilton quoted results from two pilot implementations which were part of the Superior Energy Performance programme sponsored by the US Council for Energy Efficient Manufacturing and the US Department of Energy.
He cited the experience of two plants. One of them was a plant owned by a major company, Dow Chemicals. The plant reduced its use of energy by 17.9 % over two years. At the same time, ISO 50001 principles are also successfully implemented by small businesses as shown by the experience of the other plant, CCP, of Houston, Texas, employing 36 people. In two years, it achieved energy savings of 14.9 %, worth USD 250 000 a year with zero capital investment.

continue reading at:http://www.iso.org

Chapter 7, Effective Decisions, is especially valuable for the lean problem solver or problem solving coach, and by logical upward extension the executive. Distilling the wisdom in this chapter, we can say that there are three requirements for management by fact. They are

1) decision on the criteria of relevance,

2) testing of hypothesis and conversion of opinion into tested fact, and

3) arriving at consensus through clash and conflict of divergent opinions.

indicators. If the results are good, the argument goes, the process itself must be good. Strongly results-driven lean deployments can quickly gain traction due to the enthusiasm for visible financial impact. However the methods can sometimes run roughshod over people, leaving the long-term sustainability of the results at serious risk. A lean deployment with a long-term focus must assure that there are adequate short-term gains to fuel and fund the effort, while developing people and building capability in the organization.

Another challenge with gauging the progress of an organization along the lean journey is the fact that there is by necessity a periodic recalibration of what we consider to be good. An organization in the early stages may be thrilled at the improved process and results delivered through kaizen, yet reflect a year later and wonder how they could have seen anything but waste in those “after kaizen” photos. At each major stage of lean maturity there is an order of magnitude difference in our perception. Our eyes for waste become sharper, our tolerance for nonsense more limited, our respect for the individual deeper.

read at http://www.gembapantarei.com/

data were plotted before I liberated them for action with a simple graph.

Example One: Take for instance the data for a heat sink. The supplier provided the data in tabular format. No part was out of specification and so no action was taken. I plotted the data as in Figure 1, showed it to the supplier quality manager, and he immediately saw that there was a pattern to the data; Down… Up… Down… Up… Down… Up…. Then the pattern reverses at Point 16. What causes this special pattern? Different shifts? Different Lines? Different Machines? Different measurement systems? Find out what causes the pattern and take action to fix it. Plot the data. Take action.

Example Two: Another supplier dutifully recorded the time and the solder temperature for a wave solder operation. The numbers were stored on data sheets and accumulated for weeks and months. They came to life when I plotted them using boxplots for each of the five different times of day as shown in Figure 2. Nobody knew that there were start-up/warm-up differences at 8:30 compared with the other times. Even if there were no additional clean-up costs after wave solder, the cold solder temperatures could still result in reliability problems later. Plot the data and you see what action to take.

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THE PURPOSE OF ANALYSIS
The fundamental purpose of any statistical analysis is to separate the potential signals from the probable noise.



Once we have said this, the immediate problem becomes how to use our data, which may contain signals, to compute a measure of dispersion that can be used to filter out the noise. When the signals are mixed up with the noise,the signals are likely to contaminate our filter and undermine our analysis.

This problem proved to be intractable until about 100 years ago. At that time a basic distinction was made which allowed us to reliably filter out the noise, and this distinction soon became the foundation of all modern techniques of statistical analysis.

The basic idea is to use the context for the data to arrange the data into subsets where each subset is logically homogeneous. We can then use the variation within these subsets to characterize the probable noise. By summarizing this within-subgroup variation into a single measure of dispersion, we can filter out the probable noise, and anything that is left over will represent the potential signals within the data.

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