CarbonFeet

Who would want to be a risk management executive for a major company these days, as the job is getting far more difficult due to the high levels of environmental education shown by the world in general. Stakeholders really understand how constrained living is vital for the future and they are putting pressure on companies that they do business with to take up this mantle. Add to this the raft of new regulations and the ongoing potential for intrusive new legislation.

Risk analysts are called before corporate boardrooms to explain how the company should approach sustainable water management. This is a difficult problem to understand in the beginning, as we have, over the ages, considered water to be essentially a free resource. This is probably why we’re so bad at allocating real worth to its value, despite the fact that we rely on it for the production of almost everything.

Two significant issues impact sustainable water management. The world’s population will grow to more than 9 billion people by 2050 and this represents the most significant issue. By the time we get to this banner year, when global sustainability efforts are targeted, the human race will put huge demands on freshwater availability. By that time, global warming will mean that temperature changes reduce the amount of naturally distributed water, as a consequence of our unsustainable historical energy use.

Numerous factors have to be included within a sustainable water management plan. However, the total elimination of water within a process should not be considered, as this can often be even worse. Efficiency is the byword of sustainable water management and not limitation. Limitation can result in excessive energy use and a proliferation of solid waste generation.

Western societies look with some trepidation at the rise of countries like China, India and other emerging economies. While the world’s population is inexorably growing, populations in these developing countries are also finding a higher standard of living, which in itself will rapidly accelerate demand for sustainable water management by the companies within those countries.

Companies must think in global terms when they create a sustainable water management policy and really understand the pressure points within the product lifecycle. Reliance on supply chain organizations could be an issue, as these companies could be located within a completely different resource management environment. Levels of education rarely seen before will be called for as complex sustainability matters impact business strategy decisions.

Corporate sustainability reporting is not a top priority for the typical organization, with a majority of companies not including these reports within their annual revelations. If they do, they will almost certainly only refer to energy use and carbon emissions and not produce a sustainable water management plan, let alone reveal it.

As executives spend many a late evening trying to develop a sustainable water management plan, many are seeking software solutions that will allow them to put together all their efforts. They need to see how one particular sustainability initiative may impact, sometimes negatively, another, while allowing them to reveal the big picture and plan accordingly.

Daniel Stouffer has much more data about your sustainable water management and how a visit to www.verisae.com can benefit you.

Why is it that we avoid the question when it comes to waste efficiency? It seems that we consider ourselves to be very good at avoiding waste whether individually or the corporate level, because we are “naturally efficient,” in some way. The truth is that pretty much any activity involves waste, essentially when we use anything more than the absolute minimum of resources.

In a corporate environment, there are at least six distinct areas were we can identify that waste is an issue. One of the most glaring is in the overproduction of products, a serious waste efficiency issue. It seems that whenever a delay occurs in a process or, conversely, whenever an element of motion is involved, waste inefficiency is apparent. We see a byproduct of overproduction in excess inventory stock.

If any stock exists over and above what is needed to provide the customer with your exact order on a “just-in-time” basis, this is an example of waste efficiency problems. Often, the organization has a poor tagging and tracking system and archaic bureaucracy procedures can hide significant elements of waste.

Getting to the roots of the process is one of the first tasks that a waste efficiency committee should tackle. If current processes cannot handle the workload, waste will be incurred and this is especially troublesome if the goods being produced are perishable.

Right at the top of the tree, waste can be produced at the sales level as poor forecasting methods are used. When errors are included at the customer level they aggravate the situation throughout the product lifecycle. The waste efficiency committee has to interact with the sales team and investigate the generation of paperwork to start off with.

The supply chain is a clear focus for improved waste efficiency, especially as they will probably be providing you with your products complete with additional packaging materials, as an example. It will be up to you to incur disposal costs for these items and you should turn this around to your supplier to make sure that they become waste efficient as well.

During the production process, poor measurement activities will develop all kinds of clippings, cutoffs or other material that will find its way to the landfill. You should know that many organizations have made a pledge to cut out the use of landfills altogether in the relatively near future, subscribing to waste efficiency comprehensively.

Waste efficiency can often be destroyed by the corporate culture itself. The handling of waste is part of a push for ultimate sustainability and each company must do its part to become more frugal, to impose less upon resources and the surrounding environment.

Daniel Stouffer has a lot of information about your waste efficiency and how a visit to www.verisae.com will be of use to you.

Toyota has long been one of the leaders in the automobile world and long ago they identified seven separate areas of wasteful inefficiency, which can all be attributed to any manufacturing operation around the world today. These areas can really kill your profitability and expose your organization and its lack of planning in the areas of sustainability. Overproduction, transportation, waiting time, processing, inventory, motion and poor quality control must be addressed.

Make no mistake about it, because you cannot obviously see an area of waste it does not mean that it is not there. Overproduction waste is a glaring example and it’s true today that most companies pay only token lipservice to the concept of waste production. In fact, many organizations believe that overproduction is a necessary part of doing business.

Overproduction waste is simply the production of goods in quantities that are greater than demand. This position will be especially aggravated during an economic slowdown and will become very difficult to reverse. Remember that for an item to be “overproduced” it will have incurred additional elements of waste all the way down the lifecycle process, including administrative and financial loss.

In corporate culture, there is a feeling that if a production line is not utilized 100% of the time, or if particular employees are allowed to be idle at all, that this is more wasteful than letting them operate 24/7. This is a popular misconception and will at the least require a more educated assessment of equipment ROI.

Resources will be wasted needlessly wherever overproduction waste and excess is in existence. Whenever an item is produced with the intention of a sale, it has within its making an element of support, admin, backup, finance and other expense. If the item sits on the shelf, where is the profit?

A management system needs to reveal excesses as it tries to tackle overproduction waste, fundamentally by ensuring that no item can physically be produced unless the corresponding work order is actually in possession. Physically this means that the production equipment cannot engage unless it senses that a sale is in the system.

Environmental issues go alongside economic pressures, so that every company must consider how to become sustainable, as a consequence. While carbon emissions are one of the most important elements in the battle for sustainability, the entire concept must include waste reduction, less water usage and elimination of excess throughout the company.

Fully inclusive sustainability management tools could help to educate the company’s management and identify areas of inefficiency, such as overproduction waste. Such systems will almost always pay for themselves in short order.

Daniel Stouffer has much more data about your overproduction waste and how a visit to www.verisae.com will aid you.