Elimination Of Waste And A Supply Chain Context

Success for many organizations depends on the firm’s ability to balance product and process changes while exceeding customer expectations for improved cost delivery and quality. In lieu of these issues firms have started to implement principles of supply chain management. Supply chain management mainly involves managing the flow of incoming materials, manufacturing operations, and downstream distribution has to be in alignment that is responsive to change in customer demands eliminating a surplus of inventory.

The profit margins in the grocery business are extremely thin, so the Kroger Company’s supply change management continually works on improving its supply chain to increase efficiency and reduce costs. Kroger utilizes a program of lean process engineering to constantly improve its supply chain. This process involves examining each individual step of the supply chain from its suppliers to product delivery at its stores and furthermore, this process has been proven to drive down waste and reduce cost (Kroger, 2008). Kroger’s supply chain management is located near the top of the organization structure since the company as a whole has a strong emphasis on improving the supply chain to reduce cost and increase profit margins. Therefore the further up the organizational structure the supply chain management team is located the more optimally it will function and the greater the influence it will have on the decision making process (Burt, Petcavage, and Pinkerton, 2010).

In the business world ,fiscal command frequently triumph over the values, the values of social responsibility and ethical behavior as corporations endeavor to relieve costs and reduce contingencies in future ,nowhere is that drive for certainty and cost reduction is more enthralling then in the corporate supply chain, the global market place demands that supply chains be fleet-footed and scatter ,an efficient supply chain is responsible for changing the organization priorities by keeping the cost of the company intact and giving company the room for growth and increase productivity ( Attaran,attaran,2007)

Supply Chain Management (SCM) measurement and its influence on operational performance speaks about the theoretical development of SCM as a discipline and the challenges it faces at its conception stage and its lack of benefits. This paper went on to speak about the competitive priorities and resource-based view analysis that SCM provides to the development of a firm 's lean strategies and how it improves the firm 's business

Lean manufacturing is a continuous improvement practice that focuses on waste reduction. Waste in its simplest form is anything that is excessive and consumes resources. It can also be referred to as non-value-added activities that do not add value to the end product (Rizzo, 2008, 58). Sustainability on the other hand recognizes a print company’s capability to satisfy the 3 dimensions: people, profit and environment (Wirtenberg, 2013). These three dimensions are referred to as the triple bottom line (TBL). Even when a business is making a profit, anything that does not create value for customers, fulfill employees’ needs, and benefit the environment is wasteful and must be restructured to eliminate non-value-added activities (Wandiga, 2013).This is the philosophy of lean manufacturing; a beneficial concept that can help reduce the amount of wasted resources in a company and contribute to its sustainability.

The effectiveness of this lean method will ensure the elimination of waste while still maintaining high quality control of their product, which in return increases their profitability and

Being able to address environmental issues can save the world. One of the many environmental issues that are occurring every day is waste management. Waste can be categorized as “things humans have no use for” (Carolan, 2017). With the world being at such a large population, waste will continue to grow. Without there being a direct and or safe form to remove waste from the planet, problems will continue to rise as well. Since it has become socially acceptable to collect waste, nobody ever bothers to discuss the overwhelming waste on earth. Social construction is an important approach that can be discussed to better tackle the waste problem that is overwhelming the environment.

The core objection behind lean systems is to maximize customer value while minimizing waste. Basically, lean is defined by using fewer resources in order to make a perfect value for customers. How lean systems work, they use a highly skilled workforce and flexible equipment in order to make some advantages. Such as mass production which is the high volume and low unit cost. And craft production which is the variety and flexibility, this will help eliminate waste for the producer and consumer. Luckily, this approach has drawn attention to other services. For example, lean systems aren’t only suitable for manufactures but also health cares, offices and shipping and delivery. The misconception that lean is a tactic or cost reduction program is not necessarily true, but it is a process of thinking and acting for the entire company. In order to accomplish lean system thinking changes must refrain from management optimize separate technologies, assets and vertical departments.

Lean Six Sigma processes are used by many businesses without it being realized. Many companies today are adopting the Lean Six Sigma processes to aid in cost reduction and waste management. The Six Sigma program aids in eliminating the negative effects caused by variations within the supply chain. The Lean process is all about the speed, flow and elimination of waste concerning inventory. Although Lean and Six Sigma are separate programs, they complement each other. Together these two programs provide supply chains with a tool that eliminates, “unnecessary inventories through disciplined efforts to understand and reduce variation, while increasing speed and flow in the supply chain.”(Lean Logistics Understanding) Lean and Six Sigma

Lean is about doing more with less and is often used in connection with lean manufacturing to imply a ‘just-intime’ approach to the business. Many companies that have adopted lean manufacturing as a business practice are anything but agile in their supply chain. It is paradoxical that many Japanese companies have exceptionally long delivery lead-times to their customers and insist that those customers provide them with firm orders often several months ahead of manufacture. Yesterday’s world was one characterised by standard products, mass produced for generally predictable market demand. Today’s world is almost the opposite with customers demanding tailored solutions (high variety) in small quantities (low volume) with a higher degree of uncertainty.

In order to reach supply chain “nirvana” several principles should be considered and followed. While these principles are not a “be all, end all” they will help guide the management to achieve an efficient and sustainable supply chain.

The concept of ‘lean’ that is an essential approach that is team- based on a continued improvement that aim on the elimination of activities which does not add value according to the customers’ viewpoint, in one way or another has been around for many years. This paper define and discuss the lean supply chain, determine the potential risks and effects of a corporation and also give a description of the potential solutions to reduce the negative effects on a corporation supply chain management, inventory management or profitability. The supply chain of management involves many areas from the difficult to easy topics. As an independent field, Supply chain of management originated from marketing and managing strategies.

The purpose of supply chain management is to manage the flow of goods and services from the procurement of raw material to the point of consumption. Furthermore, it deals with the storing of material, production, and distribution of a product that will maximize customer value and give a company a competitive advantage of the competition. Applying lean gives a company the ability to focus on constraints in the system that inhibit efficient product flow, eliminate waste and improve productivity and quality. For this to be successful its imperative companies seek to include suppliers, distributors and logistics into the process because lean requires integration, coordination and collaboration across the organization and throughout the supply chain (Agus & Hajinoor, 2012). As a result of increased transparency, companies will be more focused on performance and this will create a collective effort to reduce cost by eliminating waste and increasing productivity. Beyond the efforts to eliminate waste lean looks to incorporate customer value from the customers perspective. Simply, everything that is being done that ensures customer satisfaction is a value added step and any activity that fails to achieve customer satisfaction, which is something their willing to pay for, is a non-value added step and should be eliminated from the process. By simply knowing the process and eliminating

The main role of “lean” supply is to strengthen the relationship and collaboration between suppliers- customers. According to Ellram [10], the author has defined the concept of lean as the continuous bond between the organizations which concerns to the contract and commitment in the long term relationship and a shared advantages and risks. Additionally, there are also some other features after the relationship and commitment between suppliers until customers. Those features are the trade of concepts (communication), data, and advantages such as merge inR&D, long-term relationship, and so forth [38; 40; 9]. The concept of lean supply also is being as the start of the enhancement in system in terms of taking the proactive role in improving the usual technique for similar advantages throughout the supply chain. As from the authors, the suppliers will work on working with manufacturer and ongoing collaborate until customers in both direct and indirect ways [13].

The American people unintentionally destroy Waste Management by reducing and recycling the amount of waste. There is a disconnection between the people and Waste Management. Even though Waste Management has more landfill capacity than others, no one wants to increase its wasteland profit. The business environment and sociocultural have changed. The changing environment and the trend analysis has supported the idea of many companies choosing the zero-waste route. This will therefore reduce revenues for Waste Management, creating an ambiguous future for the corporation.