Getting Green

The heart of the ‘green’ movement is reducing waste and doing what you can to save resources. Sound familiar? It should; that’s what resource management professionals have been focused on for many years. And that’s what ERP and related systems are focused on as well. So, if you are using ERP to reduce waste and make your operations more efficient, you’re already going green.

In addition to being fashionable and increasingly required by regulatory agencies and customers, green makes good business sense. For example, you are all aware of what has happened to energy prices over the last couple years – anything you can do to reduce energy use is both green and a money saver as well. The same logic applies to other resource preserving activities.

There’s another dimension to green – emphasis toward ‘renewable’ resources. There’s good news here, too, although it may not come right away. Renewable, in many cases, means not petroleum-based. While paper, soy bean, corn and other substitutes might be more expensive in the short term, it’s likely that they will be less volatile and there is a distinct marketing advantage to being able to say that you have eliminated or greatly reduced non-renewable content. It’s likely you’ll be forced in that direction eventually – either through shortages, regulatory pressures or customer demands.

One other aspect of the green movement that you should start thinking about is the content and origin labeling requirements that retailers, customers and regulatory agencies are becoming more interested in. New and evolving labeling requirements mandate that content and origin are traceable through the entire supply chain, so even if you are a second or third tier (or lower) supplier, your customers will be asking you for this information so they can pass it up the line. Compliance will certainly put additional strain on your procurement department and your database. To read more articles for manufacturing professionals go to www.daveturbide.com