Sustainable Solutions for SCM

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parts for special machines like harvesters or even planes must be available worldwide

within one day. This has a high impact on the location of the warehouses. They must

be placed near an airport or near the customer. In agile supply chains, warehouses get

besides the tasks given above new opportunities. Using the just-in-time concept, the

time of goods in a warehouse has to be reduced. The traditional warehouse is transferred

to a ‘Cross-Dock’. The original storing process is not taking place in these facilities.

The service level remains the same, but the size for processing the goods decreases.

Receiving, processing and dispatching goods takes place within a couple of hours. This

concept is used for products which have to be transported rapidly like perishables. Also

in the automotive industry, cross-docks are used. Products from a supplier are delivered

with a full truck load to the cross-dock. There the load is separated into smaller loads,

combined with loads from other suppliers and then transported in a full truck to the

automotive plant. So the delivery time is high and the inventory is low. In these just-in-

time supply chains, warehousing takes place upstream in the supply chain at the 2

tier supplier. The costs of the products or the raw material are lower. Downstream in

this supply chains the cross-docking concept is used. When transferring from just-in-

time to just-in-sequence, a process where supply-parts are dedicated for a specific final

product and a fast and safe process without cross-docking is difficult to manage.

In a customised world, warehouses offer other value-adding services. In fulfilment

centres of online retailers, many operations take place. Besides a selection process according

to a customer order and packaging and dispatching of the goods, return flows must also be

handled. Especially big online-retailers offer returns as a service.

So the task and the location of a warehouse in a transport chain is an important

part of the corporate strategy of supply chains.

6.4.2 Impact of warehousing on the environment

On the one hand, warehouses like other buildings as well emit greenhouse gases

during construction, operation and the after use phase (recycling or landfill). On the

other hand, they add major traffic of at least light and heavy trucks, cause noise, cover

large areas of land and so interact with wildlife and rain water running into the ground.

The impact on the environment of warehouses compared to the transportation is much

smaller and sometimes neglected in supply chains.

In Figure 6.6 (see below), the CO

e-emissions of a metal part for cars are given.

The highest impact has the production of the raw material. For this supply chain, the

impact of warehousing and internal transportation is not important. This changes if

a supply chain of frozen food is considered.

Buildings in general have a major impact on the global energy use. Different

studies have shown these impacts (proportion of the global energy use):

• Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2014): 32%.

• World Business Council for Sustainable Development (2008): 40%.