Bob Trebilcock

Sex and the green supply chain
July 9, 2008

"The green supply chain is a lot like high school sex," says a friend of mine in the business. “Everyone is talking about it, but not a lot of companies are doing it.”

Okay. I’ll admit it. I’ve been looking for a way to combine the supply chain and sex for a long time. If nothing else, it might drive more web traffic to our site, since Modern rejected my idea of a materials handling pinup of the month.

But, based on the interviews I did for a story on green initiatives in the food and beverage industry for the August issue, my friend might be on to something. I found a lot of people talking about green initiatives, but not a lot of people doing much about it, at least at the level of materials handling, logistics and supply chain. Big talk, it seems, isn’t limited to just food and beverage. Or high schoolers.

“We do see a green section on about 50% of the RFPs we’re asked to bid on, especially from large companies,” says Chad Collins, vice president of marketing and strategy for HighJump Software. “But it seems as if companies are taking the benefits of efficiency they have always gotten from automating their processes with a WMS and applying those to green.”

Where Collins expects to see green taking hold is in green field facilities. “We think that as our customers are looking at new operations, they’re going to be looking at becoming LEED certified and focusing on green in their operations.” In fact, HighJump recently completed a project with Quality Bicycle Products, a company that is rethinking its operations with green in mind that I'm going to write about in September. Look for it. 

We’re beginning to see some of that happening at Modern, although the examples are few and far between. Last year, we wrote about Organic Valley Family of Farms, a cooperative of organic farmers that was able to decrease the amount of space originally intended for storage by and reduce energy costs by 40% over a conventional warehouse with the implementation of an automated storage and retrieval system and energy efficient lighting. The cooperative also turned to recycled goods, like old denim, for insulation.

I also came across a new 400,000 sq ft refrigerated warehouse built underground in a limestone mine in Missouri for Kraft Foods.  

But at the end of the day, I think Collins may have a point. Materials handling and warehouse management software has always been about doing more with less and getting the most from your operations with the least amount of inventory, equipment and resources. If it takes $5 a gallon diesel and the green supply chain to get more facilities to move from talking about productivity to doing something about productivity, I’m all for it.

Tell us what your company is doing about the green supply chain by posting below, or send me an e-mail at Robert.Trebilcock@verizon.net.  

Posted by Bob Trebilcock on July 9, 2008 | Comments (1)