Lean and Green Improvement for the Whole Supply Chain
A large retail business was looking to reduce its environmental impact throughout the entire supply chain (from raw material production to product manufacturing to distribution and sales throughout the UK), and reached out to S A Partners and Keivan Zokaei for assistance, using their Lean and Green approach.
They selected a single Stock Keeping Unit (SKU) and the process was mapped in detail, identifying waste and inefficiencies in both the physical and information flows. Some of the biggest gains were hidden in information flows such as generating and managing orders and communications which led to great waste reduction opportunities.
The team identified 5 major improvements, leading to more than 65 projects:
- Product specifications were misaligned to the needs of the customer
- Reducing time to market
- Reducing the number of touches in the supply chain
- Reducing demand distortion / amplification
- Optimizing store ranging and tray sizes
The benefits delivered in the first year equated to a 2-3% reduction in cost and a 3% increase in
sales without any major capital investment was required.
By applying the principles of lean thinking, the improvement team also delivered significant CO2 and
water consumption reductions. Only for the single selected SKU, more than 800,000 kilograms of
CO2 were saved. This is equal to driving 5 million kilometres in an average size automobile which
means surfacing the earth at the equator around 100 times. It was estimated that the overall
savings, after roll-out could amount to much more.
Read the entire case study at https://www.sapartners.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Retail-Case-Study-lean-consutling-in-Retail.pdf
You can also access the M&S Sustainability Guide to support suppliers to help them with their own sustainability agenda using the S A Partners Lean Business Model at https://sapartners.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/m-and-s-systems-for-success-lean-toolkit.pdf
