The Inovis Blog

Supply chain management review has a good article on Sustainable Supply Chain.

To assess corporate sustainability practices, A.T. Kearney and the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) surveyed a diverse group of Fortune 100 firms across several industries—including consumer goods, pharmaceuticals, electronics, and airlines—with revenues from $1 billion to $70 billion. We sought to discover how these companies promote sustainable practices.

So what are the key characteristics of sustainability?

Besides having a sustainability  strategy and getting the right people onboard, here’s the best point:

Managing supplier relations. Currently, 48 percent of firms reward suppliers with good sustainability practices or jointly improve processes with suppliers that do not. About 44 percent of firms measure the sustainability performance of major suppliers, and 24 percent require a third party to certify suppliers’ sustainability practices.

What about chargebacks? Many companies charge their vendors if they either short ship, enter incorrect orders, etc. This is the stick to the carrot (supplier rewards) which have been effectively used by companies to manage profitability.

Does your company manage chargebacks well? More about that in the next post.

Hardly a day goes by when we dont read about carbon credits these days. From IT vendors like DELL and HP to new startups like Carbonrally. It as James Kanter says is “fashionable”. Some resources are even very comprehensive like CARMA.

In the most basic terms, carbon offsets allow companies to compensate for their own emission lapses by buying green credits from other companies that have done a much better job at lowering their greenhouse gas output.

Here are the main points of contention:

1. Is it sufficient though to persuade companies to take action to offset their carbon footprint?

Even with the new standard, the industry remains largely self-monitoring, Mr. Kanter wrote, adding, “There are no requirements for sellers to stick to the standards and no single arbiter to decide whether a project should qualify.”

2. Is it merely a short term fix?

Upshot: carbon offsets are a near-term fix to help reduce the aggregate amount of greenhouse gas emissions in the world.

3. Is it for real? I dont think we can question carbon emissions? Just carbon credits to offset.

What do you think?

image credit: NYtimes.

Okay, I’ll admit my statement may be premature.  In fact, I may even be pulling your leg.  Over the years, I’ve been reading a lot about the Next Big Thing that will seal the fate of the venerable, dare I say, ancient technology known as Electronic Data Interchange.

I, for one, like EDI.  I think that the abbreviation EDI can stand for Efficient Data Interchange or even Effective Data Interchange equally well.  Yet I keep reading that EDI has problems.  Only thing is: I don’t hear what those problems are.

Since it’s inception, EDI has had several things going for it.  It’s concise.  You can transmit a lot of information in a pretty small footprint.  It’s standardized.  There are accredited, bona fide standards organizations such as ANSI ASC X12 and UN/CEFACT that have been producing standard EDI definitions from the start.   It’s simple.

So what’s wrong with EDI?  I’d be a starry eyed dreamer if I were to say, ‘nothing.’  I will say that I have not encountered any big difficulties.  The syntax isn’t that different from a CSV-type file.  If there’s a problem, it has to do with the inconsistent implementation of standard definitions across the industry.  I’ve seen plenty of cases where a given mandatory element with a given meaning was deemed irrelevant by a given user so, by imperial fiat or some other mysterious logic, they simply dropped some other piece of data into it.  Is a user’s failure to follow directions what’s wrong with EDI?  (Hint: notice which word failure is most closely associated with in the previous sentence.)

We’ve seen Next Big Things come and go, but EDI continues to forge ahead.  New versions of the big standards are still being produced.  The US Government has even mandated the use of EDI data (specifically, some X12 transaction sets) in the healthcare industry with the Healthcare Industry Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).  And, though the implementation guides are long and tedious, proper use should result in accurate and consistent data transmissions.  That’s what EDI was made for.

So, I’m curious.  What do you think is wrong with EDI?

Here’s a quick skit with Kay Dietz and Dawn Gartin of Inovis’ Educational Services on TLI and Biz integration. Enjoy!