Green and environmental reporting gets attention from ERP vendors

I read today (http://tinyurl.com/4schf9f)  that Oracle has acquired the IP for environmental reporting software created by Ndevr, a software firm based in Melbourne Australia. The software adds greenhouse gas and environmental reporting capabilities to Oracle's E-Business Suite and JD Edwards Enterprise One. Ndevr has been a JD Edwards/Oracle certified partner for over 10 years.

This announcement comes just days after IFS announced the results of its Green Supply Chain survey (http://tinyurl.com/4oh92rh). IFS revealed in the announcement that almost 77% of manufacturers participating in the survey said they are currently required by their customers to report on their environmental impact and that of their products or require their vendors to do so. IFS went on to say, “…respondents indicated that their IT infrastructure, including enterprise resources planning (ERP) software, was not keeping up with their changing green supply chain needs, with 87 percent reporting that this data was handled at least in part through hard copy. Only five percent rated their ERP software as ‘excellent’ in its handling of green supply chain data while 54 percent rated their ERP solution as ‘poor’ or ‘not at all helpful’ in this regard. “

IFS addresses this apparent disconnect through IFS Eco-footprint Management which enables environmental impact to be traced along the entire value chain, from raw-material procurement and production to distribution and even through to the use of products post-shipment.

In addition, SAP has been particularly vocal about these issues and has been promoting its efforts in striving to be both an exemplar and an enabler. In fact Peter Graf, appointed as SAP’s Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO),  leads both the corporate sustainability strategy as well as product development in the area of sustainability, thereby lending cohesiveness to both efforts. SAP BusinessObjects Sustainability Performance Management, SAP EH&S Management and SAP Carbon Impact are all part of the SAP offering to address these issues.

Infor has a series of "green software solutions" including Infor Green EAM, Infor Green ERP, Infor Green, PLM, Infor Green PM and Infor Green SCM. You can also read how see how Bentley University and Mohawk Fine Papers are using Infor EAM to reduce their energy consumption and about Infor’s Green solutions at http://www.infor.com/enterprise-software/sus-hub/ .

These are just 4 examples of how the major ERP vendors are jumping on the sustainability band wagon for environmental protection.

IFS promotes Lean methodologies in complex environments

I just finished reading an interesting white paper written by IFS (an ERP solution provider that specializes in addressing the needs of complex manufacturing). The title – Lean Enterprise in Complex ETO (Engineer to Order). Drawing from works by Lean experts such as James Womack and Jerry Kilpatrick, the paper does a great job of educating the reader on the principles and benefits of Lean methodologies.

The paper rightfully identifies Lean’s heritage in more high volume, repetitive manufacturing. After all it was pioneered by Toyota. But it also makes a case for Lean in a low volume, highly complex environment. Seems like some of these low volume manufacturers have been listening. According to data collected by The MPI Group for its 2010/2011 Manufacturers Data Report on manufacturing metrics and best practices, low-volume/high-mix manufacturers are actually more likely to have adopted Lean Manufacturing methodologies than an average of all plants surveyed (66.1% of low-volume/high-mix versus 60.8% of all plants) and are also more likely to use the Toyota Production System (TPS) (13.3% of low-volume/high-mix versus 10.5% of all plants). They are also more likely to use pull systems with kanban signals and one-piece flow techniques to manage inventory. As a result, they were able to shave an average of 26% off manufacturing cycle times (versus an average of 14% across all plants) over the past three years and more than half (53%) were also able to increase inventory turns, with 8.8% increasing them by more than 20%.

So if you happen to be one of those complex manufacturers dealing with the challenges of a engineer to order environment and have not embraced Lean methodologies thinking they only pertain to a more simple, repetitive environment… think again.