Manufacturers are focusing on sustainable solutions that reduce carbon emissions while also improving the management of their complex supply chains. For many reasons, a digital vendor managed inventory (VMI) platform provides a system that accomplishes supply chain challenges while minimizing the carbon footprint.
Companies are looking to reduce their carbon footprint, especially in heavy industry. Finding solutions that are sustainable, energy efficient, time-saving, and socially conscious are at the forefront of crucial decision making.
Automation has the power to drive significant changes in manufacturing processes and energy consumption. It improves the efficiency of the use of resources like capital and energy while reducing the overall carbon footprint.
How Automation Saves Energy
Finding energy-saving solutions to complex challenges like supply chain management isn’t complicated. However, it involves a combination of commitment from the executive suite all the way to the shop floor.
It all starts with the collection of data, which drives intelligent decision making. And while many fear that reducing the use of human labor in the workplace eliminates jobs, it’s obvious that less human involvement in some manufacturing processes saves energy as much as it saves time, money, and errors.
Tracking what people do naturally, such as walking across the plant floor to collect parts and supplies, is part of the equation.
Energy is saved and carbon emissions are reduced in more traditional ways, as well.
For example, when digitizing supply chain management, there is no need for sales reps to consume fuel to drive to multiple locations and spend time counting inventory on the shelf. Paper consumption is reduced as the digital platform uses the Internet of Things to collect and track data, maintain records, streamline ordering processes, and accurately track inventory.
Some examples of how digital technologies have the greatest potential to reduce emissions in the areas of energy, materials, and mobility include:
- Sensing and control technologies that collect data and reduce the need for physical processes.
- Decision-making technologies that augment human intelligence.
- Enabling technologies that enhance and/or replace current operations.
- The effective, reliable, and responsible tracking of material goods.
Carbon Emissions Opportunities with Automation
Companies can deliver on their net-zero goals faster by adopting digital solutions that can rapidly transform their businesses, systems, workforces, and partnerships. One way is for businesses to share data, connect, and enable transparency that can support identifying and tracing source materials, optimizing routes, and enhancing efficiency.
Investing in cloud-based solutions ensures that data is available, standardized, and sharable across value chains. Prioritizing digital solutions ensures that the current and future workforce has access to new technologies to transform business processes in high-emission industries.
The next step is encouraging collaboration across value chains, industries, and among suppliers with technologies like ShelfAware’s CloudSourcingTM, which creates a unified supply chain platform and empowers collaboration among multiple independent and specialized product vertical suppliers.
By mitigating sustainable solutions and using digital platforms, reducing the overall carbon footprint becomes the natural result of all of these efforts.
How to Digitize Your Supply Chain
Digitizing inventory doesn’t have to be an expensive or overwhelming task. In fact, with a platform like ShelfAware, suppliers and consumers can reduce their carbon footprint, make more money with less worries, and eliminate stockouts with an easy-to-manage, cloud-based digital vender management inventory system.
Try a digital VMI platform like ShelfAware for a sustainable solution to supply chain management.
Want to learn more about an affordable way to automate your supply chain? Request your free ShelfAware demo.
Too good to be true? ShelfAware is redefining the vendor-managed inventory industry. For this reason, we’re happy to talk to you about how our intelligent inventory platform can benefit your business. Contact us today for more information.
