Nowadays, it’s incumbent on us to look beyond our own personal financial responsibilities and consider the global imperatives that face us all.
We’re familiar with the idea of “Re-use, Reduce, Recycle”; we’re all becoming more careful about how we deal with packaging and recycling; sometimes we choose where we shop or who we bank with based on that company’s attitudes to global matters. Hardly a day goes by without some news story that shames organisations that pollute waterways or send waste to landfill, about countries that are facing uncertain futures as a result of environmental decisions taken decades ago, or about those who look to put pressure on governments and organisations to rectify the situation. Whichever way you look at it, in our personal lives we’re more aware of the world around us and our own ability to move mountains and shape opinions.
It’s much the same when looking at it from a business perspective.
Negative implications of different companies environmental actions have already been exposed which has meant many are getting their houses in order, setting sustainability targets and restructuring their operations.
Within Mysoft, we’re talking about the Sage X3 community and how companies can use ERP systems like X3 to control, monitor and optimise the inputs and outputs of their operations on a daily basis. Thus achieving an efficient sustainable process.
How Sage X3 can achieve sustainability within industries
Product expiry and repurposing
In industries such as food & beverages, pharmaceuticals and other process manufacturing operations, monitoring product expiry is key. With Sage X3 you can set expiry rules and warnings by product, stock that is approaching expiry can be highlighted using workflows and reporting, so that it can be reclassified if it’s slow moving. Being able to identify batches of stock close to expiry, and planning for how to deal with that eventuality over and above mere disposal and writing it off, is just one way Sage X3 can help to keep costs down and warehouses adequately stocked while meeting sustainability objectives.
Packaging
The decision of how to classify packaging often varies from company to company: should it be treated as a cost of production or cost of sale or simply as an overhead? Monitoring volumes and weights of packaging can be crucial in ensuring that a company keeps its costs down and its waste to a minimum., How many times have you ordered something that has arrived in grossly oversized packaging? If you’re selling samples of wallpaper, it makes sense to ensure that you’re using the right sized envelopes., This is where Sage X3 comes in, recommended packaging for a product can be defined, so that the right type of packaging is used for products of different sizes. This can, in turn, prevent companies being overtaxed for plastic bags and ensuring the exact amount is used and invoiced for.
Waste tracking
In many manufacturing environments, there will always be an element of scrappage, which is generally anticipated as a by-product of production. You can define expected percentages of scrap as part of a Bill of Materials, or cater for these when making purchasing decisions, so why can’t this scrap material be put to good use? One of Mysoft’s customers, a manufacturer of personal protective equipment, recycles the left over plastic from their production of hard hats. When volumes of waste material can be anticipated, companies can plan what to do with that material.
Reporting on waste is critical, in certain countries it’s a legal requirement to provide a European Waste Code declaration. The data for this appears in the ERP, both from a forecast and actuals perspective, therefore making it possible to automate this and circulate the result. This allows relevant stakeholders to be kept informed about how their company is performing against its targets.
Purchasing and stock management
For a business involved in distribution or manufacturing, maintaining optimum stock levels is a critical element in keeping costs down. Optimising the supply chain can have multiple environmental benefits around minimising wastage (as discussed above) and facilitating stock availability through efficient order management (optimal order quantities) thus reducing multiple shipments. To that end, solutions that offer multi-site inventory forecasting models, or that minimise transportation costs by enabling consolidation of purchasing to reduce shipping and haulage costs (and their associated emissions), must be seriously considered.
Supplier Management
Sage X3 has the ability to rank suppliers based on criteria such as performance against lead times, product quality and delivered quantities – this information can be used to inform purchasing decisions. One metric that could be added to these along with many others is a supplier’s ESG (environmental, social and corporate governance) rating, which is increasingly being used by investors and can also be used by companies as another decision factor.
Reducing Paper Waste
The easiest way for companies to improve their sustainability, almost overnight, is to reduce the flows of paper circulating between departments. Digital copies of paperwork are now becoming the sustainable norm, therefore, functionality that allows for documents to be stored digitally direct from emails, is becoming a necessity. One Mysoft customer is taking the sustainable step of discarding mountains of paperwork (mostly historical) in favour of a solution which enables sales documentation to be stored electronically, including email correspondence which would previously have been printed out and stored in a physical archive!
Our insights from X3CloudDocs tells us that over 90% of suppliers invoices are being sent to customers electronically, so why print these out when electronic approvals are available at your fingertips? This is just one of many examples of how paper waste can be minimised and switched out for the digital way, improving efficiency as well as increasing sustainable actions!
Why choose Sage X3 as your ERP?
As the world embraces a greater focus on creating a more sustainable future, businesses must also play their part in driving sustainability. The use of an ERP system like Sage X3 offers significant opportunities for companies to control, monitor, and optimise their environmental impact in various areas. By leveraging X3’s functionalities, businesses can efficiently manage product expiry and repurposing, monitor and reduce packaging waste, track and utilise scrap materials, automate waste reporting, optimise purchasing and stock management, and even minimise paper usage through digital documentation and streamlined processes.
Get in touch now if you’d like to chat about your businesses next steps!
