Posts Tagged ‘retail’
Notes from the Grocery Manufacturers Association Executive Conference, Part 3: Sustainable packaging for sustainable cities
Sunday, October 16th, 2011
Through all of the discussion at the GMA Executive Conference about the importance of energy management and water conservation in consumer products/food & beverage manufacturing, product packaging reduction remains a hot topic as well. When manufacturers and retailers look to make their products, manufacturing, and supply chain more sustainable, the first place many of them look is packaging redesign – for good reason. There are many downstream benefits to reducing the amount of packaging, from less energy & water to manufacture, to improving logistics efficiency – all positive for municipalities and cities. Consider the following research from McKinsey and Co., published in the GMA report, “Reducing our footprint: The Food, Beverage and Consumer Product Industry’s Progress in Sustainable Packaging”, that depicts these benefits:
ADDITIONAL BENEFITS FROM PACKAGING IMPROVEMENTS, 2005-2010
- One company reduced landfill waste by 20.7 million pounds and green house gas emissions by 11 million pounds
- One company was able to eliminate 2,000 trucks from its fleet
- One company saw a 50 percent improvement in transportation efficiency
- One company saw 26 percent less water usage, 18 percent less electricity usage, 56 percent less fossil fuel usage, 10 percent less resin usage, 35 percent reduction in transport distance and 40 percent less greenhouse gas emissions
- One company saw a 43 percent improvement in shipping efficiency
Source: McKinsey’ & Company Winter 2010-2011 Survey
Notes from the Grocery Manufacturers Association Executive Conference, Part 2: Sustainable water for sustainable cities
Friday, September 23rd, 2011
Another critical challenge food & beverage manufacturers deal with every day that also impacts the municipality they exist in, is water conservation and wastewater management. Snack Food Company Snyder’s-Lance, which I visited recently in Charlotte, NC has their own wastewater treatment plant to pre-treat the effluent, or wastewater, that results from food and beverage production so the municipal system is not over-burdened. If this pre-treatment did not happen, the local wastewater treatment system could be compromised. Beverage company Sunny Delight is another CPG manufacturer focused on this: its CEO Billy Cyr spoke passionately on the topic of water conservation at a sustainability session during the GMA Executive Conference, and the company’s sustainability report states the following:
“While water reduction and conservation are important internally, we also are committed to protecting bodies of water and ecosystems surrounding our facilities. In some communities and ecosystems bordering our sites, water is a very valuable and, at times, scarce resource. SDBC is mindful of this and only withdraws water from municipal supplies and water tables that have an adequate supply to support the surrounding water demand and ecosystems.
In addition to decreasing water usage and carefully considering water sources, we closely monitor the quality of our wastewater discharge. This discharge results from operational equipment, such as cooling towers, boilers and water conditioners, as well as from the daily processes of equipment cleaning and sterilization. Each facility balances the pH of its wastewater prior to discharge to the local water treatment facilities. Only our Littleton, Massachusetts plant treats and discharges wastewater directly to open surface water. The site ensures the quality of its wastewater through a comprehensive treatment process and monitors the characteristics and frequency of its discharges.”
At Siemens, we work with food & beverage companies to address these problems. One such example is the Khon Kaen brewery in Thailand, which worked with Siemens for their wastewater management solution. 6,000 cubic meters of biogas/day is used as a supplementary fuel in the plant boiler system. Please see the video below for this story.
Notes from the Grocery Manufacturers Association Executive Conference, Part 1: Sustainable energy for sustainable cities
Friday, September 9th, 2011
At the GMA Executive Conference in August, the primary topics of discussion included food safety, retailer and manufacturer collaboration, innovation, operational efficiency, and sustainability. Siemens Corporation CEO Eric Spiegel hosted a panel on sustainability with the CEOs of Cargill, Kroger, and CH2M Hill – all made it clear their companies sustainability strategies very much take into account what impact their manufacturing and retail practices will have on the environment, cities, and municipalities that they do business in. Here’s a link to a recap on this panel discussion. Areas like water consumption, wastewater management, solid waste, and energy usage all are considered in developing a sustainability strategy by these and other organizations. One of these other organizations is General Mills: they use the waste from Cheerios production as biomass to power two of their plants in Minnesota.
The company, which won the 2011 CPG award for innovation from the Grocer Manufacturers Association (GMA), is very focused on making their plants more energy efficient, while at the same time, doing good for their surrounding community. Their innovation is an oat hull burner: essentially, they use the leftovers from Cheerios oat production (80,000 tons per year!) as a source of energy. In fact oat hulls have the same BTU as bituminous coal. They now power 100% of their plants in Fridley and Minneapolis, MN using oat hull biomass. The results are impressive: not only are they now avoiding a $540,000 natural gas bill per year, but they are also reducing their carbon footprint by 21%.
As a bonus to the energy and financial savings General Mills experiences, leftover oats hulls are sold to local electricity provider Koda Energy to power approximately 17,000 homes per year. Truly a triple bottom line achievement: people, planet, profit. See the following video for more on this alternative energy innovation from General Mills:
Greetings from the GMA Executive Conference
Monday, August 22nd, 2011
The Siemens team is here in beautiful Colorado Springs at the GMA Executive Conference. The past few days have provided excellent opportunities to speak with the industry leaders in food & beverage, and hear some great insights on topics such as food safety, value chain collaboration, leveraging emerging technologies like social media and mobility to engage customers, and sustainability.
Siemens Corporation CEO Eric Spiegel moderated today’s panel discussion on sustainability strategies – a lively, varied conversation among a retailer (Kroger), a manufacturer, and a water industry EPC. Dave Dillon, CEO of Kroger, Greg Page, CEO of Cargill, Lee McIntire, CEO of CH2M Hill all spoke to their sustainability strategies as noted in previous posts (see http://blog.industrysoftware.automation.siemens.com/?s=gma). The topics of innovation (how can sustainbility innovation do good for the world, and drive business), minimizing impact (meeting the needs of feeding 9 Billion people while not compromising the environment) renewable packaging (because of the tremendous positive affects on the environment downstream), CO2 emissions (the Carbon Disclosure Project a focus for Kroger and Cargill now), improving production efficiencies (using less energy to produce the same product), and water conservation (wastewater pre-treatment, water reuse) were all big topics of conversation.
As far as key takeaways of the event: Dave Dillon from Kroger cited looking at the totality of your sustainability impact and the need for supply chain transparency, Greg Page of Cargill talked the importance of working in an interdependant world where business and government need to work together to solve the world’s sustainability problems, Lee McIntire of CH2M Hill cited the challenge of meeting the food needs of the world in an efficient way that conserves water and energy. Eric Spiegel of Siemens wrapped up with reiterating the importance of water conservation, as well as improving production plant efficiency, and waste reduction. You can learn more about sustainability solutions from Siemens, including our 2011 US and Canada Green City index, at this special GMA Executive Conference microsite.
Countdown to the GMA Executive Conference… Meet the Sustainability Panelists: CH2M Hill
Thursday, August 18th, 2011
Lee McIntire, Chairman and CEO of CH2M Hill brings a slightly different perspective to the discussion. His company is one of the world’s largest EPCs (Engineering, Procurement, & Construction) focused on designing and building sustainable manufacturing plants, and providing water and wastewater management solutions to industries including food & beverage.
The primary areas of sustainability focus for the company, based on their sustainability report are:
- Environmental compliance
- Efficient (CH2M) office operations
- Supplier management
- Enabling clients to be sustainable in their operations
Here’s more from Mr. McIntire and Nancy Tuor, Group President of Sustainability, on CH2M Hill’s sustainability approach:
Countdown to the GMA Executive Conference… Meet the Sustainability Panelists: Kroger
Thursday, August 18th, 2011
Dave Dillon, Chairman & CEO of Kroger will also be a participant in the sustainability panel, ”Practical Industry Strategies for a Sustainable Future”, Monday, August 22 at 2:15 p.m. MST.
The primary areas of sustainability focus for the company, based on their sustainability report are:
- Solid waste reduction
- Building/Energy efficiency
- Packaging reduction
- Transportation Efficiency
- Use of renewable energy
- Local, safe, organic food
Read more about Dave Dillon and Kroger’s sustainability vision in their sustainability report:
The importance of supporting office tools in Apparel & Retail product development
Friday, July 15th, 2011
Let’s face it: the reality is Microsoft tools are used in every industry to support communication and collaboration among the product development team, and their extended value chain. It has become a necessity for PLM systems to integrate seamlessly with the likes of outlook, excel, and sharepoint. It’s why Teamcenter, including Teamcenter for Softlines, Hardlines, & Footwear (SH&F), was built with this paradigm in mind. The biggest challenge to adopting a software system into the enterprise is getting people to use the system, and training them on effectively using it to increase productivity. We have alleviated that challenge considerably in Teamcenter for SH&F through an easy-to-use interface that has integration to MS tools we use every day, like Outlook and Excel. Imagine being able to take information offline into an excel spreadsheet, and having your changes update in real time within Teamcenter while your security privileges are maintained; or signing off on a task on your smartphone while traveling, to keep a line plan on target to meet your in store date. All is a reality with Teamcenter for SH&F.
If you get a chance, take a look at Tec Evaluation Center’s blog piece on this topic.
2011 Consumer Products/Food& Beverage Industry Trends
Wednesday, April 6th, 2011
Based on recent conversation with industry organizations like the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA), and some of the leading brands in this industry, following are some of the major trends in consumer packaged goods and food & beverage (CPG / F&B) that will continue to impact how CPG / F&B products are designed, manufactured, delivered, and improved:
• Sustainability – Product packaging continues to be the first place manufacturers look to reduce, but there is increased focus on energy efficiency, as well as less water usage, and water re-use. These topics were front and center at the recent GMA/FMI Sustainability Summit. Here are some good resources on sustainability from GMA.
• Food Safety – The Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) was enacted into law this year, ramping up the need for CPG / F&B manufacturers to collaborate more closely with their suppliers, and improve testing capabilities. This article, from the U.S. Commissioner on Food & Drugs, provides a good overview of FSMA.
• Health & wellness – Of course Mom was right about eating your fruits and vegetables, but sometimes we need to be reminded; The First Lady Michelle Obama has helped raise the importance of this with her childhood obesity campaign and organization, “Let’s move” . The previously mentioned FSMA also has raised awareness of the importance of healthy food, and moreover, a safe, reliable food supply chain. As a result, manufacturers will undoubtedly be giving even greater consideration to increasing the percentage of ‘healthy alternatives’ in their portfolios.
• Social media + mobility – Social networking enhances the ability of manufacturers and retailers to understand the changing needs of customers. Combine this with mobility and location based marketing (for brick & mortar retailers) like Foursquare, Gowalla, or Loopt (there are others), and you can engage the customer wherever they are, whether home on their iPad, in the airport on their iPhone or Blackberry, or nearby one of your retail locations. Check out “The Coming Wave of Social Apponomics”, from Booz & Company – one of the best articles related to this topic I have seen.
Additionally, I came across a very interesting, recent Boston Consulting Group article thanks to a colleague of mine. It provides an apt headline to reflect the new retail landscape that exists, post recession: “New Realities for Consumer Goods & Retail in 2011”. Here are some of the points that jumped out at me as most relevant to product lifecycle management (PLM):
Continue reading “2011 Consumer Products/Food& Beverage Industry Trends” »
Sustainable Apparel Coalition Formed
Tuesday, March 15th, 2011
As discussed previously, the apparel industry continues to move toward designing and manufacturing apparel, footwear, and other merchandise in a more sustainable way: The Growing Interest in Sustainable Apparel Development. Earlier this month, a group of industry leaders across retail, manufacturing, academia, NGO, and government announced the Sustainable Apparel Coalition, with the goal of indexing the environmental impact of apparel & footwear: New Sustainable Apparel Coalition Will Index Consumer Products. To accomplish this goal, manufacturers (whether in apparel, consumer products, or food & beverage) need to account for energy usage, CO2 emissions, water usage – and also (where PLM solutions such as from Siemens come in) package design, specification management, sourcing, and supplier collaboration. I look forward to watching this coalition evolve, and seeing what role technology plays in supporting the sustainability goals of each member of the group.
@ AAFA Executive Summit: Social Networking, Cotton Inflation, China, & Politics
Friday, March 4th, 2011
Siemens PLM was lead, “Platinum Plus” sponsors of the American Apparel & Footwear Association (AAFA) Executive Summit this week in Washington, D.C. The event was a high level gathering of the elite in apparel & footwear, so we were thrilled to be a part of it. There was a political flair to the festivities, with multiple politicians taking the stage and giving very interesting, thought-provoking speeches – see this link for more information on the event, including the agenda: http://www.apparelandfootwear.org/annualsummit.html . These presentations were intermixed with industry hot button issues like the rapid inflation of cotton (how will this affect consumer prices later in 2011?), China (still a major sourcing hub; how will rapidly rising wages affect this?), and social networking. I’d like to focus for a minute on the latter as I think there is still so much opportunity to leverage social media in the apparel and retail industry. Particularly around integrating it into the product development process, to truly enable open innovation.
I was privileged to introduce two esteemed speakers for the opening event presentation on social networking: Jon Kubo, CIO from teen retailer The Wet Seal, and Michael Haines, Regional VP from Facebook. While Facebook continues to capitalize on the need for retailers to maintain close connection with customers, there are few examples of retailers who have successfully moved their social networking efforts from marketing and branding focused, to connecting their efforts with mobility, and e-commerce. Wet Seal, under the direction of Mr. Kubo since 2005, launched their “Fashion Community” site in 2008, which as of last year generated 20% of e-commerce revenues. In other words, they’ve been able to leverage social networking to make money. See more on Wet Seal’s approach here: http://www.stores.org/STORES%20Magazine%20October%202010/wet-seal-approval
