Align the Organizational Structure

The company must have an adequate structure to the practice of lean-green. An important factor is to have a plant well organized where the processes and activities can be well performed. This will help to increase productivity on internal processes that will promote additional improvement in the external processes.

It must develop a structure where the SC act together and move in the same direction. The SC partners must be involved, where they can also have the commitment for a lean-green implementation; to build a partnership with suppliers is vital, as it improves interrelated activities, unified operations and common business purposes. The strategic alliances must privilege suppliers with specific knowledge of the product and work in harmony with operations. Working with nearby suppliers is important to reduce waste and a more effective continuous improvement can be developed. The suppliers must be committed and the company can negotiate policies with suppliers which may result in better alignment of supply chain operations. Suppliers committed to lean and green, try to deliver a good product without defects and so no need of rework or repair; a product using materials more durable are more robust, do not need maintenance and in the end-of-life can be reused, recycled or disposed. In addition suppliers assume to deliver the requested product, at the requested time, in the requested local, at the requested cost.

In this point, it is important that management enlighten customers, of what they can earn from it, what changes can privilege the product. The company should indicate their intentions towards the environment and the local community. The company structure must consider the scope of responsibilities, delegate or share responsibility for decisions throughout the supply chain. A company structure with few levels of decision making will develop better decisions and reduce decision time. The SC decision-makers must be selected and accordingly with the transformation.

The following activities in sequence shall be developed:

 Select employees that are motivated and are committed with the transformation process. Better productivity and costs reduction of turnover will be expected.

 Top management must communicate their intentions as internal and external communication. Internal communication is made to employees and external communication to other stakeholders. Communication is an important factor to disseminate the intentions on the transformation. They must encourage the change. The

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company must use formal means transmit their intentions, via workshops, meetings, company newspapers, flyers, informal placards or e-mails and intranet.

 Establish the needs, as the tools and techniques for transformation process. Companies must apply tools to define the processes to achieve a better product or service, namely, the implementation of management systems for quality (e.g. ISO 9001), for environment (e.g. ISO 14001), and safety and health (e.g. OHSAS 18001). This will help in the process flows, document the processes, align SC activities and develop continuous improvement principle.

 Consider suppliers and LSPs that are committed to implement compatible solutions, embarking in a collaborative improvement process and assume targets and budgets. In some occasions, companies must be aware of the need to invest in suppliers to develop their activities as desired.

 Consider suppliers which have already the implementation and certification of management systems for quality and environment (ISO 9001 and ISO 14001). These include raw materials/components suppliers and service suppliers. If they are not yet, motivate and encourage them to establish ISO 9001 and ISO 14001, through clarification sessions.

 Consider suppliers that can guarantee a good delivery of the right product: a product with high quality, using materials more durable and possible to reuse or dispose in the end-of-life and at the same time reduce their lead-time.

 Strengthen inter-functional communication. Different alternatives are for different supply chain activities. For example, to manage the internal supply chain process, the company can use Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software; to share data with supplier and customers, companies can use EDI (Electronic data interchange) and internet or intranet. The benefits are to reduce dramatically communication errors (e.g. on time delivery). The e-mail is being a good mean of communication and is a way to reduce paper and toner to printing, which means reduction of recycling material.  Work with nearby companies to simplify the value. With this geographic distribution it

is possible to better control the wastes, reduce the time and distance in transportation at the same time, and reduce the carbon dioxide emissions. The company can share and be partner of some activities as recycle contracts or use the same sewage treatment, which

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145 leads to costs reduction. When, it is not possible to have zero wastes, see if there are any nearby company that can reuse wastes; this can generate profit.

 Select the performance measurement system that will be used within the company. Define the system that represents the strategy at long-term, medium and small-term. In this stage of the roadmap are considered all criteria of the lean-green supply chain conceptual framework. It is evident that criteria act together to achieve the next transformation stage.