How might a firm that manufactures shoes use teams to determ

How might a firm that manufactures shoes use teams to determine ways to improve its environmental standards in terms of products and processes? What type (or types) of teams would be best for this initiative? Why?

Solution

Q1) Below is how a shoe manufacturing firm can use its teams to determine ways to improve its environmental standards in terms of products and processes -

1. Integrating sustainability initiatives as a part of supply chain processes

2. Adopting lean manufacturing to ensure waste is minimized or eliminated to a great extent.

3. Using sustainable manufacturing processes, sustainable raw materials and packaging materials etc.

4. Creating a sustainability index which measures the emissions vis-a-vis production and measuring it on a periodic basis to ensure it is improved.

5. Based on the Sustainability Index, the firm can give scores to each of the factories and either can reward them for better performance or penalize them for substandard sustainability.

6. Working with supply chain partners viz. suppliers, distributors, contract manufacturers to adhere to the sustainability standards created by the firm.

Q2) The firm can form a Sustainable Business and Innovation team that leads the initiatives across the supply chain processes by working closely with sourcing, manufacturing, product design and development, packaging engineering and marketing teams to create and market sustainable products.

Product design team - Identifying sustainable materials that need to be used for the product

Sourcing team - Sourcing sustainable raw and packaging materials

Manufacturing - Employing processes that result in lower emissions and conserving energy by switching off equipment when not in use