Environmental control for process improvement and process efficiency in supply chain management – the case of the meat chain

Abstract

Integrated process management has to deal with economic, quality and environmental aspects and link them to management decisions on the organization, control and improvement of processes. The incorporation of quality and especially environmental aspects into established economic management approaches is a complex step towards the formulation of an integrated process management concept. The consideration of environmental aspects asks for an extension of management initiatives from an enterprise orientation to a supply chain orientation. However, there is still little experience in the transfer of theoretical concepts into an approach, which is suitable for the management of processes in individual enterprises, and the coordination of activities throughout supply chains. The paper integrates environmental management into a principal management loop for integrated process management and translates the management loop into a management strategy suitable for implementation in chains with a lower (first) level of coordination intensity. This scenario is typical (but not exclusively) for most agri-food production chains which are under heavy pressure to move towards integrated process management systems. The principal management strategy is demonstrated for meat chains which had been analyzed in a number of case studies on the implementation of environmental management concepts in industry.