Sustainable Logistics: Example Automobile Manufacturer

Abstract

In its capacity as a company operating across the world with a global production network, the automobile manufacturer under consideration in this paper, hereafter referred to as ‘the Company’, naturally moves large quantities of materials and products. About one-third of the emissions of noxious substances that occur during vehicle production are generated along the transportation chain. To keep the transportation-related environmental stress at a minimum, all commodity flows are constantly being analysed and optimised from procurement to delivery. Here, intelligent transportation logistics achieves the optimum transportation services with a minimum of environmental stress (see Wolff in Situation und Entwicklungen in der Automobilindustrie. In: Kuhne + Nagel Automotive Day. Bremen, 23 June 2005; Zadek in Logistics––a key sector of the 21st century. In: Skills for the European Logistics Sector, Brussels, 24 September 2008; Quariguasi Frota Neto et al. Designing and evaluating sustainable logistics networks. ERIM report series reference no. ERS-2006-003-LIS, 2 January 2006). Company environmental protection can only be “holistic” if it really covers all the links in a production chain. For this reason, the Company aims to establish high environmental standards both for itself and for its approx. 3,000 suppliers and service providers. To improve supply chains with environmental requirements in mind, the planning of logistics systems needs the early consideration of requirements including risk analysis, which will be shown in an example .