Everyone Takes the Field: How 3M Encourages Employee Involvement in Promoting Sustainable Development

As with quality and innovation, sustainability must be supported by all employees. Sustainability requires a multi-level, multidisciplinary approach to the development of new products, reviews of existing products and processes, and efforts to help customers address environmental issues. 3M's Environmental, Health and Safety Management System – which follows principles of Life Cycle Management – is the company's primary tool for promoting sustainability. Leadership, communications and adequate resources are also needed if sustainability is to become rooted in a company's activities. 3M's Pollution Prevention Pays (3P) program, founded in 1975, provides an example of how these factors support sustainability. 3P, which seeks to eliminate pollution before it occurs, has spawned more than 4,750 projects worldwide, all of them proposed by employees. These projects have prevented the generation of 1.7 billion pounds of pollution and reduced costs by $850 million in the first year of implementation. 3P works because it encourages employees to use their first-hand knowledge of products and processes and then recognizes their efforts.     

A Perspective on Nuclear Waste

The management of spent nuclear fuel and high-level nuclear waste has the deserved reputation as one of the most intractable policy issues facing the United States and other nations using nuclear reactors for electric power generation. This paper presents the author's perspective on this complex issue, based on a decade of service with the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board and Board on Radioactive Waste Management of the National Research Council.     

Construction of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline

The tangible components of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System are outlined and the Integrated Project Planning and Management Cycle is visualized from the General Organizational Matrix viewpoint: then the multiple command structures in one large-scale Arctic Energy Project are analyzed retrospectively to test some a priori expectations about project managment. A number of lessons emerge from actual experience that may aid in the management of future energy projects.     

Best practices in business process redesign: an overview and qualitative evaluation of successful redesign heuristics

To implement business process redesign several best practices can be distinguished. This paper gives an overview of heuristic rules that can support practitioners to develop a business process design that is a radical improvement of a current design. The emphasis is on the mechanics of the process, rather than on behavioral or change management aspects. The various best practices are derived from a wide literature survey and supplemented with experiences of the authors. To evaluate the impact of each best practice along the dimensions of cost, flexibility, time and quality, a conceptual framework is presented that synthesizes views from areas such as information systems development, enterprise modeling and workflow management. The best practices are thought to have a wide applicability across various industries and business processes. They can be used as a “check list” for process redesign under the umbrella of diverse management approaches such as Total Cycle Time compression, the Lean Enterprise and Constraints Management.     

Strategic Appraisal of Environmental Risks: A Contrast Between the United Kingdom's Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change and its Committee on Radioactive Waste Management

In this article, we compare two high‐profile strategic policy reviews undertaken for the U.K. government on environmental risks: radioactive waste management and climate change. These reviews took very different forms, both in terms of analytic approach and deliberation strategy. The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change was largely an exercise in expert modeling, building, within a cost‐benefit framework, an argument for immediate reductions in carbon emissions. The Committee on Radioactive Waste Management, on the other hand, followed a much more explicitly deliberative and participative process, using multicriteria decision analysis to bring together scientific evidence and stakeholder and public values. In this article, we ask why the two reviews were different, and whether the differences are justified. We conclude that the differences were mainly due to political context, rather than the underpinning science, and as a consequence that, while in our view “fit for purpose,” they would both have been stronger had they been less different. Stern's grappling with ethical issues could have been strengthened by a greater degree of public and stakeholder engagement, and the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management's handling of issues of uncertainty could have been strengthened by the explicitly probabilistic framework of Stern.     

Book Reviews

Books are reviewed in this article:
Technological Risk By H.W. Lewis
Divided We Stand: Redefining Politics, Technology and Social Choice By Michiel Schwarz and Michael Thompson
Methods for Assessing Exposure of Human and Non-Human Biota (SCOPE 46, IPCS Joint symposia 13, SGOMSEC 5)Edited by Robert G. Tardiff and Bernard D. Goldstein
New Risks: Issues and Management Edited by Louis A. Cox, Jr. and Paolo F. Ricci
Air Pollution Control and Waste Incineration for Hospitals and Other Medical Facilities By Louis Theodore
Rapid Guide to Hazardous Chemicals in the Workplace, 2nd ed. Edited by Richard J. Lewis
Image: An Integrated Model to Assess the Greenhouse Effect By Jan Rotmans
Maintaining a Satisfactory Environment: An Agenda for International Environmental Policy Edited by Nordal Akerman
Man and Risks: Technological and Human Risk Prevention By Annick Carnino, Jean-Louis Nicolet, and Jean Claude
Site Unseen: The Politics of Siting a Nuclear Waste Repository By Gerald Jacob Pittsburgh     

突发公共事件应急信息系统框架与功能

突发公共事件信息具有海量、分散、多样和复杂等特性。现代化管理信息系统的信息采集、存储、分析和管理功能可以提高突发公共事件的处理效率和决策水平。本文探讨了国内外基于数据挖掘和智能知识的突发公共事件信息管理研究情况及如何建立一个系统的公共事件信息管理框架,为突发公共事件的变化趋势进行预测和事件信息收集、处理、知识获取、事件评估、决策和应急管理工作提供科学依据和支持。     

Information Needs Concerning a Planned Waste Incineration Facility

Waste management has become a major environmental issue in Germany. The siting of waste incineration especially arouses strong local opposition. The study presented here is related to such a case (i.e., a planned waste incineration facility in a small West German village). The study is based on a telephone survey aimed at the information needs of the residents. Two topics are stressed: (1) the thematic relevance of the siting project as seen by the public; and (2) the residents'information needs. The results show that a majority of residents are concerned about the planned facility, and the most important topics of their information needs refer to the risks and the safety systems of the planned facility, as well as information about waste management alternatives. Furthermore, the information needs depend on the personal relevance of the issue and the perceived knowledge deficit about it. Conclusions are drawn with regard to the design of a risk communication program. Here, four groups of residents are distinguished in terms of knowledge and motivation and, thus, need to be approached in different ways.     

Models of Management System Standards: A Review of the Integration Issues

The subject of Integrated Management Systems in terms of quality, environmental and occupational health and safety management has become of increasing interest to researchers and business alike during the last 3 years or so. This paper focuses on a review of the various models of integration found in the academic literature and also those advocated by the standards bodies, such as the British Standards Institution and the International Organization for Standardization. A number of writers advocate alignment of ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 and present models to facilitate this; however, integration into a single standard is, in general, not favoured. Various models have been developed to overcome these difficulties, but the authors believe that none is completely satisfactory. It is considered that a model of integration based on the EFQM Model for Business Excellence will allow the limitation of the standards to be overcome and the total systems approach to integration to be facilitated.     

Can Sisyphus Succeed? Getting U.S. High‐Level Nuclear Waste into a Geological Repository

The U.S. government has the obligation of managing the high‐level radioactive waste from its defense activities and also, under existing law, from civilian nuclear power generation. This obligation is not being met. The January 2012 Final Report from the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future provides commendable guidance but little that is new. The author, who served on the federal Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board from 1989 to 1994 and subsequently on the Board on Radioactive Waste Management of the National Research Council from 1994 to 1999, provides a perspective both on the Commission's recommendations and a potential path toward progress in meeting the federal obligation. By analogy to Sisyphus of Greek mythology, our nation needs to find a way to roll the rock to the top of the hill and have it stay there, rather than continuing to roll back down again.     

A dynamic product quality evaluation based pricing model for perishable food supply chains

Waste stemmed from inappropriate quality control and excessive inventories is a major challenge for perishable food management in grocery retail chains. Improvement of visibility and traceability in food supply chains facilitated by tracking and tracing technologies has great potential to improve operations efficiency. This research aims to reduce food spoilage waste and maximise food retailer's profit through a pricing approach based on dynamically identified food shelf life. The proposed model is evaluated through different pricing policies to exploit the benefits from utilising accurate product shelf life information captured through innovated tracking and monitoring technologies. Numerical analysis is conducted in an illustrative case study.     

Archival research on integrated reporting: a systematic review of main drivers and the impact of integrated reporting on firm value

Journal of Management and Governance - Integrated reporting (IR) represents an innovative approach to business reporting especially by Public Interest Entities (PIEs). In addition to financial...     

Studies in MBO effectiveness.

Management by objectives (MBO) is a popular management approach the efficacy of which has been seriously questioned recently. I have analyzed 185 studies for the effects of MBO on employee productivity and/or job satisfaction. Research support for MBO was found to be inversely related to the degree of research design sophistication. Although the five well-controlled experiments leaned toward finding MBO to be ineffective, it appears a contingency approach to MBO is more appropriate than a definitive affirmation or rejection of MBO effectiveness.     

EH&S preparation-meeting the needs of hiring managers

Sound environmental management systems add value to business by reducing liability and fines for non-compliance. Increasingly, these systems are being used to address sustainable enterprise challenges of the next century. The well-prepared professional environmental manager is critical to advancing the state of environmental protection and leading the organization to create greater stewardship. Carol Singer Neuvelt, Executive Director of the National Association for Environmental Management, describes a business/education survey and subsequent Summit on understanding how business and environmental management education schools view these critical skills.     

Honoring complexity in sustainable supply chain research: a rough set theoretic approach (SI:ResMeth)

Abstract

Sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) faces greater complexity because it considers additional stakeholder requirements, broader sustainable performance objectives, increased sustainable business practices and technologies, and relationships among those entities. These additional complexities make SSCM more difficult to manage and operate than traditional supply chains. Complex systems require new methods for research especially given reductionist research paradigms of modern science. Rough set theory (RST) can be a valuable tool that will help address complexity in SSCM research and practice. To exemplify RST usefulness and applicability, an illustrative application using sustainable supply chain practices (SSCP), and environmental and economic performance outcomes is introduced. The conceptual case provides nuanced insights for researchers and practitioners in mitigating and evaluating various SSCM complexities. RST limitations and extensions are introduced.     

Multicriteria decision making applied to waste recycling in Brazil

Waste management, like other environmental issues, tends to be a suitable topic for problem solving using multicriteria decision-making techniques when uncertainty is involved. This paper presents two cases where the decision makers had different preferences. In the first case, social agents required an evaluation of different disposal alternatives for plastic waste. In the second case, existing construction and demolition waste recycling facilities required a performance evaluation.     

An integrative approach to assess environmental and economic sustainability in multi-tier supply chains

Abstract

Multi-tier supply chain sustainability is paramount to achieve corporate sustainability, due to the significant impacts from organisations beyond the focal firm boundaries and its direct suppliers. However, including environmental considerations within the dominant profit-centric logic of supply chain related decisions is prone to generate sustainability tensions. This work aims to support organisations address tensions between sustainability dimensions by adopting an integrative approach for sustainable supply chain management performance assessment thanks to an innovative eco-intensity based performance assessment method, which achieves a balanced consideration of environmental and economic performance in a weak sustainability perspective. The method, using primary data sourced from actual practice and featuring an indirect multi-tier approach with decentralised responsibilities across organisations, is applied to a case study of a machinery supply chain. The proposed integrative approach can support addressing sustainability tensions in the area of sustainable supply chain management, facilitate sustainable supplier evaluation and identify supply chain hotspots for operational improvement.     

A strategy for incorporting ISO 9000 into an internationally oriented accounting practice

Management consulting organizations generally can plan to improve their earnings by two strategies. First, they can offer their services in a more efficient manner by using a minimum amount of resources. This is normally accomplished by employing common tools such as reengineering of the processes, continuous improvement, and target costing. Second, they can attempt to raise their market share or offer new types of services required by clients. For accounting firms, this means expanding their service horizons from traditional audit, tax, and systems consulting to more contemporary areas such as ISO 9000 and total quality management (TQM). The authors outline an approach for firms to successfully undertake the inclusion of quality audit services in their practices.     

Product Orientation of Environmental Work

Product orientation of the environmental work of companies works for a reduction in the environmental impact of products in their total life cycle. In practise, to integrate the Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) principle into the environmental work.A traditional environmental management system focuses on production. Product orientated environmental work involves all functions at the company. Tools and methods for the implementation of product orientation and management have been developed in a project financed by the Danish EPA.The results show that the approach towards product orientation should include: a LCA view, dialogue and co-operation, policies and methods, and integration in the environmental management system.For C.C. Jensen A/S (CCJ), the product orientation was initiated by establishment of a LCA view. The results have been integrated into CCJ's registration system, used for calculation of prices and for green accounts. The product orientation at CCJ has also resulted in an extended dialogue with their customers.     

COMPLEX MULTIECHELON INVENTORY SYSTEM MANAGEMENT USING A DYNAMIC SIMULATION MODEL

A dynamic modeling approach to management of multiechelon, multi-indenture inventory systems with repair is addressed. The structure of the model follows that of the U.S. Air Force Reparable Asset Management System. The model is used as a vehicle to discuss the structure of typical multiechelon systems and to illustrate the advantages of a dynamic modeling approach to such systems.