Resource Management And Sustainability

1. Identify two key procedures or duties that are central functions of your work team. Confirm these with your assessor to make sure they are appropriate for the assessment task.

2. Develop a process map for each of these processes and identify the resources used and wastes generated for each of the processes. List the resources that you use in the Resource Identification Table. List one resource per row as well as the waste and environmental impacts that are caused by using the resource (where appropriate).

3. Identify an accurate method of measuring the usage of the resources you have identified and listed.

4. Complete a simple environmental monitoring activity by measuring the daily usage of the key resources for a period of at least five days. Record the daily amounts and totals in the environmental monitoring table (attached). You will need to complete a separate table for each team member you monitor.

Currently many organizations have faced challenges of resource allocation and its management. The big and critical thinking question is what to do so as to ensure efficient and effective use of resources in a working environment. In this research paper such problems will be solved and a cracking mind will get a clear clarification of the matter. Having full knowledge on how resources are being used in the organization and the impact on both work practices and environment is of great important because it enables people to know how to manage economically.

Before engagement of any task in the organization, the user department must ensure that raw materials are available in plenty. This enables the organization to avoid cut off in case of the diminishing of the resources. Monitoring and implementation of environment sustainability is of great concern for improvement of the organization (David pg. 79). It involved various work practices such as   measurement of current resource usage and assessment of workplace documents which are in relation to effects and causes to the environment. The above practiced were addressed because the organization was facing some challenges of regular purchasing, poor management and poor keeping methods. The reason behind Assessment of the workplace documents was that some of investors lack vital information concerning books of accounts and a lot of complains from the purchasing department. Various resources such as electricity, water, food paper, chemicals, bottle, smoke, raw materials and smoke based on their weights and economic growth hazards were measured. Investigation was done in books of accounts such as financial statements and income statements accounts. It is very difficult to measure the exact value of resources used in an organization during production but with clear monitoring of the usage, we can tell how much of the resources were used in any process of production. Basing arguments on measurable units, the resource was measured and its usage was monitored aiming at boosting staff engagement activity, impressing senior managers and saving organizations money in an understanding manner. It’s important to note the mode of acquisition of resources. The main method of acquiring resources is through a purchasing entity where by involvement of suppliers is required. The supplier will supply the required goods that conform to the user specification upon agreement. Inspection of books of accounts are carried out to check the compliance of the company’s act provisions and also to verify that there is no evasion of the taxes payable to the government. Investigation of these books of accounts will check various frauds during acquisition of goods. Some of the resources when utilized in a poor way will cause defects to the whole environment that causing problem to the society. Cutting vegetation and digging land to pave a way for electricity destroys the land leading to land fill which is a result of disruption of both organic and inorganic matter I the soil. Energy from the sun in the form of visible light and ultraviolet rays causes global warming when it is trapped in the earth’s atmosphere by greenhouse gases. One of the most notable greenhouse gas in this era being carbon dioxide. Chemical substances may be very harmful to water and pollution environment. The resulting effect is that when these chemicals are I plenty, the damages water organisms leading to death. An organization or industry producing substances have emission of smoke which affects humans inhaling and exhaling problems. These problems cause cancer and ulcers in case of failure detection of the same situation. Production of raw materials and plastic materials causes pollution t the environment by depleting the ozone layer. In addition, substances such as food paper when overwhelmed in the working practice environment causes landfill.

Consultation with Stakeholders

Pollution has harmful effects to all living organisms. In many cases, pollution causes health complications to human beings. Every human being has a responsibility to ensure that pollution is prevented wherever possible. It is recommended that, usage of sustainable, reclaimed or recycling methods can reduce chances of pollution. This helps to reduce the plastic remittances. The operating organization can adopt 3R’s of solid management; reduce, reuse and recycling. Not only pollution preventive measures but also such organizations can employ and incorporate good monitoring systems.

The implications of pollution have made nations, individuals and organizations to realize the need to come up with practices which can effectively sustain it.  In the wake of this, companies are putting up concreter actions to ensure that there is no pollution due to the high rate of industrialization. Governments too have not been left behind and are putting up regulatory measures and rules to be followed by companies and individuals in order to minimize pollution. Therefore, as a result, the sustainability practices were urgently assessed by all stakeholders in the organization. Stakeholders’ discussion was very successful and the following were the outcomes on how a given organization can reach on sustainability.

The first issue that was raised was the friendliness of the organization’s product to the environment. It was reached that, the organization should produce products that are eco-friendly and safe to use. The experts in the production departments should eco-design using the competence on restricted substances to improve the products. Secondly, there should be reduction on the environment footprint of the organizations activities and products whereby the employees are expected to show corporate commitment to the climate concern. In addition, any operating organization should employ green purchasing strategy. This will facilitate and ensure compliance to social co-operative responsibility throughout the supply chain and thus ensuring products are fully acceptable to the environment, social and working conditions. Finally, within a working environment, the managing department with the other departments should ensure that there is a full coverage and display of the sustainable advantage of their products. The economic growth advantage with this issue is that there is facilitation of appropriate labeling strategy.

In this particular topic, various plans were used such as implementation plan and target plans. Implementation plan is very important since it breaks the strategies into milestones. In most cases, coming up with an interpretation plan is the most challenging task. If there is no implementation plan, coming up with strategies may be a waste of time. In an organization where resources are the limiting factor, good planning is essential. In this module, there were various recommendations on the use of resources available in the organization. The research model concerning the whole organization was aimed at (Jones pg. 300). This included the strategy for acquisition of resources. Water problem due to tap leakages was recommended that the taps due were to be repaired to avoid such occurrences of losses. The whole organization with the leading top management was to get the better prices of the chemicals which are of high quality and conform to the user specifications. It is that getting these chemical substances at the right prices will reduce water pollution caused be such chemicals. Using the observable skills, all the organizations staff embarked together and recommended that a certain tap was supposed to be cross checked on how occasionally the possibility leakage could be. Having knowledge on wear and tear, various sources of the problems were to be prepared in terms of maintenance. Knowledge is not constant but it requires renewal.  A person may have qualified for a specific job but he/she lacks expertise on a particular cracking issue. Owners and managers of the organization were to attend staff maintenance training. This could facilitate competence on how to solve sources of their problems. Lastly, the responsible individuals were to fix the responsible staff members to solve a certain occurring issue.

Improvements

A target plan has static contributions that are expected to be reached at the end. It contains what the organization plans to achieve. The range of contributions are independent and contains the benefits based on how the contributions are projected to be affordable.  A major constituent of the target plan benefit model is the existence of pre-determined recommendations linking advantages to funds available in the plan. These are linked in such a way that is not evident with traditional target plans. In this module not all recommendations were approved but also some key elements were included in the target plan (Pluto pg. 102).

In the case of water, the various installations were done including low blow taps to reduce water waste. There must be improvement in any working environment because it is through this which will determine the work efforts employed. In addition, energy saving oven were established to conserve the amount of energy lost. Without energy operation of machines cannot occur. Therefore, it should be conserved up to its maximum to increase operation of machines during production. Lastly use of efficient layers was introduced to reduce energy lost. During auditing, the running taps were in their position and the oven was turned off. For the recommended outcomes to occur in relation to future targets, a comparison in form of pie charts and graphs must be shown clearly. Monitoring was an activity that involved recording of organizations’ resource so as to assess the evaluation. With monitoring plan, the following were the outcomes as shown in the figure 1 below,

                           

                                                                                            Figure 1.

With the above monitoring, the aim was to establish a framework work where by an organization can use for further target achievements. It is very difficult to set up objectives without having what to include in such phenomenon. For efficient target plans, some of the variables must be incorporated to ensure maximum attainment. When setting these plans, the environment concerns and potential opportunity are of great important in a way that the expectations are aimed at reducing capital cost and increasing capital cost. The following graph shows the action of various resources in relation to savings and capital cost.

                                     

                                                                                                       Figure 2.

Evaluation of suppliers is one of the strategies applied by organizations in order to make cost effective purchasing decisions. It also aims at creating a group of suppliers who are considered to be effective and efficient in delivering goods at mutually agreeable terms. The following are purchasing strategy procedures which enable an organization acquire resources (Lang, pg. 174-196).

Delivering resources frequently to the buyer helps in creating a good relationship and hence promoting development of the organization. To create this good relationships, some organizations make the various vendors their partners. They come up with processes that will assist the vendors. In situations where the organization is only dependent on only one supplier, the organization can help the supplier to improve his or her services or come up with processes that will help promote the purchasing cycle. This in most cases is done where the single supplier is not able to deliver on the required standards.

Customers require goods of high quality. One of the most known approaches to ensuring quality is the Total Quality Method. This method requires suppliers to provide products of high quality to their customers. The quality of services being provided should always strive to have zero errors. Total quality methods require vendors to provide an ever increasing quality service with zero errors. The supplier ensures best quality using various tools.

As globalization spreads, more companies obtain their supplies from countries such as china and India and other foreign countries. One of the most sought after service of the supplier is being liable for any risk that the goods in transit might face. Proper risk management in the whole supply chain makes goods to be readily available and at an affordable price.

It is very essential for the warehouse to be located near the supplier. This facilitates faster supply of resources in case of demand. The nearer the location, the faster the buyer is able to avoid maverick buying.

Price does not readily determine the quality of a product or service. A product being expensive, does not necessarily mean it is of high quality. A company should properly set up the price of its products in order to ensure profit maximization. Unreasonable pricing may lead to unhealthy competition and deterioration of the targeted market

With clear identification of strategies relevant to purchasing, it is important to identify some of the procedures involved. First the organization identifies the key supplier. This can be determined through invitation to bid. Measuring of supplier performance is where they buyer or organization employs weigh tools on the supplier determining financial capability and performance of the previous contracts. Through this, the buyer is able to know the type of supplier to engage with. Achieving certification involves compliance with the law in terms of paying taxes.

This plan helps improve working conditions for the employees and which includes safety and protection against unfair dismissal. This increases the employee commitment to the organization and morale. These are important if the organization is to reach its desired goals and outcomes.

Intended outcomes were not reached due to the following purchasing problems;

Procurement function is changing and shifting from a mere operational function in organization to a cooperate function. This has brought about some confusion with some players in this field not ready to embrace procurement function as a top strategic player. In addition to this, professionals are finding it difficult to come up with the best strategies to help them achieve their goals.  They are also finding it difficult to align procurement strategies to the different geographical locations.

The primary function of the procurement department remains to be lowering costs and hence helping to save the organization resources. This is a challenge to almost all procurement department in many organizations.

Accurate data is needed in order achieve organizational goals. Inaccurate data may mislead the whole process of planning. As organizations continue to embrace the importance of data accuracy, they have increase their reliance on software and technological tools in the whole supply chain. There is evidence of deficiency of data when it comes to benchmarking, market research and spend analysis.

The positive changes will bring positive impacts to the whole environmental concern. On the purchasing strategies, I will recommend that buyers and sellers should involve in global sourcing. Multinationals today, are embracing the concept of globalization and are buying products from across the world from different suppliers regardless of where they come from.

In addition to this, the organization should practice green procurement. Green procurement is one of the most current purchasing strategy used by governments and different organizations. It advocates for recycling, re-using buying products that are eco-friendly.

On the other hand, I would recommend that if implementations plans should be implemented in a timely manner. This will result to significant and easily identifiable savings and improvements for the fiscal year. It is important to note that, more benefits are expected to be seen in the following years. This is in line with the need to have not only a short term solution but a more effective, responsive and synergy can be realized even in future (Charles pg. 40). Many of the recommendations emerged from the start of the topic.

Processes used are measuring and monitoring usage of resources and investigation of the books of accounts. They can be used because each is used as a compliment of the other. Suppose that there is no monitoring of resources, the overall recording on the books of accounts will be problematic. Some of the policies can be effective on sustainability of the environment which may include; incorporation of the environmental responsible concerns based on type of engagement of the business. Furthermore, the organization can demonstrate practices that are meant to promote sustainability. Such practices will include, measures meant to save electricity, reduction of waste production and sing renewable sources. Business people should be provided with awareness on then need of environmental inquiry. Lastly establishment of sustainability indicators such as observing, reporting and improvement measures can increase sustainability.

One avenue which is yet to be explored is use of incentives. This can be supported by operant condition theory and behavioral economics principles. According to the operant conditioning theory, an incentive is a stimulus that is given in order to increase a certain behavior or performance of a certain task. Without this incentive, individuals might not be easily willing to perform such tasks. Principles of behavioral economics include the use of bias, anticipated regret and loss aversion. In most cases, these are used together with the operant condition theory.

In conclusion, sustainable development is largely about human beings, their welfare and equity in their interactions. The approach to mitigating climate change and the response policies if used in conjunction with economic production, human settlements, and the society at large, it will become a sustainable development in many areas.

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