Time to get serious about waste

Of course, this is an average. Some industries have far worse numbers than others. And this is just an average. Some industries are much worse than others.

Take the beauty sector, 10.2% of all inventory ends up as land fill waste. Within that number, 6.2% is due to overproduction and 4% comes from perished or damaged goods.
That’s even higher than the food industry. While it naturally suffers from a higher degree of perishable items, accounting for 7.1% of the total, it doesn’t over produce to the same degree (just 2.9%), making up a total of 10%.
With the dawn of AI and big data insights at the beck and call of those with the purse strings, how can these numbers be so high?

Waste is a painful problem

“>Having such high numbers of waste in your business is a problem. You’ll know without looking what 10% of wasted stock is worth to your business. Wantonly throwing away stock means lost revenue and lost profits.Think what you could do with an extra 10%. Think about where you could invest that money. And what that investment could turn into. For some businesses, that 10% might mean the difference between black and red. Open or closed.But there’s also a sustainability issue associated with this too.I’m sure, like most businesses, you take great care to show you’re a sustainable business that cares about the world and its future. But allowing wastage of such a high scale doesn’t ring true with the message.The worst part of all of this? Waste is a very avoidable problem. It might be something many businesses consider ‘par for the course’. But it shouldn’t be for you. And if you take a stand against this assumption, you might well find a huge competitive advantage against your competitors.

Where Does Waste Come From?

Supply chain waste doesn’t just come from throwing away the occasional broken or out of date product. And we’re not just talking about landfill either. In fact, there are seven different types of waste.

1. Transportation

The unnecessary movement of goods, materials, or products between locations causes a massive amount of unnecessary pollution. It means fuel burned needlessly and gases and fumes put into the atmosphere for absolutely no reason.

Not only will this lead to increased costs for your business but potential damage too. For your business, and the environment.

2. Inventory

Excess inventory beyond immediate production or customer demand is one of the more obvious examples of waste. And this is one you’ll be able to see with your own eyes in the warehouse, whenever you venture down there.

Excess inventory ties up much needed capital, takes up valuable space, and drains your resources unnecessarily. So much for being lean.