Warehouse: Accumulation, Storage & Time Utility.

A warehouse is a place that is used for various functions. It is used for accumulation and storage of goods. The goods stored in a warehouse are the ones which are not immediately needed to be used and are only supplied according to the demands of the customers. A warehouse also plays a role of in stabilization in prices. This is made a success through the creation of time utility. The goods are stored in the warehouse during the times of low prices because their supply is in plenty, and released when the prices of the good rise because the supplies in the market have reduced.

Therefore, a warehouse is a beneficial infrastructure because its usage has various benefits. One of the benefits is it enables regular production of goods and services. It enables the manufactures to be able to produce goods according to the projected future demand. A warehouse is also used to store surplus goods which do not have immediate demand. Therefore, a warehouse needs to be sustainably managed by installing the pieces of equipment and energy saving machineries. In cases of pollution, the warehouse should be installed with mechanizations that control both water, and noise pollution. The resources used in the warehouse should also be sustainably managed and readily available and accessible for the purpose of warehouse smooth running of functions.

Ware house distribution

Warehouses usually have three main areas although there might be additional specialised areas. They include the receiving dock, the storage area and the shipping dock. Upon placing an order the processes which take place to ensure the order reaches the designated consumer are the pick, pack and ship processes.

1. The pick process-

Here the items ordered by a customer are selected from inventory and sent to a packing station through a conveyor belt. Goods are usually stored in seemingly random places where one inventory bin may contain a protein shake, a stuffed animal and a few other items which are mismatched. The items are out in these random locations so that individual pickers are assigned the duty of tightening the areas. This ensures that equal amount of job is done by every selector as well as minimising the time spent in the warehouse wandering. Guiding of the pickers is done by computers making the process fast and at the same time ensuring maximum efficiency. Advanced warehouses have robots which carry the shelves of products to the picker eliminating the walking entirely in the warehouses. Pickers carry around handheld scanners and push cats with tote bins. With the help of the scanner, they can know what to pick next and where exactly to find it. This is ensured by a series of a three barcode and that the correct thing is pulled. Scans are done on the barcodes of the tote bin, the shelf where the item is located and lastly on the item itself

2. The pack process-

The pickers load the totes on conveyor belts which whisk them to packing stations where they are made ready for shipping. There are single-item orders and others with multiple items as the pert station's separation. Computers make every activity organized and ensure that the correct item is put in the proper box. Selected items are put in assembled boxes, put in a protective filler and shut.

3. The ship process-

Orders are moved from packing stations into a conveyor belt to the scan, label, apply and manifest machine. Boxes are scanned one at a time by the device, and a shipping label is applied after being generated. The boxes are weighed, and if they aren't correct, they are pushed from the shipping line for further inspection in the quality control station. The boxes are moved by conveyor belts into warehouse bay door and are loaded into waiting trucks. They are then carried and delivered to their respective destinations.

The Scope of Sustainable Supply Chains

The supply chain is the order of processes that a commodity undertakes from the producer to the end user while supply chain sustainability is the holistic view of issues affecting an organization's supply chain network in terms of risks associated with the chain, for example, economic costs . It involves the production and distributing of products through partnerships that a firm adopts with suppliers and distributors to deliver value to customers. Since most producers do not sell their products directly to the consumers, managing the supply chain is important because it enhances the conversion of inputs into outputs as well as the movement to the final consumer.

Any time a client is looking to start up a construction project, he/she will contact a supplier who will then offer his services with the help of a specialty contractor. In most cases the specialty contractor will consult with a general contractor and both will strategize on when and how the construction will take place. Companies are responding to pressure from consumers and investors and sometimes employees, companies across the world by striving to implement sustainable components in their supply chains to design them in a way that they can deliver and not only focus entirely on customer satisfaction but even conforming with international laws .

In a supply chain, Forecasting goods and services demand is essential to every supplier, a company, or the retailer. Forecasting determines the amount of product that should be purchased, manufactured, and transported. Demand forecasts, therefore, are crucial to the fundamental operational process of shipping from the suppliers' unfinished materials to finished products in the customer's possessions, consumes a lot of time. Thus, precise demand foretelling leads to well-organized, active and profitable operations with more exceptional levels of customer service. On the other hand, inaccurate forecasts will indeed result in inefficient, unproductive and ineffective costs of operations accompanied by poor customer service experience CITATION Arn04 \l 1033 (Arndt, 2004).

The critical aspect of sustainability is the application of the holistic view that focuses on areas that mostly impacts the supply chain and how they can be improved. The approach, therefore, encompasses the entire lifecycle of a product or service through the whole supply chain making it insufficient to be confined within the walls of the company but prompts the company to look beyond this confines when addressing sustainability. A well-crafted sustainable supply, therefore, measures the profits and loss as well as the social and ecological extents as a global strategy because business can no longer revolve around financial performance. The principle that sustainability is the intersection of social, economic and environmental performance has conceptually been referred to as the triple bottom line (Christopher, 2016).

Therefore, sustainability concepts that the success of a business should not only be measured by traditional financial returns but also by their ethical and ecological performance. The argument is that companies that evaluate their performance using the triple bottom line are more likely to meet their short-term objectives and succeed in the long run implementing sustainability in supply chains more complicated especially for companies that are profit motivated.

Importance of Sustainable Supply Chains

Most experts predict that supply chain operations will become an integral part of companies and therefore the need for sustainability. Supply chain sustainability is important because it improves community relations by becoming aware of the impacts that corporations have on society. Loyalty and trust are therefore fostered between the customers and the company and as a result of the reputation the company is maintained. It is critical that the company is in good terms with the community for it to continue conducting business daily for profits to keep trickling in.

Secondly, Johnsen, Howard, and Miemczyk (2014) put across that sustainability in supply chains leads to reduced costs regarding reduced consumer lawsuits because of improved product design and brand equity by ensuring that manufacturers and suppliers are ethical. Reduction of materials, labor and transportation cost, is another primary goal of a sustainable chain. Efficiency is realized if the company reduces cost while at the same time providing consumers with the right quality.

Additionally, environmental and social risks are managed because the company makes sure it adheres with the government requirements of corporate social responsibilities while ensuring that it disposes of waste well. Verification of the supplier through quality approach is done before purchasing a product to make sure that it complies with the health and safety regulations stipulated by the government at its location.

Moreover, when there are sustainable production stakeholders to meet the customer's needs through the provision of quality products and increase productivity. An excellent sustainable supply chain ensures that there are no stock outs and that customer demands are met on time resulting in satisfaction and therefore customer retention. The chain understands that it is more expensive to get new customers than to retain the old ones and thus to avoid the extra costs and hustle customer satisfaction is one of its main agenda. Therefore, there is a need to integrated supply chain and sustainability. The supply chain is only concerned with the distribution of goods and services, but sustainability goes deeper into distribution and views supplying and distribution as the whole institution.

In the process of construction of a warehouse, several factors need to be put into considerations in order to ensure that the warehouse achieves sustainable qualities. In order for a warehouse to be sustainable, it should be installed with renewable energy provision forms. There are several types of renewable energy sources. One the renewable source of energy is solar. This power is tapped from the sun through a process of nuclear fusion of sun rays (Alrikabi 2014). When this energy is trapped and harvested it is converted to diverse ways which it can be useful according to the anticipated need. Once the solar energy is collected, it is used in the process of installation of attic cooling systems. This is used in the warehouse to provide cooling system. The solar energy can also be used in the lighting of a warehouse. This, therefore, helps reduce the amount of energy which, can be used. Solar energy is also a clean form of energy and hence t pollution is controlled.

Another form of renewable energy that is used to promote a sustainable warehouse is the energy derived from wind power (Yahya and Rafiq 2019). There are different temperatures in the world which are as a result of atmosphere movement. Moving air, which is also referred to as wind is used to generate energy. This energy can be used in the warehouse to provide lighting. In addition, the energy generated from wind can be used in the warehouse to pump water hence enhancing a sustainable warehouse.

Hydropower is the most widely utilized renewable source of energy. It is also among the oldest approaches to producing electricity. One of the appeals of hydropower is that fuel is not burnt hence, minimizing pollution and the societal problem of greenhouse effect. Also, the water is provided freely by the nature making it a renewable form of energy. Furthermore, the used water is still released into the outlet river and used for other purposes such as irrigation (Linda, 2007). Hydropower constitutes 20% of the total power production in the world. The rationale for harnessing hydro energy is very simple. A dam is constructed across a river with a reasonable elevation. The dam's reservoir stores lots of water essent...