Environment-oriented Logistics System Design

Abstract: Environmental issues have been highly in focus for several years. With the development of EMS, many companies get environmental improvements through implementing EMS. Also, "green logistics" turns out to be a popular issue. But the combination of environment issues and logistics system is rarely found in the previous researches. Therefore, environment-oriented logistics system design becomes the topic described here. The purpose of the thesis is to see potential of integrating environment issues into logistic system by literature review and case study. With the help of our supervisors, two Swedish companies Sandvik SMT and FLB Logistik become case companies in the thesis. The analysis is based on literature review about logistics and environment, the information from both companies‟ websites as well as face-to-face interviews. In analysis part, how logistics systems and environmental issues interact with each other is illustrated firstly. A proposed model based on logistics system decision-making model is shown. SWOT analysis is used to explain the outcomes and challenges of implementing EMS in Sandvik SMT. At last, the conditions such as customer environmental requirement and the cost for using EMS are briefly described. Based on the research, further study should begin with the collection of quantitative data about environmental performance from manufacturing companies, suppliers, as well as retailers. More recommendations are given in the conclusion part.