Understanding Material Flows in Your Operations

Establishing an effective Corporate Responsibility program requires a detailed understanding of the inputs and outputs of your organization and operations. In this video, I discuss a simple form of accounting for these inputs and outputs that will provide the baseline for further management of material resources.

Organization-wide Material Flow Analysis, or MFA, is the precursor to benchmarking your operation in that broad MFAs identify all of your inputs and outputs; and benchmarking quantifies these variables, allowing you to make informed decisions. The purpose of performing an organization-wide MFA is to quickly classify targets to be benchmarked based on the overall objectives of your Corporate Responsibility strategy. MFA can also identify material risks of often overlooked inputs. Identifying these risks early provides strategic business benefits, and they can be readily addressed to ensure continued success. MFA can also be useful in identifying exact impacts when benchmarking systems and specific operations; but for now, I suggest using the broad MFA to first gain an overarching perspective of your organization.

Tune in Friday for a more detailed look at Materiality, as this topic becomes increasingly important as we move through our discussion on developing successful, comprehensive Corporate Responsibility strategies. Be sure to subscribe by providing your email address in the sidebar to receive each update via email.

 – Tad Radzinski, PE, LEED AP, SFP