Case 4. The Boeing Company

Getting back to the classic manufacturing, let us see the case of aircraft giant Boeing. It is quite interesting because the aircraft construction has always been a place of strict control and moderation. However, what if management just give regular workers a lot of responsibilities and self-control? Is it appropriate for a strategic-level manufacturing? According to the case of Boeing - why not?

Boeing was one of the first companies in the industry implementing sustainable techniques. Starting from the beginning of 90's, there was a conception of Kaizen teams and Kanban materials movements. «If we want to eliminate waste in our process, why we should ask somebody instead of our workers? They logically understand the whole production better». The model of relying on people experience brought substantial result quickly. It works because as far as worker has many responsibilities, instead of just drawing bolts up, he feels himself engaged. Nowadays the work methods have been revised, work in some parts of the lines has been redistributed, wastes have been examined and reduced to the minimum level. Of course, firstly, workers were sceptical about Lean methods; they considered it to be just a trendy management stuff which will not work in real life. Eventually, after some time they were not able to imagine that everything will return to old methods of production. Sustainable is not only about how to get more money with minimum loses, it is also about how to help people to spend less time and efforts carrying out the same actions. Boeing example illustrates it clearly.

Visibility is another focus of Boeing Company, along with regular charts, for example, each production and office have their own «health meters». It is a special chart, which helps staff and managers to visualize current workload, achievements and problems of the production. As far as knowledge is standardized and free to access everyone in the organization may try to solve every problem occurred.

Although, sustainable technologies have been implemented at production and in the offices, Boeing still faces the serious challenges when it comes to supply chain management. While building Boeing 787, outsourcing (both local and international) has been seen as a perfect way to reduce costs and to develop the aircraft faster (the outsourcing rate was up to 70%). With the help of side partners 787 was planned to be developed in 4 instead of 6 years and with the costs of $6 instead of 10$ billion. As we know, project was far more behind the largest budget estimation and about 3 years over the time gaps. The problem was that the whole process was diffused around the globe, so when it was the time to put everything together, into one aircraft - the result was literally predefined. As far as compounds were produced separately by different outsource partners, there was a risk that they would not fit together. Moreover, technologies and production that have been outsourced were extremely innovative to the aircraft industry. Therefore, there was serious problems with outsourcers, which do not understand how to grant a sufficient quality. Experts believe that even if Boeing did not want to go away from the outsource model of production, it had to make an effort to coordinate work of the partners and provide them with experienced groups of specialists who would participate in development, manufacturing and testing like it happens in Toyota Motor Co. Japanese giant also outsources about 70% of its production. Toyota specialists are always in touch with the partners' concerns and questions and try to support the spirit of incredible level of professional trust and product quality. While building their new 777X, Boeing obviously will reduce the outsourcing rate and focus on implementation of lean technologies and advanced supply chain management.

There is an opinion that very complicated labour laws in Washington State where the main construction sites are located define one of the reason for such a huge rate of outsourcing. The issue is that in Washington and especially in Seattle the labour unions have traditionally and legally a lot of power. Today, Boeing's management board is blamed for attempts to avoid involving local workers into production, and for strategic decision-making without any coordination with the labour unions. People got used to participate into decision making at production lines and offices, now they want to be heard at the top level. Nowadays, in order to avoid similar situations in future, Boeing constructed a site in South Carolina, which is known to be «right-to-work» state. It means that in this state it is illegal for both companies and unions to sign the contracts if there is a compulsory condition of joining any form of union. This law makes it very difficult to organize a solid labour union. Thus, Boeing management hopes that there will be less costly strikes then it is in Seattle. Of course, this approach is quite arguable from the moral and humanitarian points of view, but after all Boeing is still business and it is aimed to satisfy its shareholders and customers. So, why not use such an opportunity? Or not?

Talking about ecology aspect, Boeing has a program of reducing air and noise pollution generated by their plains. There are special R&D departments, which try to find the best solution for the aircrafts to reduce their huge Co2 footprint. This initiative is tremendously important as far as Boeing is one of the two largest aircraft builders in the world. Everyday thousands of Boeing planes fly over our heads and if there is a way to reduce their harm to the nature, Boeing should use it. Moreover, like every plant, Boeing production demands incredible amount of water. Starting from 2015, Boeing started groundwater investigation in Auburn and Algona, Seattle. If the contaminants are found to pose a risk to human health of environment, Boeing will take an immediate action to reduce the risk. This is also could be point to argue. One may say: «Why not take preventive actions instead of trying to prove that there is no pollution? » and this will probably be the right objection.

Summing up this case, it could be seen that Boeing initiatives during the last two decades are quite controversial. On the one hand, there is a serious commitment to the lean principles in manufacturing and office operations, high involvement of workers into improvement and regulation of the production process. 5s, Kaizen, VSM and Kanban principles are actively implementing and developing. On the other hand, because of many possible reasons Boeing's management decided to outsource almost 3/4 of all development and production processes of the main project of the last decades. Moreover, the opinion of workers and labour unions has not been considered during decision-making process about outsourcing. Suffocating from strikes and pressure from the labour groups, Boeing finds the easiest possible way - to eliminate the possibility for solid labour unions to exist. While fighting for reducing Co2 emissions by new models of planes, Boeing also tries to pursue the community of state that there is no water pollution from their factories, which is also cost demanding activity.

Case 5. Australian Wine Industry

Unlike the other cases, here there is no focus on some specific company, on the contrary the whole industry is taken into account. The reason is that almost all companies operating in this niche are using the similar tools and practices. Moreover, there is a great example of Government-Business collaboration. This case should become an illustration of how government could help industry to develop sustainable technologies without having direct control over business (opposite to Bright Dairy case).

Form the very beginning of the region exploration, Australian regions built their economies on mining and agriculture. In the middle part of the twentieth century, the country pursued a transition into mass-based manufacturing. Economy experienced strong growth during this period, until the 1970s and 1980s when the rise of Asian manufacturing and the lifting of Australian tariffs exposed manufacturing to unsustainable price-based competition. When it became obvious that it was practically impossible to compete with Asian countries in the sector of mass-production, government decided to come back to their «roots» and find a new niche in the world agricultural market. From the perspective of the present day this decision may be, without any doubts, estimated as successful and forehanded mainly thanks to the rise of Australian wine.

During the 70s and 80s, the problems with local economy mentioned before led to the introduction of the “Vine Pull Scheme” sponsored by government. Following the crisis, wine producers throughout Australia establish a strong supply chain and collaborations to drive marketing, and research and development.

After that, in the mid-90s, a wine cluster grew rapidly in terms of volume and value. There were significant improvements in quality and productivity. For example, Casella Family Brands, with the help of VSM, 5s, JIT and Kanban techniques (e.g. sorting tags and location markers, farm routine standardization, trainings for farmers) today is:

- reducing the amount of water needed for the production of one bottle starting from seeding to packaging.

- creating visual management tools to make the operator's jobs easier

- been audited regularly by both operators and leaders to help create and maintain a standard

- developing a zero waste conception of solid wastes (timber, marc, filters, etc.)

Australian wineries also try to avoid usage of insecticides and pesticides by constantly developing chemical and agricultural instruments.

In 1996 Strategy 2025 has been released. «This strategy presented a vision to cement the competitiveness of Australian wine and identify niche markets for continued expansion over a 30-year time horizon». In addition, there is also a Wine Industry Waste Management Forum, where the wineries share with each other and with large quorum of engaged scientists their ideas and technologies. Finally, Wine Australia organization also provided industry with special «Lean Guide» where the main steps and technologies of implementing sustainable techniques are listed. All of these programs, forums and guides were developed with the significant investments from the government. Even nowadays, when wine industry is considered to be one of the most prosperous in Australia, government do not stop the collaboration. They settle new standards, claim for sustainable production and investments into ecology, provides with possible strategies for long-term development. This is an example how Kaizen methodology could leave the boundaries of one company and become national strategy.

Talking about supply chain partners, two of the largest wine bottle manufacturers in the world - Owen Illinois and Amcor. Nowadays, wineries look for the methods of effective bottle consumption and warehousing. Great marketing technologies made it possible that 40% of international visitors to SA visit at least one winery during their stay. It generates extra income, which could be used for development of the production and ecology.

Nevertheless, there are obviously some challenges which industry faces. First of all, in some regions there is oversupply of a grape which could not be used for wine. Although, farmers try to use it like fertilizer, the amount of waste grape is still much higher that demand. Australian government along with industry try to find a way to improve palatability of such grape in order not to destroy existing ecosphere by replanting new grapevines. What is more, paradoxically, but as far as Chinese government fights with corruption by forbidding presenting of gifts to authorities, Australia is losing one of the biggest market. Nevertheless, according to the latest data, by changing the exporting cart, Australian producers made young people in China interested in discovering the wine culture because of high quality and lower price in comparison to European wines.

To draw the conclusion, Australian Wine Industry is unique because of its innovative technologies of winemaking, massive, but supportive government participation, and flexibility. This case shows us how, using the market-based methods, government could help local industries become prosperous on global market, and how lean approach to the production and collaboration could eventually bring valuable profit. (Jean, 2015), (Australian Government; Australian Grape and Wine Authority, 2014), (South Australian Wine and Brandy Industry Association Incorporated, 2002)

Case 6. Schlumberger

In the final story, there will be a case of consultant services usage and smart delegation. «Schlumberger is the world's leading supplier of technology, integrated project management and information solutions to customers working in the oil and gas industry worldwide». Being a market leader, you may not feel the necessity for any changes, but when it comes to crisis of demand, you have no choice but find a way to increase effectiveness and decrease wastes. Schlumberger itself produce «lean» equipment for oil and companies. Their technologies allow to fulfil the complete oil and gas extraction (earlier, due to the technology gap, special equipment was able to pump only from the upper layers of the underground reservoir). That means direct reduction of wastes, less ecological damage and lack of necessity to spend more on a new drilling.

However, in 2004 the necessity of manufacturing optimization became obvious for Schlumberger. A special customer audit of Shclumberger operation and growing strain of world economy made management realize that everything could be working more effectively. Special Drilling & Measurement department has been created. The main goal was to bring Lean to every employee and every working place in the company. It was decided to divide the process into three steps. To start with (2004-2008), Lean consultant were hired in order to go to operation places for 10 weeks. There they were conducting trainings, showing different cases and, as a result, choose and train so called «Lean Champion» - a person who will be helping to establish a new set of practices, tools and rules within his workplace. On the next phase (2008-2010), D&M department took everything into their hands and developed their own Lean training program, along with developing and introduction of their now guidelines for Lean culture installation at Schlumberger's locations. Finally, (2010-…), D&M management delegated all duties for the Lean implementation to the local «Champions» whose aim now is to sustain Lean's development in the long-term perspective. Thus, it is example of how management of the company could introduce sustainable practices into daily work if there are many departments, locations and manufactories around the globe - just find the person who will be deeply inspired and train him, he will do the rest job for you.

Talking about particular methods, let us see the example of the Prudhoe Bay location. Before Lean, there was almost anarchy in daily operations. People got used to do their work in their own way and every innovation was seen as a threat. However, after regular revision of the location KPIs it has become clear that changes are to come. The Lean Champion was chosen, trained and sent back to the Prudhoe Bay to share his experience. First of all, revision of tool boxes was made in order to roll out basic 5S system. Now every tool has its own place in easy-to-reach tray. According to company data, now it brings about 550 working hours economy a year. Moreover, just a small movement of toolboxes right to the workbenches save miles of walking. Implementation of TPM techniques allowed to increase tool availability rate from 44% in 2010 to 73$ in 2011. In addition, at some sites the cellular manufacturing has been prototyped.

As far as Schlumberger is engaged into the extraction process, which is obviously not the eco-friendliest type of activity, there are many ecological initiatives. HiWAY flow-channel fracturing allows reducing the consumption of gas and water by 40% and 25% correspondingly. Since the beginning of this program, billion gallons of water has been saved. In addition, there is a special «lean and green» program which aim is to target environmental waste in the form of energy, water, materials, emissions, and other solid and liquid wastes. Thanks to this program, average annual savings are 2,378 MW in electricity, 19,704 kL of water, and 521 tonnes of waste.

Talking about social sphere, Schlumberger is now actively promoting their own educational programs and professional communities. Schlumberger is known among the world as a company, which fights with discrimination at the work place and in regular life. There is special program for women scientists all over the world and Schlumberger give them an opportunity to get the PhD degree in their Faculty for the Future Fellows. Moreover, there is a special professional community consisting of women.

Overall, Schlumberger story is interesting for its Lean Champions concept, which is quite useful for companies, which have many branches. Moreover, 3-step Lean implementation could be seen as a good solution for the companies aimed to incorporate Lean methodology step-by-step instead of immediate incorporation. Finally, Schlumberger is a great example of how could traditionally «dirty» and heavy production could be effective and sustainable. (Lewis, 2003), (Experience from one of the respondents).

The interviews conducted allowed to gather the versatile data and opinions on development of innovations in supply chains in Russia. In tandem with the statistical data and general theoretical shift, respondents linked the innovations in supply chains and sustainable development paradigm primarily with the economic dimension:

“Hmm, sustainable development? As far as I understand, it is the long-term oriented action plan. So, of course, being a bank, we have our own strategy for a future economic development. The last one was accepted in 2012 for the next 5 years. Obviously, now it has been corrected many times due to the infamous events and trends in our economy. The next strategy will have 3 years as a time horizon. Nobody knows what could happen in a year, should we talk about 5-10 years?” (Alfa-bank)

“Actually, I had “Sustainable development” as a course in university, but everything I remember is that there are three things there: economy, ecology and society. According to my perception, E&Y implements sustainable concept by “there are no irreplaceable people or client” approach. This corporate ideology, according to our trainings, helps to avoid any form of fluctuation, i.e. to stay “sustainable”, if you wish” (E&Y)

Supply chain manager from the Nestle talked about sustainability from his professional point of view:

“You know, maybe I don't know the theoretical definition of this term, but our supply chain coordinators from the European Headquarters always talks about sustainability on our weekly Skype conference: “Why do you have “out-of-stock” here and here? Why your inventory results do not meet the targets, “blablabla”… And, as a conclusion, they always add: “In order to continue our development we should stay sustainable. What else… for example, my manager introduced me “the politics of a clean table” last month. As far as I understand, it is about the confidentiality and simple cleanness of the work space”. (Nestle)

Respondent from the Oil & Gas:

“You know, I heard something about it (sustainable development) as a kind of some abstract thing, but I cannot remember, at a moment, what it means. In my opinion, sustainable development is something about politics. Yes, I heard about it from the political context. Do you want to say, that it is becoming the industry-specific thing?” (RosNeft)

Talking about the real practices and innovations concerning the supply chains, respondents also mainly outlined the economic dimension, and only the E&Y employee mentioned the social aspect:

“We have rethought our approach to the “bank-customer relations”. We used to make our customers want something by pushing a particular product - “you do not have a card?? Why?? You can save miles and then buy travel tickets for you and your family!”. No we came to the concept which implies that the customer should decide by himself what he wants by relying on our expertise and experience and choosing the products and services like dairy products in the supermarket” (Alfa-Bank)

“We actively try to use so called “traceability” when it comes to our inner supply partners. It is sad, but in the Russian framework it works not like an instrument to illuminate defects and wastes in the supply chain, but to find somebody to blame for the defect. That is how it works.” (RosNeft)

“Also we have a kind of Kaizen teams you are talking about, the majority of the ideas and innovations faces with the bureaucracy and millions of politics and procedures which should not be violated. For example, I have offered the system of taking over the goods, which possibly were damaged while transporting. This idea has not met the requirements of T&Q department, even with the significant cost reduction prospects inside. (Nestle)

“You have mentioned social initiatives. I have participated one training last month. It was organized by the HR department. We were told about the principles of safe-behaviour in the big city. It is cool, because sometimes working 8-10 hours per day, you forget about the dangers that surrounds you every day outside the office facilities. (E&Y)

Then the respondents were asked about their opinion on the effectiveness and productivity of the possible or current innovations in the supply chain management. The questions were about the obvious shift to the economic dimension, published data vs. reality correlation, the overall need for the changes or for maintaining the current state-of-the-art:

“Look, these things you are talking about, of course they are in need. But the question is: who needs them? There may be two approaches. First of all, all this “sustainable”, “lean” and environmental stuff may be introduced and partly or fully integrated mainly in order to show your shareholders that you are doing the right things, not just some useless activities spending their money. Thus, the vast majority of the joint-stock ventures today tries to implement some trendy sustainable technique or innovation. It may not be so effective and true-to-life on the practice, but the shareholders will be satisfied. The other approach is to implement everything with the bright belief that you will save billions, but, as my experience shows, in the most cases, the theory crushes against the Russian reality and legacy of the USSR, especially in the Oil & Gas sector. Eventually, in the best scenario 50 % of proposed innovations and managerial approach “stick” to the current management system, while the rest 50% slowly become forgotten and listed only at the official web-sites or in the cases by consulters” (RosNeft)

“When you are asking, why there is a shift in favour of the economic initiatives, you should not forget about the current state of the Russian economy and the main aim of every commercial activity. We are making money. We are not producing goods; we provide companies with the services. Thus, in times of the domestic economy recession we are trying to reduce our costs on the so called “side activities”. Of course, as you said, they may be profitable in a long-term… In this case, we just have to choose: whether to continue implementing low-profit activities or just start reducing headcount. Nevertheless, we still having some obligations behind the environment: we have a program of paper and garbage generated by the office facilities recycling” (E&Y)

“As I said, we have huge amount of different procedures, our work is highly standardized. The same thing, of course, is about our partners. As far as I understand the company's strategy, we are aimed to develop our partners in order to set mutually beneficial long-term relationships. Sometimes it could be the problem. For example, if the supply chain partner is very rigid when it comes to the handling of complaints and ability to consider its own mistakes, the investments of our company, thus, become ineffective, but the local policies and procedures sometimes do not give us a reason to choose the other partner. Nevertheless, apart from economic specifications, we try to look at the corporate image and environmental background of our possible partner.” (Nestle)

“Having the large capital behind our back, we have an untypical opportunity to continue to implement our social and environmental initiatives even in the tough market conditions - we are the only private bank in Russia which reported a profit in 2015. Nevertheless, not all of the staff members are involved in these activities by two reasons: lack of interest/time and indifference to the daily corporate mailout. The approach is the following: if you want - do; if you do not want or do not know - do not do. …when it comes to the partners and customers, our security office carefully checks everybody who are somehow could be related to the bank. The bank even has an opportunity to stop any relations with the client, if there is a reason to think that he/she/it is implicated in the unethical or unfair activities. This is not only the question of our image; we also have severe Central Bank behind us…”

In addition, there are some very illustrative cases:

“You know, according to the ISO standards, everyone, who works at the oil-field, along with the special boots and helmet, must also wear special glasses. It is just about basic safety. When I was working with the Big Oil in Africa, nobody could even think about entering the extraction site without glasses. The storekeeper distributed them whenever they could be in need. Now let us move to the Russian extraction. Here we have abstract specification that one person may receive one pair of glasses once a year. If you lose these glasses, you will get a penalty, the same happens if you accidently break them. The penalty system was introduced after it was find out that employees intentionally “lose” or “break” their glasses and then sell them in a kind of “black-market”. The introduction of the fine system solved the problem of the “shadow economy” at the extraction, but now nobody wears glasses because of fear of losing them - glasses just collect dust in the private employees' lockers. When it comes to the safety audit, everybody has glasses, but nobody wears it daily. That is the perfect illustration of how our Russian business works.” (RosNeft)

“You, as a researcher, should understand that sometimes things could be named “B” instead of “A”, but the meaning will be the same. When you asked me about Kaizen, I did not understand what you are talking about, at first. Later, when you described the meaning of this concept, I understood, that we have the same practice implemented in our company and called “The Box of Ideas”. This is what some managers call “the communication error”. It occurs quite often, unfortunately. Sometimes my subordinates come to my office and say: “hey, boss, yesterday I read a book about the time management! We should implement <some mind-bending term> in order to schedule our day more effectively!” and I answer, “Thank you for your initiative, but would you mind checking your Outlook calendar every morning, there are smart instruments for this purpose”. People sometimes do not understand that some concept is already implementing at their production/office just because: a) they got used to them; b) naming differs” (Alfa-Bank)

The final pool of questions was dedicated to the respondents' predictions about the future of the innovations in supply chains and sustainable development:

“You know, I would say, for example small and middle enterprises… Let us take the Shell's offspring SPD (Salym Petroleum Development). It is small. That is why everything implemented as it should be. They work using western metrics. They engage technicians and experienced work staff. So… companies like this are the main “growing-points” for the methods we are talking about. On the other hand, many companies in the industry could be described as “not only impossible to improve, but also extremely hard to kill”. The system, altogether, seems to be very inert. But the society and people are changing… Old-fashioned managers let have their places to the young executives, who were taught these theory, who has inspiration to change something. All in all, such need for changes is typical for a “young” industries. Oil & Gas business, after all, has an extremely conservative approach to the strategic development. Talking about Russia in general, I would say that tendency is “moderately positive” when it comes to innovations in production and distribution; without any doubts, with the significant look out to the sanctions and overall economic recession” (RosNeft)

“This year we have a kind of positive dynamics. However, it seems that we still have problems of a higher importance than implementation of sustainable staff. Talking about industry, the positive dynamics obviously exist, but who knows. You know, it is extremely hard to make long-term investments when there are literally raging sea by the board of the company. Even if you are perfect, system is ….” (E&Y)

“As far, as we are transnational corporation, I do not think that there will be any reasons to stop implementing sustainable techniques. Even if our local market is going down, we still have the headquarters, which will support us. Vice versa, if some neighbour market will suffer from the recession in the future and we, at the same time will grow, the headquarters will redistribute the resources. This is what long-term planning about: we have a strategy for 20 years, and nothing except for maybe major cataclysms have a chance to stop us implementing it. This is what people value working here - unprecedented stability. Talking about the Russian industry… the Russian companies still have not got used to work at the lower profit level. They think if they do not get 30% of profit every year, the venture is not successful at all. Thus, maybe the current crisis will show them how the western business works with 0-10% profitability”. (Nestle)

“How do many of the Russian managers work? They take a trendy theory, put it into implementation. Obviously, it faces the Russian reality and, as a result, works only at the large business framework. Smaller companies just do not have enough resources, facilities and, what is more important, patience. Overall, I could connect it with the wholesale absence of the job and managerial discipline. (Alfa-Bank).



Conclusions

From the very beginning of this study, there was a set of research questions, which shaped the whole structure, and idea of the paper. Now it is time to get to the final point and, relying on the data gathered with the help of the case studies and interviews, present the findings in a structured way. Looking at the case study, the scope for implementation of the process innovations may be broad - starting from the ineffective local production and ending with the long-term R&D, supply system and production processes. The key success factor in all cases obviously was the sustainable collaboration between the staff members. All of the participants of the innovation processes outline that only by developing a long-term staff involvement, feasible results may be obtained. The great “agent” for increasing such an involvement may be the “lean leader”, so frequently mentioned. As far as it may be coined from the interviews, the lack of the overall involvement, discipline and passion for changes are seen among the major obstacle for sustainability. In this case, what is the solution? One may say that it is about Russian mentality and there is nothing to do with it, while others will think over the motivation program (as it happens in the RosNeft) for those who are submitting their innovative ideas to the special committee. Even if there will be a burst of strange ideas, firstly, there will always be one that could be implemented as a process innovation, and secondly, even generating absurd ideas, employees try to look at their working routine from the different angle. This is of course a great driver for increasing the overall staff involvement, if there is no inherent starvation for changes like it happens in Amazon.

The next thing is related to the standardization. All of the 6 companies mentioned in the cases used internal and external standardization in their activities. The main thing about these standards that if something goes wrong and somebody (supplier, staff member, labor union, mining company, etc.) makes a mistake or fails to fulfil the contract obligations, the companies using the sustainable approach try to fix this problem immediately by any means, no matter who was in charge of such an incident - the investigation, thus, is almost the ending point of the incident. At the same time, Russian business is famous for its blame-model of contract relations. For instance, some abstract company make a contract for the production and delivery of the spare parts for the production machinery. Both sides define all possible penalties and fines for the contract failure and then just sign it. That is it for the most of the cases. Nothing happens from this moment until the date, set as a deadline for fulfilling all of commitments. And, surprisingly, the spare parts are still far from being delivered or even produced, the ordering production stops because of the early implementation of JIT concept with the minimal spare parts stock. Everything goes wrong. What does the ordering company do? Of course, they activate the penalty clause of the contract and get their money from unreliable partner. Then it starts repeatedly. Russian business for some reasons do not want to invest in their supply partners. From their point of view, it is much more effective to change partners' monthly receiving fines. However, what about the production downtime due to the lack of the spare parts and, thus impossibility to implement TPM and Kanban?

Thus, if there is such a problem related to the relationships between suppliers, is it in any case sensible to introduce the overall outsourcing? In my opinion, the case of Boeing will be repeating over and over again. For a moment, when the resources are limited and the long-term partner relationships are so hard to achieve, the outsourcing should be the solution only for totally non-core activities.

Talking about the social aspect of sustainability, cases and interviews showed that there are two major approaches for labour safety. First is implementing in Russian companies, second - in the transnational ones. Russian approach implies so called “prosecutorial language” while describing the rules of the safety at the production of in the office, while many of foreign companies uses the practical-oriented communication. The essence of “prosecutorial language” is mandatory statements, barren narration style, the obligatory list of responsible people, and many filler phrases. On the contrary, some of the foreign companies try to make the safety instructions more illustrative, depicting the real cases, situations and possible solutions. Such a presentation makes safety instructions not just a spam letter in the corporate mailbox, but a useful document.

As it was stated, the social and environmental costs are the first to cut during the economic recession in Russia. All of the respondents claimed that society and environment is important, but when it comes to big money and capital, everybody forgets about theses dimensions and focus on pure economy, even, at the same time, talking about reducing the footprint. At the same time, the market conjecture in many of the Asian and especially Western country is so demanding, that sometimes company chooses reduction of the economic indicators in favour of social and environmental projects. This happens because of the strong pressure from the society and government. Government looks for every minor lapse in the unblamable company's social and environmental policy, while society, being the main customer, just votes with its feet. Bad company reputation is the serious problem for each of the western companies. Thus, the stricter control and social pressure should be imposed to the industry in order to increase the importance of the two minor dimensions of sustainability.

The last, but not the least, let us talk about the high level of uncertainty among the Russian entrepreneurs. This is the issue, which often serves as an explanation to the nature of the ineradicable short-term planning orientation among Russian managers. These problems relate to the fact, that apart from high sustainable claims, government should also provide business with the comfort environment for the development. No one will make a long-term strategy when he knows that tomorrow the competitor may bribe the tax agency officer and everything you will be doing until your company collapse - collecting papers proving that you are a downright executive.

Finally, after summarizing the main results, typical problems and possible solutions, let us make up a list of to do's if you want to start implementing process innovations in Russia;

1. Develop your partners. They seem to be one of the best investments

2. Do not try to find somebody to blame, find the root of the problem, not the responsible person

3. If you decided to implement sustainable development principles in your company - do not compromise with the half of the way.

4. Make your staff involved - lean is not possible without overall involvement

5. Think about your corporate image while choosing a partners or implementing some initiative. “Flawless” image is always a strong competitive advantage

6. Use the right communication while talking about the important, but, at a first sight, boring things.

7. Listen to every idea of your staff

8. Creating your own start-up start implementing sustainable strategy from the very beginning. Amazon proved that it is better to start being innovative from the very first day, than after 10-20 years.

9. Demand the sustainable environment from the government, but be ready to be “demanded” backwards.

10. Sustainable development allows us to save our planet for the future generations. Let your grandchildren see the planet as it is today.

Summing up, talking about the prospects for the future research, this study is seen as a perfect framework for the deeper qualitative research, I talked only with 4 people and got so much data, that it was rather hard to handle with, when it comes to classification. Imagine how many unique cases and stories, similar to the “black-market for glasses” will be told. This is outstanding source to study. By increasing the volume of sample, recommendations that are more precise could be gained.

Talking about the limitations, it is again, relatively small sample size for the interviews, only the process innovations being the scope, “aboveground” approach the study of economic instruments of the SCM (E-SCM, E-logistics, etc.)

Finally, let us again review the work being done. First of all, the key terms and definitions was presented, along with the topical background. After that, the 3 research questions were defined. In order to understand the problem more deeply, the detailed literature review of the all key terms was conducted. After that, the methodological base was created relying on the objective advantages of the chosen methods. Moreover, the principle for the selection of the cases was defined along with the short characteristics of the respondents. Empirical part described the 6 cases and 4 interviews being conducted. As a result, answering the research questions, the conclusion was composed.



References

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