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If Your Supplier’s Work Environment Is Unsafe, What Do You Do?

Die casting is manufacturing at its most basic and dirty level. Companies that use casting suppliers must allow additional lead time for procuring the castings, as they are typically a long lead-time item. And die casters are known for being generally at the low end of the manufacturing efficiency and innovation scale. According to a North [...]

December 17th, 2009 | Category: Corporate social responsibility, Manufacturing, supply chain | One comment

Purging the System of Supply Chain Mistakes

In a takeoff of the U.S. government’s Cash for Clunkers program, Toys R Us began a program to help get recalled and dangerous children’s equipment such as cribs, bassinets, high chairs, etc. out of people’s homes. I touched on the subject of dangerous toys and equipment in a post a few months ago, Another Supply [...]

September 3rd, 2009 | Category: Corporate social responsibility, supply chain, supply risk | Leave a comment

Supplier Assessment Can Be Supplier Education

Evaluating suppliers can be educational for the supplier. When suppliers are asked to comply with customer requirements that are considered industry best practices, they may have the opportunity to learn more about those practices. You may wonder how a company can end up with suppliers who are unaware of best practices that are customer [...]

August 25th, 2009 | Tags: | Category: Corporate social responsibility, Lean, supplier evaluation | Leave a comment

Where’s the Beef……From?

A recent article in the Manchester Guardian reported on the latest sub-tier supply risk horror story. It is alleged that British supermarket chains Tesco, Asda, Marks & Spencer and dozens of other supermarkets may be inadvertent parties to a different kind of laundering scheme – beef laundering. Greenpeace, after a 3-year undercover investigation, called [...]

June 29th, 2009 | Tags: , , | Category: Corporate social responsibility, supply chain, supply risk | Leave a comment

Want to audit us? It’ll cost you.

A colleague of mine, Sandra Gauvin, an expert in the quality field and writer of the Current Quality blog and newsletter, recently brought to my attention a new disturbing trend in supplier evaluation: suppliers who charge their customers to for the privilege of conducting an on-site audit. In this scenario, a customer contacts a supplier requesting [...]

May 11th, 2009 | Tags: , , , , , , , | Category: Business, Corporate social responsibility, Quality, supplier performance, Supply Management | 2 comments

Another kind of banker — your supplier?

Robert Handfield’s recent article in the Wall Street Journal, “United They’ll Stand,” promotes the idea of working with financially-stressed key suppliers to avoid pushing them over the brink into insolvency. The author is not advocating bailing them out, as suggested by Debbie Wilson’s in her post, Vendor Vulnerability – Handfield’s Flawed Recommendation. But rather, [...]

April 6th, 2009 | Tags: , , , , | Category: Business, Corporate social responsibility, Risk, supplier performance, Supply Management | Leave a comment