supply chain strategy

Suppliers are now expected by some of their global customers to demonstrate greenhouse gas emissions management, awareness and action, in order to maintain business relationships, a Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) report shows.

The second annual CDP Supply Chain Report, produced by A.T. Kearney, summarizes climate change information from 710 suppliers. Members, who include global customers, such as Dell, Juniper Networks, National Grid, PepsiCo and Reckitt Benckiser are requesting their suppliers to disclose data via the CDP Supply Chain program. Although this report shows significant improvement in best practices over last year's results, suppliers still have a long way to go.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has announced a new strategy to meet the challenges posed by rapidly rising imports of FDA-regulated products and a complex global supply chain. The strategy is outlined in a report called the Pathway to Global Product Safety and Quality.

“Global production of FDA-regulated goods has exploded over the past ten years,” says Dr. Margaret Hamburg, Commissioner of Food and Drugs. “In addition to an increase in imported finished products, manufacturers increasingly use imported materials and ingredients in their U.S. production facilities, making the distinction between domestic and imported products obsolete. There has been a perfect storm – more products, more manufacturers, more countries and more access. A dramatic change in strategy must be implemented."

The supply chain function is now widely recognized as an important part of the business, and two-thirds of the companies in a recent poll have senior supply chain representation in the boardroom.

Alignment with corporate strategy and customer service were identified as the leading functional drivers of supply chain strategy. The most important supply chain performance drivers were found to be cost focus, customer lead-time and customer quality.