Many Supply Chain Managers in Danger of Failing to Meet the Conflict Minerals Filing Deadline
In an exclusive interview, Source Intelligence CEO Jess Kraus highlights the obstacles companies are facing as the first conflict minerals filling deadline approaches.
According to Kraus, supply chain managers must have a transparent data collection and management system in place – visibility is CRITICAL because it is THE BASIS for measuring and managing risks at all levels in the supply chain.
Those supply chain managers working with Source Intelligence are given this transparency along with quantified data and monitored by risk models on a 24/7 basis. Our conflict minerals solution tracks all components in a product, assigns a score for risk and generates a report to help supply chain managers to understand the potential risk and source of risk and make intelligent decisions –hence our name “Source Intelligence.”
Without transparency, quantified data and 24/7 monitoring, I don’t know how a manager can reliably advise their CEO and Board of Directors on mitigating risk with second, third, forth, fifth, sixth tier partners and beyond; some regulations will require visibility all the way to the smelter, which is the case with conflict minerals.
A final point I’ll make is that supply chain managers should not only advise their CEO’s on mitigating risk deep into the supply chain - well beyond first and second tier suppliers - but also advise their CEO’s on guarding the bottom line with an insurance policy to further reduce risk.
The number of companies that have not acted either because a) they hope that the rule will be repealed, b) they do not know if the rule applies to them, and c) they have not secured the internal resources to implement a conflict minerals due diligence program.
Also, we were surprised by how little and incomplete data a public company (our clients) has about their suppliers, surprisingly even with tier 1 suppliers and definitely with all tiers deeper in the supply chain. There are “hidden” places that you can find 3TG’s, particularly tin.
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