The Berlin Conference is the first in a series of events planned as part of a two-year project by the Office of the Special Representative and Co-ordinator for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings supported by the current German and incoming Austrian OSCE Chairmanships, and Switzerland.

This high-level event is part of the OSCE’s ongoing effort to raise awareness about the problem of labour exploitation in supply chains and to advocate for increased actions at the government level across the OSCE region with the aim of adopting measures to prevent and combat this form of modern day slavery.

Today’s globalized economy is characterized by complex supply chains of goods and services, with both materials and labour sourced from all around the world. It is difficult for buyers and consumers to be sure that the goods or services that they purchase or procure were not produced by trafficked labour. It is also difficult for large or multi-national companies to verify their own supply chains when there may be multiple tiers of subcontractors. Sometimes a parent company might not be aware of whether its sub-contractors down the supply chain unknowingly use or resort to the use of forced labour, including child exploitation and human trafficking. Inefficiently regulated recruitment and poorly inspected worksites, behaviour and practices conducive to corruption, lack of understanding of labour and human rights standards, as well as insufficient enforcement, constitute additional challenges in this field.

In order to address the problem of human trafficking in global supply chains, the Office of the Special Representative and Co-ordinator for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings (OSR/CTHB) developed a project on Prevention of Trafficking in Human Beings in Supply Chains through Government Practices and Measures. The project aims to provide OSCE participating States with practical tools to enact concrete measures to prevent human trafficking in supply chains, as well as build their capacity to implement these measures. Project activities include capacity-building workshops and conferences, the publishing of Model guidelines on preventing trafficking in supply chains and developing a plan encouraging the adoption of the Model guidelines.

Greening ICT Supply Chains - Survey on Conflict Minerals Due Diligence Initiatives

TR.x509ac4sc - A use case of X.509 Attribute Certificate for Supply Chain

Zama’s Prof Nigel Smart spoke to Prof Florian Kerschbaum about the challenges of harnessing data to make supply chains more efficient while protecting privacy.

Read more: Can this cryptography tool secure your supply chain data?

HP’s Val Gabriel discusses nation-state cyberthreats in the hardware supply chain and how to mitigate these types of attacks.

Read more: Tech tampering: Are hardware supply chain attacks on the rise?

Quarter-to-quarter comparisons show massive increases in most products, though a year-to-year analysis hints that supply issues are not over just yet.

From 15 to 18 February 2023, Automechanika Shanghai will delve into automotive transformation.

According to the latest report ‘The automotive supply chain: Pursuing long-term resilience’ from the Capgemini Research Institute, automotive organisations now feel more confident to tackle future supply chain disruptions.

By Marijke Voet, Commercial Manager. TMX UK.

With supply volatility and geopolitical unrest circling, supply chain visibility has become a major priority for today’s business leaders. Control towers are enabling savvy businesses to not only solve immediate problems but identify future disruptions they wouldn’t have otherwise seen coming.

By Terry Onica, Director, Automotive, QAD.

The automotive industry is at a pivotal crossroads, driven by rapid advancements in vehicle technology and increasing regulatory pressure around sustainability.

Real-time data capture, printing, mobility and voice-directed solutions specialist Dakota, alongside partners Truckfile, the UK provider of web-based fleet and workshop management, drivers check and compliance systems, have been selected as finalists in the ‘Fleet Innovation of the Year’ Category at the Supply Chain Excellence Awards 2023.

SnapFulfil has secured another distinguished supply chain and logistics award. The Top Supply Chain Projects 2024 (formerly known as SDCE 100) profiles innovative application success projects designed to automate, optimize, streamline and improve the supply chain. 

By Laurence Scott, freelance writer.

When built upon a solid foundation, which is warehouse logistics. That includes all the steps it takes to store, manage and prepare goods for use within any warehouse or distribution center. The speed at which business now moves has meant that efficient warehouse logistics quite simply are make or break for the general ability of a company to keep up with demand, remain cost-effective and on top.

This research is a quantitative and qualitative assessment of the characteristics that explain a vendor's success in the supply chain demand planning space and helps assess its current and anticipated performance in the marketplace.

Tuesday 14th January 2020 - Birmingham,UK

This Supply Chain Event is a free educational morning dedicated to leading manufacturers who want to review best practices and lessons from the front line to implementing S&OP (Sales & Operations Planning) and IBP (Integrated Business Planning).

Blue Yonder has announced that capital goods company CNH Industrial has selected Luminate Control Tower, along with several supply chain planning solutions such as forecasting and replenishment, as the backbone of its customer-centric aftermarket supply chain for its parts business.

Kinaxis a leader in supply chain management software, has announced that Infineum has selected Kinaxis to drive increased efficiency and reduce waste across its supply chain with improved navigation of supply and demand in today’s increasingly volatile business environment.

Optimised supply chain management benefits extend well beyond the bottom line. More and more companies across various sectors are turning to Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems to keep up with market demands and maintain a competitive edge.

o9 Solutions, the enterprise AI software platform provider for transforming planning and decision-making, and analyst firm Supply Chain Insights, has announced that LKQ Europe captured significant supply chain planning insights as a result of the company’s participation in a pilot programme designed to test outside-in planning concepts through Project Zebra.

Supply chain planning has huge potential to reduce the environmental impact of production and transportation, and supply chain solutions play a pivotal role in making this happen. Carlijn Goedhart, Sustainability Lead at DELMIA take a closer look at the dynamics of sustainable supply chain planning and the impact it can have on the world.

Blue Yonder, the supply chain solutions provider, has released its largest product update in the history of the company, launching what it describes as the first set of interoperable solutions across the entire supply chain – from planning to warehouse, transportation, and commerce – delivered on the company’s Luminate Cognitive Platform.

Manhattan Associates has introduced Manhattan Active Supply Chain Planning (SCP), claimed to be the industry’s first unified business planning platform that enables bi-directional collaboration between supply chain planning and execution systems. 

John Galt Solutions has launched Galt Connect, a hub connecting Atlas Planning Platform customers with technology partners and solution extensions to enhance their supply chain planning strategies and elevate operations. 

Rituals, the wellbeing beauty brand, has selected RELEX Solutions, provider of unified supply chain and retail planning solutions to deliver comprehensive, end-to-end supply chain optimisation capabilities.

By Philipp Pfister, Chief Customer Experience Officer at Transporeon (a Trimble company)

There’s no denying that the transport sector is a prominent cog across most global industries. As the saying goes, “There is no production without procurement logistics, and no trade without delivery traffic.”

TraceLink Inc has entered into a strategic partnership with Tecsys, the supply chain management solutions provider.This partnership between TraceLink and Tecsys aims to combine market-leading capability for external supplier integration and information exchange with industry-acclaimed inventory and warehouse management functionality.

By Dan Abramson, Senior Vice President and Head of Sales at FourKites.

In terms of high-value goods, it doesn’t get much more precious than the drugs and devices that support human health.

Digital Catapult, has announced that leading technology businesses will join the Made Smarter Innovation Digital Supply Chain Hub programme to apply deep tech solutions to bolster the resilience of national supply chains.

ACI Group has shone a spotlight on the importance of supply chain digitalisation in response to a Business Continuity Institute (BCI) report which found that almost 80% of organisations have experienced supply chain disruptions over the past year.

Murata ID Solutions reports that it has helped life science giant Bayer’s Italian division, Bayer S.p.A., leverage radio frequency identification (RFID) tracking in the first large-scale application of the technology in the pharmaceutical supply chain.

Covid-19 is straining supply chains around the world, most notably those of pharmaceutical companies. Scarcity of raw materials upstream and overheated demand downstream cause disruptions. Control over their supply chain is a major challenge for all pharma companies today.

With Covid-19 vaccine delivery highlighting the need for resilience in pharma and biotech supply chains, Karl H. Lauri, managing team member at MRPeasy.com, explains that ERP/MRP gives smaller suppliers the backbone required to take part.

The current crisis in Europe has led to increasing energy insecurity and shortages of raw materials, which are creating severe pharmaceutical manufacturing supply line disruptions. In some cases, supplier lead times have doubled, prices are no longer certain, and orders are subject to cancellations or delays.  

Cost reduction is a focus for many at the moment and understandably so. Multinational pharmaceutical company, Glenmark, is just one of those businesses looking at how it can optimise its costs globally.

By Rudrendu Kumar Paul and Bidyut Sarkar

Embracing the Future of Supply Chain Management: An Exploration of AI's Transformative Impact on Demand Forecasting and its Potential to Navigate Global Uncertainties.

The Threat Intelligence and Incident Response Team at Context Information Security has identified a new threat group behind a series of incidents targeted at the aerospace and defence industries in the UK and Europe.

ON-DEMAND WEBINAR: Responding to aerospace OEM demands with flexible product development.

A variety of pressures are driving change in aerospace and defense supply chains, including less funding and increasing complexity. Aerospace suppliers globally are dealing with product development challenges unlike anything they have seen before, including increasing cost pressures from OEMs, decreasing project timelines, and demanding industry regulations.

Manufacturers now expect logistics suppliers to further integrate with their operating systems DANX Carousel Chief Information Officer, Mohan Palaniandy, has told delegates at a recent supply chain transparency conference.

DHS's new Supply Chain Resilience Center will aim to marshal stakeholders to help avoid the type of shortages and bottlenecks that roiled the country during COVID-19.

The post New DHS supply chain center aims to head off future crises first appeared on Federal News Network.

LGCF, the French wine exporting company, relies on Körber’s Warehouse Management System, Warehouse Control System, voice and gamification solutions to accelerate the performance at 14 logistics sites.

During this exclusive webinar, moderator Jason Miller and agency leaders will explore how organizations are approaching supply chain risk management and the data strategy behind this management.

The post How to develop actionable information to protect federal supply chains first appeared on Federal News Network.

Location: Electronic Resource- 

Sm Supplier Management Job At Boeing Director Planning & Supply Chain

 As part of its ongoing partnership with DHL Supply Chain, Tesco Ireland has taken delivery of 50 state-of-the-art biomethane fuelled trucks which will operate across its country-wide distribution network.  

 New research from Wincanton reveals that two thirds (66%) of UK organisations say they are under pressure to hit their net-zero targets, with logistics seen as key to achieving their goals in this area, according to 83%.  

72% of FTSE 100 companies list threats to their supply chains amongst their principal risks, shows new research by supply chain management consultancy INVERTO, part of Boston Consulting Group.

1. iPhone SE 4 expected to launch in March 2025, supply chain data suggests  Business Standard
2. iPhone SE4 is likely to launch soon and here are 5 big upgrades we are expecting  India Today
3. Apple iPhone SE 4 to launch next year, likely to become the cheapest iPhone to support Apple Intelligence...  Moneycontrol
4. iPhone SE 4 may spell trouble for iPhone 16 and premium Android phones, here’s why  Hindustan Times
5. iPhone SE 4 Camera Production to Begin Soon Ahead of Anticipated Debut in March 2025: Report  Gadgets 360

Chinese supply chains could tip the balance in Ukraine Expert comment NCapeling 29 March 2023

Disrupting supply chains of critical minerals to those supporting Ukraine could give China a key advantage in its wider international trade competition.

Direct military intervention from China into the war on Ukraine, with Chinese troops and airmen appearing at the front line, would be highly escalatory and highly unlikely.

Equipping Russia with weapons and equipment is much more likely – if indeed it hasn’t already happened – and considering the West is supplying armaments to Ukraine, a joust with western technologies would be an interesting development to follow.

But if Chinese weapons underperform in the heat of battle, this may have implications for the current situation with Taiwan and the US, as a poor outcome on the Ukraine front could give the West more confidence over the tensions in the South China Sea. And the use of Chinese weapons in Ukraine would also be a feast for Western technical intelligence to capture.

Creating economic disruption

A much more likely development for China is to put in place export controls on critical minerals for Western powers supplying arms to Ukraine. This is a significant lever which China has used before during its fishing dispute with Japan in 2010 when hi-tech industrial production in Japan was affected by shortages of China-sourced critical minerals. Once normal supplies were resumed, Japan started to stockpile critical mineral reserves.

In October 2020, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) passed a new statute enabling – when necessary – restriction of critical mineral supplies to third party nations intending to use them for defence and security applications, adding a ‘versatile weapon to Beijing’s arsenal’ in its trade competition with the US.

That legal control has been applied to Lockheed Martin production of Taiwan-bound F-35s and it applies not only to critical minerals mined on the Chinese mainland, but also to Chinese-controlled enterprises within international supply chains, of which there are many.

Responding to any such restrictions by opening up new mines and setting up new supply chains can take more than a decade, so the countries involved may need to start stockpiling critical materials as Japan has been doing since 2010.

Commodity markets also need to be ready for some interesting price wobbles – a persistent problem in critical minerals extractives investment as is overcoming environmental, social, and governance (ESG) challenges in this new game of global supplies.

In addition, those markets include the London Metal Exchange, now owned by Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing whose biggest shareholder is the Hong Kong government which is struggling to operate with complete independence from Beijing.

Splitting the West’s consensus

By extending the thinking on China’s potential to throttle global critical mineral supply chains and the ensuing latency of extraction from new mining resources, progress to the Paris Agreement 2050 goals on climate change will inevitably be affected.

Given there are no supply chain assurance mechanisms, such as distributed ledger technologies, in place within global mining supply chains, a key issue to overcome would be how the West assures China that critical mineral supplies are not destined for military applications.

But if China’s default position becomes a total refusal to supply client nations unless end-to-end assurances can be achieved to prove non-military use, the West’s aspirations regarding the Paris 2050 goals will certainly be put in jeopardy, or even made unachievable.

Implications of post-COVID-19 Restructuring of Supply Chains for Global Investment Governance 14 July 2020 — 9:00AM TO 10:30AM Anonymous (not verified) 9 February 2021 Online

As companies rethink and diversify their supply chains in order to enhance resilience, what will this mean for current and future global investment governance?

What are the risks of negative effects on inclusivity and transparency? Does this shift create an opportunity to advance good governance of cross-border investment practices?

This event is part of the Inclusive Governance Initiative, which is examining how to build more inclusive models and mechanisms of global governance fit for purpose in today’s world.

Africa Aware: Supply chains, land contestation, conflict Audio NCapeling 30 March 2023

This episode examines relations between Ethiopia and Sudan as part of an XCEPT project mini-series.

The war in northern Ethiopia since November 2020, and subsequent conquest of disputed farmlands in Al-Fashaga by the Sudanese army on the Ethiopia-Sudan border, has brought into focus the importance of agricultural commodities such as sesame as a potential driver of land contestation and conflict. 

The panel discusses the interrelation of commodity and conflict supply chains, land contestation, and boundary disputes in the Horn of Africa, with a particular focus on the regions of Wolkait/Western Tigray in northwest Ethiopia and Al Fashaga in eastern Sudan.

This podcast was produced with support from the Cross-Border Conflict Evidence, Policy and Trends (XCEPT) project, funded by UK Aid from the UK government.