Here's a neat YouTube video I spotted recently. It gives a graphical representation of the global supply chain, using a small shoe store as an example. For those who learn visually, it's a good tool for getting the concept of the supply chain across. Enjoy!

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As if the peanut scare wasn't bad enough, now there's a new salmonella-related problem. According to this warning released just last week by the FDA, now there's a problem with the nation's pistachio crop, prompting yet another nut-related recall.

This time the FDA says the culprit is Setton Pistachio of Terra Bella Inc, Calif. Fortunately, as in the peanut scare, this problem doesn't appear to have anything to do with bagged pistachios, but the warning notes that the potentially contaminated nuts in this case are used "as ingredients in a variety of foods," so you can bet this will lead to more recalls of other products. The FDA is keeping a list of potential affected products which you can see by clicking here.

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If you think you're keeping good tabs on what goes on in your supply chain, especially if you are a food company, you'd better have a look at this article from the New York Times about how food inspectors routinely drop the ball when testing for microbes and other contaminants in the U.S. food manufacturing and distribution industry.

Not surprisingly, the now-infamous peanut scare that started at a Georgia-based Peanut Corporation of America plant is at the top of the article, but the article also mentions the perhaps less-well-known case of the Westland/Hallmark Beef Company in California which had to recall nearly 150 million pounds of beef a little over a year ago after federal inspectors discovered the company used what the article called "sickly" c...Read More

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It looks like the case of melamine contamination is progressing in China. According to this piece from CNN, three people are going to be put to death for willfully contaminating or allowing others to contaminate watered-down milk with melamine, a chemical used in manufacturing of plastics, in order to mask a vitamin deficiency in the diluted milk to government screeners. The chemical has killed six babies in China and made over 300,000 more sick. A BBC broadcast this morning blamed rapid expansion of the Chinese economy with little to no real government regulation to keep up with it, something Premier Wen Jiabao, in a rare public apology, vowed to fix.

On a related front, the American Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) seems to be nailing down the source of this country's...Read More

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Ok, it's been a while since I posted, so I thought I'd start the new year with an interesting video I spotted recently. Its purpose is to plug a supply chain management degree program from Grant MacEwan College in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, but there's a pretty detailed description, in basic language, of what supply chain management is and why it's important.

Overall, the video's pretty good, although if the presenter spoke to me like that in person I'd be inclined to smack him. Still, it's worth viewing for anyone new to the field who wants to understand it better.
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It's been said that efforts to keep track of what's going through the supply chain from China to the U.S. have, in recent months, been, well, lacking, for want of a better term.

According to this article from RFIDNews, it looks like Wal-Mart is trying to change that. The "retail behemoth," as the article calls it, is demanding its Chinese suppliers use RFID tagging on all shipments. At least now if more chemicals wind up in the milk, or lead paint appears on children's toys, or pet food makes Fido sick, we'll know exactly where in China it comes from.

It's not cheap, at least for the suppliers, who have been using bar codes up till now, but Wal-Mart stands to save more than $8 billion annually, according to the article.

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This is an interesting video from a UK-based magazine publisher (I have no idea if it is connected to Reed Business Information or not) describing the literal birth, death and rebirth of paper. It shows trees being planted (or transplanted), cut down, chopped up, turned into paper, and bound into magazines. The 8-minute video keeps going, though, showing how the same magazines are recycled and turned back into... more paper. It moves quickly -- the entire video is broadcast in high speed. There are virtually no words at all except a few to help the viewer along. It's a neat albeit simplified look at the supply chain of the paper industry.
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In my last post, I noted a disturbing case of melamine being found in Cadbury candies over in China.

Now, according to this article from a California TV station, it seems melamine has been detected in White Rabbit Candy made in China and shipped here. The candymaker's U.S. distributor, Queensway Food Company, Inc., has already issued a recall.

Melamine is a chemical used in making plastics. It wound up in milk, according to published reports, when a number of farmers started putting it in watered-down milk to fool inspectors into thinking it wasn't watered-down. Now, thousands of babies have died or fallen ill in China due to this chemical.

Scary stuff, and it looks like the scandal may not be over yet, since it's making it to our shores.

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It seems that the melamine that contaminated milk in China and led to the deaths and illnesses of thousands of babies there may be in danger of crossing the pond.

That's certainly the conclusion one can draw from this article from Fox News which says British candy maker Cadbury is recalling 11 products made at its Beijing plant. The products were sold in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Australia.

This comes on the heels of the discovery that melamine, a chemical normally used to make plastics, was introduced by a few unscrupulous farmers into milk. Apparently this allowed the farmers to water down their milk but still fool screeners into thinking it had an ordinary protein content.

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Well, it seems things aren't all wine and roses in the corporate world in India.

Despite ongoing talk that it's "the new China," India has shown in the past that it has a ways to go before it catches up with the demands of outsourcing companies looking to cut costs.

This article from Supply Excellence shows that rising discontent among laborers is turning violent. The article talks about an auto parts manufacturer (the subsidiary of an Italian company) which, to put it as mildly as possible, has some labor relations issues to work out. In this case, the dismissal of 200 workers made the former employees so angry at their local CEO that they beat him to death during a meeting to discuss the firings, while the doomed executive's entourage cowered in ...Read More

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China's tainted milk problem is now officially a supply chain problem.

According to this article from CNN's Web site, the problem that originally looked like an isolated occurrance affecting a handful of people has become a nationwide health scare, and may even be stretching into neighboring countries.

At issue is melamine, a chemical that was added to milk products by some unscrupulous farmers. According to the article, "Health experts say ingesting melamine can lead to kidney stones, urinary tract ulcers, and eye and skin irritation. It also robs infants of much-needed nutrition."
That's where it started -- in infants, with four deaths attributed to melamine so far. Roughly 53,000 other people, including 13,000 children, have gotten sick off the st...Read More

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Archstone Consulting, together with Supply Chain Management Review, are looking for your input!

As you can see here, we're co-sponsoring a survey on the validity of near-shoring in North America and the United States itself, as opposed to offshoring to popular locations such as China.

Not everyone has run away from offshoring in the wake of higher oil and fuel prices, but some people are seriously considering bringing operations home again. Are you one of them? Why or why not? We want to know! You can click here to take the survey, completely anonymously, if you wish.

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