Today’s post is by Heather Powell, Project Manager at SafeSourcing Inc.

You may be certified in your field of expertise, but is your company?

According to Wikipedia:

There are three general types of certification. Listed in order of development level and portability, they are: corporate (internal), product-specific, and profession-wide.

Corporate, or “internal” certifications, are made by a corporation or low-stakes organization for internal purposes. For example, a corporation might require a one-day training course for all sales personnel, after which they receive a certificate. While this certificate has limited portability – to other corporations, for example – it is the most simple to develop.

Product-specific certifications are more involved, and are intended to be referenced to a product across all applications. This approach is very prevalent in the information technology (IT) industry, where personnel are certified on a version of software or hardware. This type of certification is portable across locations (for example, different corporations that use that software), but not across other products. Another example could be the certifications issued for shipping personnel, which are under international standards even for the recognition of the certification body, under an International Maritime Organization (IMO).

The most general type of certification is profession-wide. Certification in the medical profession is often offered by particular specialties. In order to apply professional standards, increase the level of practice, and protect the public, a professional organization might establish a certification. This is intended to be portable to all places a certified professional might work. Of course, this generalization increases the cost of such a program; the process to establish a legally defensible assessment of an entire profession is very extensive. An example of this is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA), which would not be certified for just one corporation or one piece of accountancy software but for general work in the profession.

Clearly to have a personal certification benefits you as an individual in multiple ways, as a standardization that you understand your field of expertise and this can create a bigger salary.

Now, is your company certified? The same benefits of certification to you as individual are excellent benefits to your company! These certifications show your company knows its business inside and out, is organized to a set industry standard, and by being certified shows you took the extra steps to the best in your field- whereas your competition may not be.

Companies looking to hire a new service look for certifications. They may look for the certifications before looking any further into your business, its practices, and even pricing models! 

At SafeSourcing, Inc. our databases of suppliers are certified in their fields of expertise and when we source new suppliers for you our customer, the first thing we look for are certified companies who can achieve all that our customer would want in a company.  We take the extra care and steps to ensure you are getting the best of the best when sourcing new business, products, or services.

If you’d like more information on the SafeSourceIt™ Supplier Database of over 427,000 cleansed global sources of supply, on how SafeSourcing can help you with your eProcurement needs, or on our “Risk Free” trial program, please contact a SafeSourcing customer services account manager.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

Today’s post is by Ron Southard CEO at SafeSourcing Inc.

Why are we called SafeSourcing?  It’s very simple because we strive for a world where the products and services from our supply chain are safe. That includes the safety and humane treatment of our farm stock. We hold our suppliers accountable to these standards and have from day one of our company launch. In the beginning we supported 25 standards that support the supply chain and the environment. What has changed since then is the number of certifications and organizations we support. We try to introduce suppliers and companies that support each other’s corporate and social responsibility initiatives as a way to pay forward both our suppliers and customers best practices for a safe supply chain.

I have to be honest I am not a vegan. I do eat meat including pork. However, there are humane practices that support the harvesting of this farm stock. One example is the  Humane Raised and Handled a program administered by Humane Farm Animal Care at www.certifiedhumane.org.  We regularly publish information on our SafeSourcing daily blog such as the recently posted Farm to Fork – Where Does the Trace Start? As well as other pertinent subject matter. We also provide more detailed information relative to safety programs and certifications in the supply chain in our Sourcing Wiki such as the following link on the Humane Raised Handled.

Now be ready to be disgusted.

NBC news released the following video titled Tyson-foods-dumps-pig-farm-after-nbc-shows-company-video-of-alleged-abuse? Congratulations to Tyson. We just wish you had uncovered and acted on this sooner yourself.

I hope like this author you could not finish watching this disgusting behavior. Pigs are intelligent animals and this behavior is disgusting. I can’t image what the home life is like for people related to these workers.

If you’d like to learn more about safety in the supply chain or how our programs can support your social responsibility initiatives, please contact a SafeSourcing customer services representive.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments

I was reading a blurb in the Financial Times recently titled Big buyers of seafood rethink eco-labels by Aaron Stanley. The article went on to describe how Alaska fishermen have stopped supporting eco-labeling routines from the Marine Stewardship Council because they were too costly and supposedly eroded their brand.

I’m all about brand image, so here’s a question for you. Have you ever been on a commercial fishing boat? I don’t care if it’s a long line boat, a crab boat or a lobster boat. If you have, I don’t need to say much more. And just how fresh is that fish that was caught on the first day of a ten day trip? I’m just saying! By the way, I grew up on the Atlantic Ocean and my brother in law was a commercial fisherman. I also have friends in the lobster business.

This is not a subject we have not posted about in the past.  We have covered the MSC on a number of occasions. In a 2011 post titled Getting to Know the Organizations Helping to Protect Us – Part 3 of 4 we discuss the MSC and they are also listed in our SafeSourcing Wiki. These people care about our oceans and our fisheries and their long term sustainability.

If you’d like to know what suppliers you can speak with that support the MSC eco-labeling schemes, SafeSourcing will be glad to find them for you in our SafeSourceIt™ Supplier Database where we hold suppliers accountable to safety and environmental certifications.  Or in this case you could visit MSC track- a- fishery program.

SafeSourcing supports our global environment, food safety and safe products.

If you’d like to learn more about SafeSourcing, please contact a SafeSourcing customer s services representative.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

Today’s post is by Mark Davis; Sr. Vice President and COO at SafeSourcing. 

The process of traceability in the products we purchase and consume every day has grown in urgency significantly other the past few decades.  As the origins of where a product began its life have begun cloudier due to increased international sources of raw materials the importance of being able to track a product is critical.  This is especially true when those points of origins begin in countries whose safety standards and processes are not the same as the US.  As we examine this process today we will focus on a few of the key areas and challenges that must be recognized in order for companies to begin getting a handle on the process.

Who’s responsibility is it? – The official answer this varies from industry to industry depending on what regulations have been passed to deal with the responsibility.   Unofficially the answer is that it is every entity who touches the product in some way from the time it is grown or manufacturer until it is the customer’s hands.  For the food industry, for example, there are laws like the Bioterrorism Act of 2002 which calls for food companies to have vision into their products one step before they got it and one step after it leaves them.  Assuming each party was handling their part, the line of tracking could be built as intended.  There are challenges with processes like this still which we will discuss below, but the concept is easy.  If you want people to trust you and your products, you should know as much as you possibly can about the pieces that go into creating them in order to fully protect your customers.

What are the challenges? – The challenges facing traceability are not unlike those facing many processes in industries where paper has and continues to be the medium of choice; technology, or lack thereof.  To effectively be able to track the origins of products there must some consistency in the level of technology being used so that data can be shared as well uniformity in how that data is going to be logged and used.  Along with the technology gaps there are also gaps in regulation where some parties in the supply chain are not required to track anything they do.  Without the regulation to enforce the safety, the process begins to develop holes and these holes lead to major delay issues especially when considering the parties in the supply chain that do not choose to track voluntarily are many times the source of issues that arise.

Where do we go from here? –  The beginning steps necessary to begin tracking happen with two channels.  The first channel focuses on how you track the origins of your own products.  This includes understanding where the raw materials you use are coming from as well as understanding the channels that handle your product once it leaves your facilities.  The second channel is by demanding that same level of insight from the vendors whose products you consume in your company.  Understanding the origins of your copy paper, cleaning supplies, roofing material, etc .  will begin to build a culture where safety at all levels is a top priority for your business.

At SafeSourcing we know companies are interested in the safety of their employees and their customers and while traceability may be something of great interest, knowing how to get there can sometimes be a challenge.  Helping business “source” safer is extremely important to us and how we do business.  For more information on how we can help you “source safer” or on our “Risk Free” trial program, please contact a SafeSourcing Customer Service Representative.  We have an entire customer services team waiting to assist you today.

We look forward to your comments.

Today’s post is by Ron Southard, CEO at SafeSourcing.

According to an article in the denverpost.com titled New meat labeling rules take effect in US! by By M.L. Johnson, Associated Press which was first posted on 5/24/2113, Shoppers in the U.S. will soon have more information about where their meat comes from after new federal labeling rules went into effect Thursday 5/30/2013.

These labels will be required to indicate where the meat came from or  its country of origin as well as where it has been processed which could be different. Although many organizations are not in favor of this legislation, it is not going to go away any time soon. The cost of insuring that the foods we buy and consume are safe is enormous and the loses associated with sick or down time related to food borne illness has been out of control for a long time.

There are however ways to mitigate your expense when deploying new programs.

If you’d like to learn more about how SafeSourcing vetts the safety standards of members of our SafeSourceIt™ Supplier Database or how you can source these labels and labeling equipment more economically, please contact a SafeSourcing customer services representative.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.