The cost of food products that chain restaurants use will increase overall by 2 percent in 2014, according to the newly released purchasing cost outlook by SpenDifference LLC, the chain-restaurant purchasing cooperative.
Ship suppliers are managing to weather the economic storm by putting solid and vetted business partnerships ahead of any major move towards online procurement, according to one of the industry's trade bodies.
To address supply chain threats, 28 percent of respondents in a recent survey said they have shifted from overseas to domestic suppliers in the past 12 months, according to BBK, an international business advisory firm with roots in the automotive manufacturing industry. Nearly 70 percent of these respondents cited transportation, shipping and logistics costs as the most significant factors in decisions to re-shore.
According to a 2012 survey from CAPS Research, nearly 72 percent of organizations expect their total supplier diversity program spend to increase by 2014. To better position minority and women business enterprises to capitalize on this growth, Cintas Corporation is sharing its top five strategies for supplier diversity success.
Employees at the Chinese factories of Apple supplier Foxconn continue to work beyond the country's legal limit of 49 hours a week, according to a report from the Fair Labor Association (FLA). But the Taiwanese manufacturer is making overall steady progress in improving the working conditions at a select group of factories in China, it said.
The latest spate of auto recalls came last month when auto giants Honda, Nissan, Toyota and Mazda were focused to recall more than 3.4 million vehicles as a result of faulty air bags originating from Takata Corp in Japan. Since the initial announcement, BMW has come forward with a related recall action of more than 200,000 of their cars.
Automakers like Ford rely on thousands of tier-one suppliers to provide the materials, parts and services to make its final products. Many suppliers serve numerous automakers, and each of those suppliers, in turn, has multiple suppliers. Other industries' supply chains (such as electronics) are intertwined into the automotive supply chain. There are often six to 10 levels of suppliers between an automaker and the source of raw materials that eventually enter the manufacturing process. The breadth, depth and interconnectedness of the automotive supply chain make it especially challenging to effectively manage business and sustainability issues.
The way suppliers are typically segmented may work well for prioritizing procurement resources on supplier selection, managing supplier performance, and supporting and developing strategic suppliers. But it doesn't always work well for prioritizing resources on risk management and compliance. Many B and C suppliers may be easily switched, but still represent large material risks to the company (such as litigation or regulatory fines).
Dell OEM Solutions announced that it has worked with Microsoft Corp. to become a global distributor, outsource manufacturer and integrator for Windows Embedded products.
The chip manufacturing story has some compelling and awkward moments. For instance, Samsung managed to land Apple as its first massive computation chip customer when the original iPhone was heading to market. Apple needed someone to make the ARM chip that would give the iPhone its low-power consumption and zip, and Samsung said it was up to the task. Of course, the two companies are competitors now.
