When Jia Jingchuan, a 27-year-old electronics worker in Suzhou, China, sought compensation for the chemical poisoning he suffered at work, he appealed neither to his employer nor to his government. Instead, he addressed the global brand that purchased the product he was working on. "We hope Apple will heed to its corporate social responsibility."

Automotive suppliers are struggling to keep up with increased production, according to a new survey, raising serious concerns among purchasing executives.

As tainted-food scandals go, it wasn't so bad. The discovery early this year of unlabeled horse meat in European food products wasn't for the most part a safety issue. It was a violation of cultural norms, to be sure, as well as a truth-in-packaging problem. Most of all, it was a supply-chain failure.

Cognex Corp. has developed a new version of In-Sight Track & Trace, the company's identification and data-verification software for healthcare product serialization.

On March 11, 2011, a tsunami off the coast of Japan caused human tragedy on a massive scale, killing thousands and rendering more than half a million homeless. The tsunami also wreaked havoc on business supply chains worldwide. Toyota and Honda experienced a 30-percent and 60-percent decline in profit, respectively, which both attributed to production lags caused by limited supplies of parts after the tsunami. The tsunami caused an estimated $40bn in economic losses due to interruptions in global supply chains.