Tag Archives: MetalMiner

Conflict Minerals Analysis: Readiness, Technology and Questionable Practices

Jason Busch - May 8, 2013 2:55 PM | Categories: Commentary

In this analysis, Lisa Reisman summarizes the key takeaways and compliance recommendations from the Spend Matters/MetalMiner event: Conflict Minerals EDGE. How prepared are most companies to tackle conflict minerals compliance based on what you heard and saw? One point that I came away with was that many companies have greater capability than they think to pursue conflict minerals compliance initiatives. For example, if you’re in pharmaceutical or aerospace, you’re likely doing part or lot level traceability already. Some companies might be able to piggy-pack on these initiatives. The audience was a self-selecting bunch of over 50 from the manufacturing world [...]

[More...]
 

Conflict Minerals EDGE: Compliance Technology (Part 2)

Jason Busch - May 7, 2013 8:06 AM | Categories: Commentary

This post is based on content delivered during Conflict Minerals EDGE. It leverages content contained in presentation delivered by Spend Matters Thomas Kase titled: Conflict Minerals: Let Technology Do The Heavy Lifting. Spend Matters PRO subscribers (annual full subscribers or corporate members) can request a copy of the presentation by dropping us a line. There is a hidden benefit to using technology to drive external conflict minerals compliance. The same solutions that engage with external parties to ensure that they have understood and accepted the 3T/G requirements – plus counter-signed company policies – can work for internal users at all [...]

[More...]
 

Upstream Risk Mitigation and Logistics/Transit Routes

Jason Busch - April 29, 2013 8:01 AM | Categories: Procurement Research

The following post is based on material contained in the MetalMiner report (available for free download): Conflict Minerals: Building Responsible Manufacturing Supply Chains. Join MetalMiner and Spend Matters for the Conflict Minerals Edge event taking place on May 6th in Chicago. Upstream Risk Mitigation Following the clarification on information needs from upstream actors, OECD also acknowledged “that upstream suppliers are those who can most effectively and most directly mitigate the risks of adverse impacts. Downstream companies are not expected to directly mitigate risks upstream in the supply chain” and that “industry initiatives provide one-way information on upstream activities and add [...]

[More...]
 

China’s Trade Rules and Subsidies: Down the Stainless Drain (Part 2)

Jason Busch - April 23, 2013 10:04 AM | Categories: Commentary

There’s a fundamental question regarding who are the winners and losers in trade cases in which governments subsidize the cost of production and/or offer direct tax or pricing incentives to exporters. MetalMiner asked Elkay’s Kathleen Deighan about this very issue in a recent interview. We present excerpts below (for the full interview, please click on the MetalMiner link):  MetalMiner: Buying organizations [often falsely] believe these trade cases to be extremely negative for them and for the ultimate consumer because prices end up increasing. What arguments do you make to explain to buying organizations that over the longer term, it’s in their [...]

[More...]
 

China’s Trade Rules and Subsidies: Down the Stainless Drain (Part 1)

Jason Busch - April 22, 2013 8:01 AM | Categories: Commentary

In an earlier installment in this series, we examined some of the philosophical underpinnings of why those who care about free markets should also care about preserving them in dealing with those attempting to manipulate the rules for their own gain. In this installment, we turn our attention to bringing the topic alive through a recent anti-dumping case that our sister site MetalMiner recently covered. The context for this coverage is that “Elkay Manufacturing recently ‘won’ [against China on the] …. anti-dumping front (with the International Trade Commission [ITC] approving considerable duties on stainless steel sinks.” The ruling cited “unlawful [...]

[More...]
 

MetalMiner Seeks Senior Sales Position

Sheena Moore - April 19, 2013 8:37 AM | Categories: Industry News

While Spend Matters brings you your daily fix of procurement content, the MetalMiner side of the house is busy not only providing global pricing trends through their monthly MetalMiner IndX (MMI) series, but also digging into the global issues and considerations behind the sourcing and trading of all metals. The site that started at 100 views per day is now the number one North American metals trade publication by traffic. They’re looking for their very first full-time hire for the MetalMiner sales team. See an excerpt from the full job description below: “Our Sales Director will serve business-to-business advertisers with [...]

[More...]
 

Supporting the Free Market Against Chinese Manipulation

Jason Busch - April 18, 2013 8:09 AM | Categories: Commentary

In my Frederick Hayek inspired youth, I used to believe that unrestrained free trade was the only barrier between capitalist democracies and all the branches of protectionist “isms” in the world – socialism, communism, fascism, etc. My argument at the time was that trade of all sorts exposed inefficiencies within supply chains and would force those less competitive (for various reasons that might include high-cost labor, lower quality, production inefficiency, etc.) to improve or go out of business. Commercial Darwinism, if you will. If every company and country played on the same playing field, with the same rule set, this [...]

[More...]
 

Conflict Minerals: Flexibility in Supplier/Upstream Engagement

Jason Busch - April 17, 2013 7:54 AM | Categories: Procurement Research

The following post is based on material contained in the MetalMiner report (available for free download): Conflict Minerals: Building Responsible Manufacturing Supply Chains. Join MetalMiner and Spend Matters for the Conflict Minerals EDGE event taking place on May 6th in Chicago. A key concern that downstream participants expressed in the OECD Cycle 3 Final Report was interpreting the level of information the Guidance required from them “about upstream and smelter due diligence and the level of information downstream companies should review under Step 2” (Page 14). Throughout the document, OECD made great efforts to clarify that flexibility in the design [...]

[More...]
 

Conflict Minerals: Supplier Prioritization and Data Validation

Jason Busch - April 11, 2013 10:01 AM | Categories: Procurement Research

The following post is based on material contained in the MetalMiner report (available for free download): Conflict Minerals: Building Responsible Manufacturing Supply Chains. Join MetalMiner and Spend Matters for the Conflict Minerals EDGE event taking place on May 6th in Chicago.   Supplier Prioritization The OECD Cycle 3 Final Report states that “the majority of companies developed supplier priority levels based on 3T content in products… communicating with a sub-set of Tier 1 suppliers that provide parts with highest content of 3TG in the first phase of due diligence. Many of these companies plan to reach all suppliers of 3TG materials [...]

[More...]
 

eProcurement Troubles: Finding Approved Suppliers That Don’t Seem to Exist (Part 1)

Jason Busch - March 7, 2013 11:07 AM | Categories: Procurement Research

This post is based on content contained in the Spend Matters Compass series paper: Avoiding “Dumb Ways to Die”: eProcurement and P2P Style Adoption Scenarios to Breathe Life into Implementations. The paper, authored by Spend Matters Chief Research Officer Pierre Mitchell and Jason Busch, is available for free download in our Spend Matters research library. Do many of your SAP, Oracle, PeopleSoft, Ariba or other eProcurement and P2P users have trouble finding approved suppliers that don’t seem to exist? You’re not alone. It’s strange, but not uncommon—or at least in far too many eProcurement implementations we’ve observed over the years. [...]

[More...]
 

Conflict Minerals Compliance: Supplier Management Platform Basics

Jason Busch - March 4, 2013 11:08 AM | Categories: Procurement Research

This post is based on excerpts from the MetalMiner (part of the Spend Matters Network) paper: The Definitive Guide to Conflict Minerals Compliance for Manufacturers: An A–Z Guide to Conflict Minerals and Semi-Finished Metals. Spend Matters PRO Subscribers can also click to read two more detailed technology analyses on conflict minerals compliance strategy here and here.   When it comes to gathering and documenting conflict minerals compliance, a supplier management or supplier information management (SIM) toolset can do a reliable job where A/P modules of ERP systems come up short with gathering documents, capturing sign-offs and fostering multi-tier relationships. The [...]

[More...]
 

Conflict Minerals Compliance: Steel and US Service Centers

Jason Busch - February 28, 2013 9:13 AM | Categories: Procurement Research

This post is based on excerpts from the MetalMiner (part of the Spend Matters Network) paper: The Definitive Guide to Conflict Minerals Compliance for Manufacturers: An A–Z Guide to Conflict Minerals and Semi-Finished Metals. Spend Matters PRO Subscribers can also click to read two more detailed technology analyses on conflict minerals compliance strategy here and here. The US steel and service center market has its own unique challenges surrounding conflict minerals compliance. Companies who must document compliance in their supply chains need to ask their suppliers the following questions: First, how will US service centers specifically address conflict minerals compliance, [...]

[More...]
 

Conflict Minerals Compliance: Supplier-Centric vs. Part-Centric Compliance Approaches

Jason Busch - February 25, 2013 9:03 AM | Categories: Procurement Research

This post is based on excerpts from the MetalMiner (part of the Spend Matters Network) paper: The Definitive Guide to Conflict Minerals Compliance for Manufacturers: An A–Z Guide to Conflict Minerals and Semi-Finished Metals. Spend Matters PRO Subscribers can also click to read two more detailed technology analyses on conflict minerals compliance strategy here and here. Consider some of the challenges of a supplier-centric approach to conflict minerals compliance. Buying organizations will need to deploy supplier relationship management teams to suppliers who have failed to complete company-specific surveys, and the company may even need to deploy a more forceful approach [...]

[More...]
 

What GOES in 2013? Looking at Grain-Oriented Electrical Steel Pricing

Jason Busch - February 18, 2013 11:05 AM | Categories: Procurement Research

Spend Matters Network site MetalMiner recently published a report titled Translating Price Trends Into Metal Sourcing Strategies for 2013. One of the questions we attempt to answer in the analysis is whether the grain-oriented electrical steel (GOES) drop-off that we saw in 2012 will continue in 2013. In the above-linked analysis, we note that the drop-off in GOES not only mirrored market sentiment (the GOES MMI® fell as industry participants told us that they saw price weakness), but also likely fell for a couple of other reasons. The first has to do with imports, or where plenty of competition exists. [...]

[More...]
 

China Tries to Hack Spend Matters Network Site MetalMiner

Jason Busch - February 12, 2013 11:04 AM | Categories: Commentary

Spend Matters Network site MetalMiner has joined the illustrative company of the New York Times, Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal to be targeted for hack attacks from China. MetalMiner Editor Taras Berezowsky notes in a somewhat cheeky piece that, “China has already attempted to hack MetalMiner, with lukewarm results … After noticing hacking attempts into both MetalMiner.com and MetalMinerIndX.com, we had to take specific blocking measures to thwart the Chinese IP addresses.” Of course we’re not entirely sure the exact reason for the Chinese intrusion. Taras jokingly questions, if the hackers had been successful, “would they have stumbled upon [...]

[More...]
 

Spot Buying and Volatility: Industrial Sourcing Strategies

Jason Busch - February 11, 2013 11:02 AM | Categories: Procurement Research

Over on Spend Matters Network site MetalMiner, we recently published a report (available for free download) titled Translating Price Trends Into Metal Sourcing Strategies for 2013. In it, we look closely at pricing trends from 2012 across a variety of metals categories and industrial applications (e.g., automotive, construction, etc.) and provide our pricing and strategy outlook for 2013. One of the questions we tackle in the analysis involves looking at what intra-month volatility suggests from a spot buying perspective. Here’s what we have to say on the subject: Companies that buy finished products or commodities containing significant amounts of stainless, [...]

[More...]