No matter how much the industry tries to stay up to speed on forced labor regulations, UFLPA, shipment detentions by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Withhold Release Orders (WROs) or Digital Product Passports (DPPs), confusion still abounds.
“Let’s ask the crowd here,” said Brian Corelli, vice president, sustainability and partnerships for Infor Nexus as he took the stage for the panel ‘Achieving Multi-Tier Transparency and Traceability.” “Who feels like they have UFLPA completely figured out where it’s not a concern for their business?”
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Not a hand went up.
The good news, Corelli said to Glenn Taylor, Sourcing Journal logistics editor, is that as businesses finally move away from spreadsheets and emails to digital solutions, and legislation continues to be “the big hammer,” they’re mapping out their supply chain, and as a result, learning what’s actually in it.
DPPs remain a concern for companies when it comes to digitally embedding traceability into their goods, but there’s no escaping them. Corelli noted DPPs are expected to fully roll out in the U.S. around 2033, and if companies don’t start now, it’s going to take 10 years to get up to speed. “This industry is even more complex than [pharma and food],” said Corelli. “In some ways, it’s less localized, so start now. [Government] is putting a lot of pressure on the textile industry specifically, and a lot of that is because little progress has been made in this way. Our goods still cannot be traced very well today.”
As an action plan, he suggests a place to aggregate all your data. That means connecting that system to your PLM, then gathering material compensation, information, recyclability, repair information and reuse information, and connecting them, too.
“When I talk to CTOs and CIOs, they say the same thing. Figure out how to connect that system—how you’re manufacturing products—and be able to do that on a repeatable basis,” he said. Then companies need to tie that information together with a scannable tag that a consumer can use to pull the information up on their phone or other device into one view.
But as anyone who’s ever tried to connect the PLM system to an ERP system to a software collaboration system knows, it’s a lot of work, so start thinking about that now, especially since it’s going to have a lot of data involved.
But the real problem, he said, isn’t the storage or retrieval of data, it’s people—as in, getting suppliers to provide you the information you need in the first place. “So, start making deep engagements with your supply chain, understand who they are, and start incentivizing and working with some of your tier twos, your tier threes, your tier fours. [Ask them], Are you able to pull this data for us? Can you do it consistently? How can we make your life a little bit easier?”
As suppliers don’t just sell to your company, look for systems where a supplier can enter data once and have it flow down to many of many different brands. “Try to work in systems that are interoperable,” he said.
Effort also goes a long way, whether its incentivizing suppliers to comply or showing CBP you’re trying to get all your ducks in a row. “One of our customers has a great quote: ‘If I show up with a box full of receipts and it doesn’t look like I know what I’m doing, CBP is going to give me a really hard time. But if you have a program and a process in place and you show to them that you care about this, that you’re actually trying to make those changes, it makes a huge difference.’”
