Tracking conflict minerals is a difficult challenge for companies to comply with regulations. Our clients that utilize the Oracle Agile Product Governance & Compliance (PG&C) application have a distinct advantage and are able to extend the solution to provide a comprehensive compliance for Conflict Mineral regulations and standards.
“Since the inception of the Frank-Dodd law, companies have had a hard time keeping these conflict minerals out of their supply chains.”
What are conflict minerals?
Companies in the manufacturing and distribution industries know that they need to stay away from conflict minerals, which are materials such as tin, tantalum, tungsten, and gold (known as 3TG) that contribute to the funding of conflict in Africa or other parts of the world. President Obama signed the Dodd-Frank Consumer Protection Act into law in 2010, which dictates that companies have to determine whether any of the materials used to manufacture their products come from conflict minerals and publicly report their findings.
The Dodd-Frank law has been able to reduce revenue to militias. However, since the law’s inception, companies have had a hard time keeping these conflict minerals out of their supply chains, according to The New York Times. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission released some reports detailing companies’ efforts at identifying if any of these materials appeared within their supply chain – but according to NYT contributor Denis Mukwege, only 16 percent of these businesses could even pinpoint which country their minerals are coming from. In other words, most companies remain unaware whether or not they are financing conflict in African countries.
Forbes contributor Mike Scott noted that the consumer electronics industry is most impacted by the federal government’s rules surrounding conflict minerals, with big-name companies appearing on the list. As Browning pointed out, disclosing information like this can bring businesses under scrutiny from parties like human rights activists or consumer rights groups. But what can be done in this situation?
Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) tools can help
The extreme lack of awareness indicated by the SEC reports is a real oversight issue. Your company would want to comply with these regulations, but if you don’t have visibility of every step in your supply chain, how are you supposed to eliminate conflict minerals from your products?
When used as a supply chain management solution, data analytics and acquisition tools can help organizations augment oversight so that they can be sure not to gather these kinds of materials unknowingly. With these kinds of solutions, the management of indirect and direct sales channels can move to a single platform that’s remotely accessible on myriad devices, creating better visibility at all levels of the supply chain.
Leveraging our expertise in Oracle Agile Product Governance & Compliance solution, Inspirage has built an innovative Conflict Minerals Solution, which can assist companies in monitoring conflict minerals within the context of a broader product governance and compliance process. The Inspirage solution helps companies deal with a dynamic environment of constantly changing players to identify non-compliant parts and lead to proactive resolution. To demonstrate whether products are conflict-free, information must be captured and centralized from numerous content providers early in the supply chain. The Inspirage Conflict Mineral Solution can help by performing the following three functions:
This solution has been leveraged by a number of global companies, such as National Instruments, and can be deployed in a matter of weeks for existing Agile customers. There are still many companies that do not have robust PLM systems in place that can help in providing compliance solutions for challenges like Conflict Minerals. These regulatory compliance requirements will only increase over time and perhaps such a need will drive the further adoption of solutions like Oracle Agile Product Governance & Compliance. Agile PG&C provides significant value by itself in providing the platform for regulatory compliance and it does it by adding value managing the product record, supplier information and quality and ultimately improve product quality and speed to market.
