The management systems community
20th Nov 2009 by Alex Briggs
The US Senate approved the Food Safety Bill yesterday, bringing the bill to its final hurdle. The House of Representatives is not likely to being debating the bill until next year, with their approval meaning the bill would effectively pass into law, as President Obama is a vocal proponent of the bill.
22nd Jul 2009 by Alex Briggs
The latest LRQA Business Assurance interview features Robert DuPuy, the Head of Sales and Training for Lloyd’s Register Quality Assurance, Inc. (LRQA). In this interview, Robert talks about some of the key issues that organisations are facing during difficult economic times. He talks about management systems, the characteristics of a good management system and the importance of having accredited independent third party certification of management systems.
17th Mar 2009 by Alex Briggs
Each year, about 76 million people in the United States are sickened by contaminated food, hundreds of thousands are hospitalized and about 5,000 die, public health experts estimate.
US President Barack Obama has named a new FDA head and deputy, as well as outlined budgetary plans that will place Food Safety at the top of the agenda.
16th Dec 2008 by Alex Briggs
The new ISO 9001:2008 update is slowly making its way into accepted business language. This recent blog post highlights some of the changes. For a more thorough update on what’s new in ISO 9001:2008 and what it means for you and your organisation, read this article.
25th Nov 2008
ASIS International (ASIS) have developed a business continuity checklist as a tool to allow organizations to consider the factors and steps necessary to prepare for a crisis (disaster or emergency). It is designed to assess an organisation’s resilience to manage and survive the crisis and take all appropriate actions to maintain critical operational viability.
The checklist has applicability in both the private and public sector environments. and can assist in creating, testing, and maintaining an organization-wide plan for use in the event of a crisis that threatens the viability and continuity of the organization.
Event: 2nd Dec 2008 – 3rd Dec 2008
While the United States enjoys the safest, most abundant food supply in the world, some consumers are questioning this fact in the wake of recent meat, produce and processed food recalls. Bolstering consumer confidence is the responsibility of every stakeholder in the value chain.
27th Oct 2008 by Alex Briggs
Chris Harrop, Group Marketing Director for Marshalls in the UK is on the cutting edge of CSR, ethical supply chain initiatives, carbon labelling, workers rights and stakeholder engagement. In the first episode of our Ethical Supply Chain Video Podcast series. Chris talked to us during the recent Ethical Supply Chain Summit in Berlin.
Chris shares his thoughts on some of the key topics that are facing global brands today, with the conversation ranging from competitive advantage for businesses embedding CSR as part of their business practice to Marshalls work with the Carbon Trust in becoming the first brand to carbon label their entire product range.
Chris shares his thoughts on some of the key topics that are facing global brands today, with the conversation ranging from competitive advantage for businesses embedding CSR as part of their business practice to Marshalls work with the Carbon Trust in becoming the first brand to carbon label their entire product range.
22nd Oct 2008 by Alex Briggs
Louise Nicholls, the Ethical Trading Director for Marks & Spencer and Ariane Thomas, the Supply Chain Purchasing Director for L’Oreal were two of the stars of the Ethical Supply Chain Summit in Berlin last week.
Nicholls inspired the audience with “real stories” from M & S factories around the world. She talked about working with suppliers in Morocco and Kenya and the unique ethical dilemnas faced when working with local suppliers in those markets.
Thomas’ presentation was insightful in contrasting L’Oreal’s policy of working with suppliers to improve their performance rather than firing them if they fail to be 100% ethically correct.
2nd Oct 2008
Reseach identifies the top 10 strategic risks for global supply chains and businesses. Are you ready for the highlighted five fastest-rising threats that could also have a significant impact over the next three to five years?
According to Ernst & Young’s report, they highlight regulatory and compliance as the highest risks followed closely by global financial shocks, workforce and consumer aging, and the rise of emerging markets.
19th Sep 2008 by Alex Briggs
The tightening of visa restrictions around the recent Olympic Games in Beijing has had unintended consequences on the Quality Assurance industry, according to this Ethical Corp article.
Global brands producing in China have been unable to secure the auditors needed at Chinese factories to ensure that the quality of their products is right. A major fall out will be that people who have talked about moving production to other countries for some time are now actually having to do it to meet deadlines.
Even if (and there are no guarantees) things return to normal in September, it will be too late for these firms who need to get gear on boats in October for the holidays.
Now many are scrambling to find capacity in Vietnam, Bangladesh, etc., while any number of Chinese garment manufacturers (two thirds of whom operate on margins of less than 1.5% already) will go under.
A number of companies with production runs already underway are having to stall or delay work as they cannot get visas for their Quality Assurance (QA) staff to enter China.
LRQA’s Business Assurance helps you manage your systems and risks to improve and protect the current and future performance of your organisation.
The Business Assurance approach uses a consistent methodology for providing business driven assessments based around the organisation’s most significant risks.
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