Long after the COVID pandemic has waned, executives all over the world are struggling with disrupted supply chains. By describing the principles of physical flows, Robert Handfield and Tom Linton describe the thinking managers will need in the decade ahead to allow supply chains to flow again. “We have a supply chain where they’re made in all different parts of the world. And one little piece of the world goes bad, and the whole thing is messed up. I said we shouldn’t have supply chains. We should have them all in the United States.”– President Donald J. Trump, interview on Fox Business, May 2020
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References
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For more information, please see our book: Flow: How the Best Supply Chains Thrive (Toronto: Rotman-UTP Publishing, 2022).
The UK Modern Slavery Act requires organizations to state the steps that they have taken during the financial year to ensure that slavery and human trafficking are not taking place in their supply chain or in their own business, or to state that no steps have been taken (Cecile Camerlynck, “Are You Compliant with the UK Modern Slavery Act?” Transparency One, ISN, October 5, 2016, https://www.transparency-one.com/compliant-uk-modern-slavery-act/); The Australian Modern Slavery Act of 2018 requires that organizations report annually on the risks of modern slavery in their operations and supply chains, as well as any actions taken to address those risks, such as due diligence and remediation processes (KellyAnn Tsai, “Australia Passes Modern Slavery Legislation,” Transparency-One, ISN, January 8, 2019, https://www.transparency-one.com/australia-passes-modern-slavery-legislation/); The California Transparency in Supply Chains Act requires that covered businesses disclose on their websites their “efforts to eradicate slavery and human trafficking from [their] direct supply chain for tangible goods offered for sale” – defined in California Civil Code 1714.43 – even if they do little or nothing at all to safeguard their supply chains (Kamala D. Harris, “The California Transparency in Supply Chains Act: A Resource Guide,” California Department of Justice, 2015, https://oag.ca.gov/sites/all/files/agweb/pdfs/sb657/resource-guide.pdf).
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Source: Panjiva, part of S&P Global Market Intelligence. Data as of March 26, 2020.
Source: Panjiva, part of S&P Global Market Intelligence. Data as of May 12, 2020.
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Source: Panjiva, part of S&P Global Market Intelligence. Data as of May 12, 2020; Section 301 provides a statutory means by which the United States imposes trade sanctions on foreign countries that violateU.S. trade agreements or engage in acts that are “unjustifiable” or “unreasonable” and burden U.S. commerce.