ABSTRACT Many organisations, suffer from designing a supply chain. They need to be in close relation to suppliers, distributors, employees and all other stake holders to make their product successfully and earn profit back from their product. This exercise revolves around a case how the organic soybeans producers overcame the issue of GMO soybeans, and how they sold the natural organic GMO-free soybeans to the public.
This case proves that a person/organisation should be responsible and design supply chain not only efficiently but also responsive supply chain to tackle the problems before it becomes serious issues. Keywords: Sustainablesupply chain management, Risks, Stakeholder, Risk managementIntroductionDesigningsupply chain is a difficult task. It is entirely different for differentorganisations. One organisations design of supply chain doesn’t work foranother. While supply chain design, it should not only be efficient but alsoresponsive, to meet uncertainty of demands all the time. Our team exercise isabout an example of commercial production of GMO-free soybeans supply chain.
Mostof the countries are in demand of GMO free soybeans. But normal producers andimporters found it so difficult. Because there was no mechanism of tracking theorigin of the products and controlling their production and commercializationin an adequate way to guarantee the absence of GMOs. Hence gebana – a Swissassociation of NGOs and consumers, decided to backup the commercial productionchain of GMO-free soybeans to supply the Swiss market.
Our group work lies inunderstanding how the organisation managed this issue of this supply chain andovercame from that. Background ABDCrating: Title:Risk Management in Sustainable Supply Chain Management (SSCM): Lessons Learntfrom the Case of GMO-Free SoybeansYearof publication: 2005Authors:Tauscher et alObjective:To find a systematic approach that work out best for the company to meet itsdemand as well as manage the risks. Results:BSD developed a systematic management model which can be suitable for specificneeds of industry.Methodology:Afterthe green revolution in the late 1970s, soybeans supply got the attention ofconsumer organization. Political claim from political claim was made since theproduction of soybeans involved animal feeds and that it reduced biodiversity.In the 1990s, the Genetic Modified Organisms (GMOs) was introduced. People inEurope were in demand for GMO-free products because of the protest of NGOs andconsumers against genetically modified products.
Importers found it difficultto trace the origin of the product. A Swissassociation of consumers and NGOs called gebana hired a consultancy BSD forcommercial production chain of GMO-free soybean to supply the Swiss market. BSDdefined three goals for the soybean supply chain. The first was to export to Switzerland GMO-free soybeans including a guarantee of GMO absence. The second goal was to develop a new soybean product which could add environmental and social value The third goal was to make a social fund with the revenue generated from soybean sales which is then given to the producers for local development. The role of BSD is tofunction as a third party, without any involvement in the production chain, butwith technical knowledge of standard and with the sole interest of establishinga good production chain.
It also required the communication between the facilitators. Results:Along with the globalisation of world economy, thespeed at which information is processed and the concerns regarding human rightsand environment related issues arise have become rapid. These have a highlydirect reflection in the consumer market also. There has been a lot of stepsadopted to improve the supply chain management wherein, information istraceable, transparent and is evident to be much more secure. In order to achieve this the corporates have startedto ensure that they maintain a good “sustainable supply chain managementsystem”.
It defines social and environmental standards Ensure that the business practices are sustainable Involvement of strategic planning Monitoring and evaluation of processes. These arefurther explained with the references taken from the case study on “RiskManagement in Sustainable Supply Chain Management (SSCM): Lessons Learnt fromthe Case of GMO-Free Soybeans”.In 1990s several NGOs and huge population of consumerswere against GMO food products. The Buyers, supermarkets and importers were insearch and demand for the GMO-free products. In order to identify and tracktheir origin, control and ensure proper production and commercialisation, theSwiss association called ‘Gebana’ came into action to support this process tosupply the GMO-free soybeans to the Swiss market.
The association had several Goals. · To export GMO-free soybeans to Swiss market· Guarantee the organic certification· Have efficient working control system to ensurequality production of GMO-free soybean· To produce more social and environmental valueof soybeans.· Have information passed on among the agro andfood industries.· Ensuring that proper funds are created for thesoybeans production for producer’s increase in socio-economic status.
· Continuous evaluation of all social conditionsprevailing and ensure the cooperation among the industries, producers andconsumers. ConclusionFor anyindustry to be successful in the business, they should have a good team to workand a framework produce efficient product. The most important is thesustainability in the production. Further on this case of Soybean, itillustrated the need for sustainable supply chain management and managinginherent risks. Here in this case, proper process was not planned to attend therisks.
This would lead to the bottlenecks and conflicts. They didn’t haveresponsive supply chains. Lastly, any supply chain process should have astrategy to avoid and eliminate risks and other further consequences.
Eachprocess is different from the other, so that has to be addressed using tailor-mademethods. The main necessity here is to find the appropriate strategy to curbthe risks that are involved. So any company should involve in total qualitymanagement to handle the process and the its risks.
