EnFor instance, this week the New York Times reported on a giant art installation that was displayed in Madison Square Park last Friday. The sculpture, named “Points of View,” consists of three extremely tall (22 feet), extremely heavy (8,000 pound) pieces. So how do you get a nearly 12 ton statue from Germany to New York City? In a really big boat!
A container ship crossed the Atlantic and carried the oversized sculpture safely to the Port Newark Elizabeth Marine Terminal in New Jersey on August 21. And how can we know this? A quick search in Panjiva can not only show when the package arrived and where it came from, but also the weight, description, supplier and the buyer, all within a few seconds of conducting a search.
By taking advantage of an old school systems (like bills of lading) and mixing it with the new (data insights), Panjiva provides trade data insight that wasn’t previously possible on everything from abnormally large statues to what toys Santa Claus might be bringing this holiday season.
]]>The Pros to Know Award recognizes supply chain executives along with manufacturing and non-manufacturing enterprises who are leading initiatives to help prepare companies’ supply chains for the significant challenges of today’s business climate. Josh Green was named a 2014 Provider Pro to Know, which honors individuals from software firms and service providers, consultancies or academia, who have helped their supply chain clients or the supply chain community at large prepare to meet these challenges.
Supply & Demand Chain Executive recognized Josh and the entire Panjiva team for pushing the boundaries of how companies can (and should) leverage data to identify and monitor trading partners across the globe. By working to increase the efficiency and transparency of global trade, Josh and Panjiva hope to positively impact the entire supply chain community.
At Panjiva, we incorporate data from a wide variety of sources and we’re constantly updating our offerings to make the supply chain and global trade more transparent and efficient. An example of this is the recently announced visualization tool, Network View, which provides a fast and easy snapshot of a company’s entire trading network.
The entire list of winners will be featured in the March issue of Supply & Demand Chain Executive. A big congrats to Josh for this accomplishment!
]]>See more on Panjiva’s Trendspotting report.
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- Joyce Wang, RTR’s owner, claimed to have two factories. In fact, she was an agent who liaised with independent factories.
- RTR’s website claimed RTR had been operating since 1998. In an affidavit for the criminal case, Ms. Wang stated that the company had only been operating for six months when they were contacted about the crane part in 2007.
- RTR provided no references about their prior work to New York Crane and Equipment Corporation.
- Of the two parts RTR shipped to New York Crane and Equipment Corporation, one was deemed too defective for use upon receipt.
Notably, New York Crane and Equipment Corporation did not have anyone experienced in sourcing working on this project. The entire research-to-installation cycle was handled by a mechanic working for James F. Lomma, the company owner.
The tragedy highlights problems that sourcing professionals face often: ascertaining supplier company credentials and ensuring quality control can be difficult, especially when using company-provided information to do it. Top-level assessments of a manufacturer’s history and production levels can be made with services like Panjiva, but that is only the first step. These are real problems that require experience and attention, as well as comprehensive product assessments and quality control procedures, to deal with properly. They don’t—and can’t—afford shortcuts.
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Reasons for optimism:
- This year’s July-to-August increase compares favorably to numbers from 2008 (1% decrease) and 2007 (1% decrease)
- The percentage of significant manufacturers on the Panjiva Watch List declined to 28% — down from 29% in July.
- The percentage of significant buyers having done business with a Panjiva Watch List supplier in the preceding three months declined to 38% — down from 40% in July.
- From July to August, there was a 1% increase in the number of U.S. companies receiving waterborne shipments from overseas.
As we look ahead, it’s worth remembering that September is when global trade fell off a cliff last year. For the remainder of 2009, there are three possible trajectories for global trade:
- Cliff-diving — If we have a new shock to the financial system, look for global trade to go off a cliff for a second year in a row. Low probability (we hope).
- Holiday surge — If retailers bet on strong consumer spending in the holiday season, look for global trade to surge in the months ahead. Anecdotal evidence suggests that corporate buyers are being cautious (better to be burned by having too little inventory than by having too much), so a holiday surge is unlikely.
- Holding steady — Probably the best bet. Over the last several months, we’ve seen a slow but steady recovery of global trade activity. No reason to think we won’t see more of the same.
Of course, we’ll see soon enough. In the meantime, methodological notes for the data junkies:
- Manufacturers that have suffered a 50% or greater decline in volume shipped to American customers in the most recent three month period, versus the same period a year ago, are on the Panjiva Watch List.
- “Significant manufacturers” are companies that have sent 10 or more shipments to American customers within the last year. As of the end of August, there were 86,686 significant manufacturers.
- “Significant buyers” are U.S. companies that have received 10 or more shipments from overseas manufacturers within the last year. As of the end of August, there were 73,683 significant buyers.
In the past, incidents like these have served as catalysts for positive change. Will it be the same this time? Yes, particularly if the sourcing community embraces two inconvenient truths:
1) This is not an isolated problem
It will be tempting to write off this incident as one-of-a-kind. However, if pressed, most sourcing professionals will admit that “compliance” problems are widespread in global manufacturing. Why don’t we hear more about these problems? Because the only people interested in exposing these problems have limited power (those physically harmed), limited attention span (the press), or limited financial resources (NGOs).
Press and NGOs tend to focus their investigative efforts on big companies, which make big targets. But these big companies — whether motivated by a desire to make a positive difference or a desire to protect their brands — have made the most progress in addressing compliance problems. Yes, sometimes the big companies get caught doing something wrong, but it’s a good bet that the vast majority of abuses of people and the environment are happening in the supply chains of small and medium size companies, which are not under constant scrutiny and which lack the resources to effectively monitor manufacturers around the world.
2) Technology is not keeping up with changes in the sourcing organization
The role of the sourcing organization has expanded dramatically over the last few decades. Today’s sourcing professional has to do much more than find low-cost suppliers of goods and services; indeed, s/he has to cope with an array of risks that come with doing business across borders (political, macro-economic, environmental, ethical, legal, etc.). Unfortunately, as the role of the sourcing professional has changed, the tools at his/her disposal have basically remained the same. Those tools? Middle-men (that will check out a factory on your behalf) and airplanes (that will get you to a factory in case you want to do it yourself).
Given the many technology advances of the last few decades, why do today’s sourcing professionals not have better tools for tackling their many challenges? In particular, why are there not more effective risk-management tools for companies of all sizes? Primarily because we have failed to recognize the dangers of pervasive global supply chain risk and, as a result, we have failed to imagine how technology can be leveraged to manage risk.
But technology, while not a cure-all, CAN be leveraged to help sourcing professionals do their increasingly complex jobs — and, in particular, manage risk. For instance, technology can help organizations capture information from a variety of stakeholders and intelligently use this information to spot risky behavior. More on this in future posts. In the meantime, I would love to hear your ideas for how technology can help sourcing professionals (josh@panjiva.com). As they say in DC these days — we must not let this crisis go to waste.
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Similarly, the Panjiva Watch List numbers were unchanged:
- The percentage of significant manufacturers on the Panjiva Watch List remains at 30%.
- The percentage of significant buyers having done business with a Panjiva Watch List supplier in the preceding three months remains at 40%.
What to make of these numbers? The slight decline from May to June is slightly less than last year’s May-to-June decline (2%). Thus, it seems that global trade now appears to be tracking its typical seasonal path, albeit at a lower absolute level of activity. Feels a bit like the global economy is treading water.
Methodological notes for the data junkies:
- Manufacturers that have suffered a 50% or greater decline in volume shipped to American customers in the most recent three month period, versus the same period a year ago, are on the Panjiva Watch List.
- “Significant manufacturers” are companies that have sent 10 or more shipments to American customers within the last year. As of the end of June, there were 86,616 significant manufacturers.
- “Significant buyers” are companies that have received 10 or more shipments from overseas manufacturers within the last year. As of the end of June, there were 72,850 significant buyers.
See our previous analyses of other bankruptcies in the auto industry.
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WIRED: “Panjiva tracks overseas factories and their U.S. customers by indexing publicly available customs data. It’s a great way to keep track of where your competition is getting their products made and by whom.”
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/06/coolsearchengines
BusinessWeek: “Panjiva uses algorithms to clean up and analyze data to score suppliers on, for instance, whether business is growing, stable, or declining. ‘We take multiple data sources and triangulate them to see if they are telling you the same story,’ says Psota, 29, chief technology officer.
http://images.businessweek.
BusinessWeek: “Panjiva plans to launch a function this summer that will allow sources to apply to add data to the platform to create a richer pool and ‘democratize the availability of information,’ says Green. ‘There are a lot of companies doing innovative things and we’ll accomplish more by harnessing their innovations to serve clients.'”
http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/next/archives/2009/06/data_packaged_u.html
“Multinational corporations and their manufacturing partners in emerging markets need to rethink how they manage their relationships with each other in light of the global downturn.”
http://hbr.harvardbusiness.org/2009/07/just-how-healthy-is-your-global-partner/ar/1
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