@Risk

There’s an interesting supply chain debate heating up in the auto industry as suppliers to Volvo Cars are voicing significant concerns about the company’s current favored bidder, China-based Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co.

The suppliers –including Autoliv Inc., the world’s largest maker of automotive air bags, and IAC Group, the U.S. interiors supplier owned by Wilbur Ross –want assurances that Geely will protect their patents and not plagiarize products in China. (more…)

News that Iceland’s three McDonald’s restaurants — all in the capital Reykjavik — will close next weekend is yet another example of the terrible economic situation there.

But, there’s a sourcing lesson in the story, as well.

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The statistics are staggering. According to the U.S.-based Center for Medicines in the Public Interest, counterfeit drug sales will reach $75 billion globally in 2010 –that’s an increase of more than 90 percent from 2005.

As you might expect, the threat of substandard and counterfeit medicines is particularly high in developing countries, where regulation is weakest, and that’s why I was pleased to hear that earlier this week the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the U.S. Pharmacopeial (USP) Convention announced that are launching a new program that will expand their joint efforts to combat counterfeit drug sales throughout the developing world.
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More than one-third (38%) of manufacturing CFOs and senior comptrollers surveyed by Grant Thornton LLP do not expect to see the U.S. economy coming out of the current recession until the second half of 2010.

Interestingly, nearly 27% expect the recession to end sooner, during the first half of 2010, and about 15% are even more bullish, predicting the recession will end by the end of 2009.

But, another one-fifth (20%) of CFOs don’t expect to see a turnaround until 2011 or beyond. All told then, about 58% of the CFOs surveyed don’t see the recession ending until the second half of 2010, or beyond.

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Frisay’s post about fake parts in the supply chain is underscored by recent news from the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA). The EFPIA announced last week that it has launched a two-month pilot project to verify medicines and help reduce the risk of counterfeit pharmaceuticals being dispensed to patients.

The project, underway in 25 retail pharmacies in and around Stockholm, will verify more than 100,000 products. Each product will be coded with a small data matrix (similar to a barcode) that, once scanned, can alert the pharmacist as to whether or not a pack has been previously dispensed. The data matrix will contain information about product code, batch number, the expiry date and a unique, randomized serial number which identifies packs individually.

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